Doing a job on Chris Wilder & goalkeepers just booting it upfield, with Bryan's Gunn

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I'm sorry, you can sit there and look and play with all your silly machines as much as you like.

Is Gas going gonna have a crack?

Yes, you know.

Oh, I think

brilliant!

But geez!

He's round the goal, Keeper.

He done it!

Absolutely incredible!

He launched himself six feet into the crowd and Kung Fu kicked a supporter who was

without a shadow of a doubt getting him lip.

Oh, I say,

it's amazing.

He does it, tame, and tame, and tame again.

Break up the music, Charge a glass.

This nation is going to dance all night.

Can an individual player flood forward?

Yet another twist on the if my name was Aladici concept.

Accidentally musical combo ball commentary.

Chris Wilder doing jobs.

A brief modern history of goalkeeping distribution.

Pampered prem stars in humble away dressing rooms.

The skin-crawling formalities of managers being interviewed pitch side, and FA Cup draw procedures coming perilously close to a game's gone moment.

Brought to your ears by Goal Hanger Podcasts.

This is Football Clichés and Meza Haaland Dicks.

Hello everyone and welcome to Football Cliches.

I'm Adam Hurry and joining me for the latest Mezz at Haaland Dicks, my fellow panelists, Charlie Equisher.

How you doing?

Very well thank you.

Alongside you is David Walker.

How are things?

Things are good.

Joining us today it's the first ever Mezet Haaland Dicks guest to use up a day of his annual leave from work to record with us, and worlds are truly colliding here.

You know, if there's ever that horrible cliche of game of two halves, then that was it, you know.

I know it's a cliche, but it's true.

I know it's an old cliche, but there's no easy game.

We take each game as it comes.

Tickets game is a clumsy old cliche.

It's an old cliche, but people talk about the 12th man.

You know, it's a cliche before it goes out the window in the derby.

It's an old cliche, but every game's got final.

I know it's a cliche, but it's a final now.

We went ugly, I know it's an old cliche, that, but the most important thing today was that we got the three points.

It sounds cliche, but it's a cliché, but that was a goal worthy of winning any tie, wasn't it?

It's very important to win these type of games it's a bit of a cliche but sounds very cliche maybe but it is really uh what dreams are made of i know it's a cliche but over the moon yes it's spider-man pointing at spider-man welcome to football clichés will pal aka brian's gun how you doing good absolute pleasure to be here it's a pleasure to have you i feel like this podcast is natural habitat for you i feel like you're very much part of our extended universe so you should you should feel welcome you should feel relaxed good i do feel relaxed yeah like the the fifth beetle

yeah definitely um do you know what the only time i'd ever heard your voice before was in an interview you did with the bbc world service about a year ago with none other than football cliché's episode one legend caroline barker so it all comes together really nicely exactly yeah no i i she's the only reason i did that interview because uh yeah

he's recognizing davey's recognizing caroline as the real royalty of this podcast indeed yeah well isn't she technically the fifth beetle she's the fifth beetle she's our pete best i think isn't she yeah so i don't know what that makes you will but i'm happy with like 10th 11th whatever here this is bad news for Nick Miller isn't it Charlie we're doing him is he down to about eighth now well is he not the fourth yeah I had no idea yeah actually yes yeah I forgot how many people are in the podcast that works he's Ringo yeah yeah absolutely um Will you're you're I mean you're here for for many reasons you fit this podcast so well it's it's an overdue appearance for you but you have teamed up with anti-poverty charity Trussell as part of their football versus hunger campaign which aims to harness the passion and community commitment that exists within football to help address hunger and hardship in the UK and the reason the one of the big reasons they've got you involved is because you could produce stuff like this.

How come you've still got this hunger?

You should never lose that hunger.

No you've got to have hunger.

You develop that hunger.

Sometimes they lose that bit of hunger.

No chance.

Have they still got the hunger?

He actually has that hunger.

He has the hunger.

He's hungry.

I'm not angry.

We're not talking about that here.

I'm not angry.

We're not talking about that, but what are you talking about?

It's just the hunger, you know.

I know what do you mean?

Hunger is brilliant.

Only on the pitch.

The overwhelming feeling for everyone is hunger.

It's becoming at times really difficult.

We need to do something different.

It's not too late, you know.

Yeah, we've got work to do.

So much work to be done.

Roll those steams up, please.

We can turn it around, hopefully quickly.

We can do this.

We can do this.

Let's tackle this together.

It's up to us.

Make the difference.

Make the difference.

Make the difference.

We have no choice.

Will, it was touch and go the whether you were going to get Dion Dublin involved there?

Just about scraped him over the line.

Yeah, no, sometimes he's the star, sometimes I have to crowbar him in, but he'll always be there.

I thought it was about time Brian's gun sold out, but what a way to do it.

Exactly, exactly.

I mean, I've been approached by a few people to do the odd thing, but I just, you know, this one came,

they got in touch with me, and it's just so perfect.

A great cause.

And if I can use the silliness of Brian's gun for a good reason, then yeah, I'm all for that.

It's been a real pleasure to work with them on it.

With a great Lampardian transition mood change midway through as well.

So that was a nice nod, as well.

On purpose, obviously.

Yeah, football versus hunger.

Do you know what, Dave?

I think I would have gone with let's have hunger on absolute toast personally, but that's why I don't work for charity VR companies.

Maybe a bit on the nose.

Well, welcome to the Clee Change pod.

Yeah, it's an absolute pleasure to have you, Will.

And if we can help people out in the process, then even better.

We've got some topical matters to take care of before we get into your footballing fascinations and irritations.

First up, Lendav Sippelgas got in touch on Reddit talking about Anthony Elanga's goal for Nottingham Forest against Manchester United.

The Sky Sports match report reads: Nottingham Forest winger Anthony Elanga haunted former side Manchester United after racing up the pitch in the first half to score the only goal in the 1-0 victory at the city ground.

The ex-United winger flooded forward from his own penalty area in the fifth minute.

Our correspondent asks, Can a single player flood forward?

I don't think I've heard that before.

I mean, yeah, flooding is

kind of overwhelming nature nature of lots of people doing it in one go.

He's not flooded.

No, flooded four.

Yeah, it's a bunch of players on a counter-attack.

Dave, you know what's coming here?

Yeah.

What is the threshold for flooding?

How many players do you need to flood forward?

I think you need more than three.

I think a four.

I think four.

Because

you want your players to kind of span the width of the pitch, Will,

to make it a flooding.

I mean, what constitutes aesthetically a flooding?

Is it the outnumbering of the opposition?

Is it the amount of pitch covered what is it i think you've got a picture the um the camera angle so i think yeah four sounds about right because you've got to see it spread across the whole pitch but three i don't think would quite do that okay so anything less than that is sort of a drip a drip forward

like i said it's more of a horizontal effect than a vertical one speed wise charlie is it important that you flood quickly you have to don't you yeah yeah because it needs to be it needs to have that sense like a flood of you're being overwhelmed by it it's happening you're you're sort of you can't hold it back.

I think you could use surge, you know, because you had like a storm surge.

You can, you know, like a surging torrent of water that could result in a flood in the end.

Yeah, you can have a one-man surge, absolutely.

Yeah, in this instance, just to confirm, there were only two Nottingham Forest players involved in the flood, which is only 50% of the now confirmed threshold for a flooding.

Perhaps if former Stockport County Youth Player and Championship Manager legend James Flood had done it on his own, whatever happened to him, by the way?

A genuine question.

Willow Flood with him as well?

Oh, of course.

How many more floods are there?

Toby Flood.

We need four.

There's people ready for the ultimate flooding.

It'd be like a soccer raid game if Toby Flood got involved.

Yeah.

Real scraping the barrel there.

Now, next up, I don't think I'd ever seen this version of this phenomenon, Will, but plus Dave Daggs writes in and says, I've just seen a reverse Aladici.

In response to the gossip that Southampton are ready to demand over 100 million for Tyler Dibling, someone retorted that if he was from Croatia and called Tyler Diblovich, he'd be worth 40 million maximum.

Are you all for this kind of formulation of it?

Yeah, I think so, because the usual go-to for this is, you know, an Italian or a Brazilian player, but actually they now have a big price tag on them anyway.

But so maybe the Croatians are the typical one that now would go for a surprisingly big transfer fee or something like that.

Yeah, that's where the value is in world football nowadays.

But great to see Croatia brought into this equation.

I mean, do you reckon how much workshopping went into the name there?

I really like the Diblovich.

I'm not sure if Tyluk is necessarily a Croatian name, but

the Dibleovich works perfectly.

And he's even got the, he's even, the guy who's typed out on Twitter has even done a little accent over the sea.

Where do we go with this next, Charlie?

Yeah, I mean, because this is a fair, you know, I see where they're going with this.

Yeah.

I don't know what's a little

point to make with this joke, isn't it?

Like, we're so familiar with the English premium or something like that.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's an interesting one.

I guess in the age of PSR and everyone being so much more engaged with football finance, it's appropriate.

Do you think it actually works?

I mean, this is reversed, but do you think if we reversed it again, like there are people in Croatia, if Tyler Diblovich existed, people will go,

if he was called bloody Tyler Dibbling, we'd get twice the money.

Dibble's worth.

How English could you go with it?

Dibbling's worth.

Right, anyway, yes.

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Much like Will Castley, who was watching the goalless World Cup qualifier between Chile and Ecuador last week on the World Feed.

And it's a lovely resurgence for musical commentary, but I don't really know why.

Valdez,

first year chance of the game for the away sign, and it's a warning.

Charlie, the challenge seems really out of place, this musical commentary.

But then I thought about it, that is the sort of tune you come out with when you're warning somebody about something.

So be careful.

Why do we sing that?

You do get some weird, like, um, I can't remember if we talked about it, but like in the Argentina Brazil game, the commentator was on a bit of a mad one.

Like, this is a weird sort of like hybrid that you often get from these commentators.

Yeah,

we're kind of accustomed to more musical interludes from our South American commentators, Will.

Do you think you have enough material to make a musical commentary montage?

If so, can we have it exclusively?

Maybe, but I think it would all be drawn from the ones that you've done already.

But I could have a dig around

see what I come up with.

I love how breezily he just goes about his business, Dave.

Yeah, I'd just have a little dig.

I'd spend 48 hours making one.

I mean, that's this is surely the appropriate juncture to ask the I think everyone listening wants to ask is what if you're prepared to divulge your trade secrets,

how on earth do you dig around for

so much stuff?

Good question.

It's changed over time.

When I first started, it was literally just trawling through loads of interviews.

My friends at the time were the local news reporters who'd write up Hull against Stoke, and they'd always include a little bit of what the manager had said before and after the game.

So I could pinpoint from the local news article that Steve Bruce had said will be there or thereabouts at the end of the season on that particular day.

And then I'd have to go back and find those interviews related to that game and bingo found it and then just times that by 20 and I've got a video.

It's good to have a hobby.

Let's put it that way.

Yes, yeah, yeah.

It's got easier over time as my sort of bank of clips has got bigger.

and I've had to upgrade my phone as a result.

It's got easier now I've got all of those old ones to draw from.

But it does mean that, you know how your phone suggests and then gives you little montages that it's created.

You and Mum, summer 2022.

I now get

Jürgen Klopp Spring 2021.

Yeah.

It's slightly embarrassing when I'm trying to show a photo of my son to someone.

I'll have to sift through loads of managers' heads.

I think you've very much earned a listen fair play for your body of work.

I don't dish them out, you know, cheaply, but you very much earned one.

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We'll be back very shortly with Brian's Guns, Mezza Harlan Dix.

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Oh, look at that!

That is wonderful!

Welcome back to football clichés.

It's time for Mezza Harland Dix with Brian's Gunn.

We'll call you Will for the purposes of this podcast, if that's all right.

Let's recap the format.

Will is going to share his three very niche fascinations and irritations of football with us, and we're going to tear them apart.

Will, tell us your first one.

Okay, yeah, my first fascination is foreign managers and players embracing the football cliché.

Yeah, I thought I'd stay in my comfort zone for the first one.

I've obviously spent a fair amount of time listening to football managers talk.

I just think that this one is just undoubtedly cool, whether it's Jan Mulby instantly turning scout the moment he rocks up in Merseyside, through to Viali getting coached by Dennis Wise to drop clichés into his post-match interviews famously and correctly one time.

But I think the gold medal of this goes to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who, and I've done a bit of research on this, obviously, has said every cliché under the sun.

He's like truly the top, top clichésman from abroad.

But yeah, it's just great seeing the rest of the world embrace and pick up on this language.

So Dennis Wise taught Jean Lucaviali to say when the fish are down as part of a prank.

Exactly, yeah.

But crucially, it had given him some correct ones first, so he

trusted him.

If you can ever truly trust Dennis Wise, that's a very subtle piece of footballing banter, Charlie, from a former member of the crazy gang known for burning people's trousers and, I don't know, putting fish in people's cars.

It's a really subtle turn of events.

He was versatile in his pranking.

That was his genius.

I mean, I suppose Viali's taken it in good faith, but do you think he could have thought about it a bit and gone, wow, does that really make sense?

Why are the fish fish are quite often down there, aren't they?

They plumb the depths.

You've got to literally die by it.

Charlie Almers, I suppose, you know, foreign managers and players to a certain extent trying to embrace the footballing vernacular of the English language is a response in some form to interviews using mildly colloquial colloquial English phrases to them in interviews, which I know you hate.

I know you hate that, Charlie.

I do.

Well,

I would put that on a sort of fascination, hatred kind of borderline.

I used to kind of love it when Jeff Shreves would say, you know, Jose, was it a case of locking the door after the horse had bolted?

And you think, like, as if this isn't hard enough for a foreign manager.

You sort of be like, what?

I mean, imagine being asked that in your third or fourth language.

And then being asked to repeat it as well.

Oh, no.

And I think there's even worse

is when that happens.

It's bad enough that happens in a tunnel or a press conference room where it's quiet and the manager can definitely hear the sounds coming out of your mouth.

When you sometimes get on-pitch reporters going down that route on a pitch at the final whistle in the middle of a stadium and they can, it's just, oh God,

not only can they not hear what you're saying anyway, you then have to explain the phrase that you've just used.

We asked our listeners, Will, for some examples of foreign players and managers unexpectedly adopting English footballing phrases.

Now on a similar theme to Gianluca Viali's fish, a popular stand writes in and says Martin Yoll had a habit of using the phrase different kettle of fish quite often.

But unfortunately he also slipped into when he was fuller manager in 2013.

He says if you don't score goals you're under pressure.

That's what happened to us.

If you look back at Newcastle in the 85th minute Adel Tarabd could score, he didn't and they scored.

Against West Brom, it was the same kettle of fish.

Brilliant.

Love it.

You can see how the logic's worked out there, Will.

Much better use it in the the opposite way.

Yeah, definitely.

Total sense.

Charlie, on a slight tangent, and apologies here for having to resort to a clip once uploaded to the social channels of a deathbed era soccer AM.

Sam Chedzoy reminds us of when former Everton manager Roberto Martinez effortlessly began to pick up a scouse accent.

See strikers were tagging players to buy-free kicks, but they see pick Santa Raf, Santa Raf, Santa Roaf.

I mean, that is genuinely great.

I mean, slick.

I love that.

We used to have a guy who helped out with running the Sunday League.

He had a similar kind of Spanish-Englishy accent.

And he would always talk to us and be like, you know, if you want to check out the results, they're all on the website.

And it was like, really,

it was so that every day just some words would sort of come out in this weird way.

And the evidence is mounting up, Dave, that Scouse is the most infectious accent.

in football as Will sort of pointed out right at the start here.

I mean, I guess it's very strong, isn't it?

I think that and Geordie.

I was going to go Mancunian,

Peter Schmeichel being the obvious one, obviously, a team of lots of people with strong accents.

But yeah, that was my next one I was going to go to.

Brian Loudrop essentially becoming Glaswegian as well, which his accent became incredible after several years at Rangers.

There was a clip the other day.

I don't know.

Maybe, Will, you might have seen it, but maybe I'll dig it out and put it in the edit.

But there was a clip of, it was either like a lower league manager or

someone, or was it like a backroom staff member being interviewed?

And they were like half Geordie, half Scouse.

Unbelievable day.

Obviously, it's been a week leading up to Vit, and you couldn't get away from the fact that it was going to be a great occasion for the players, the families, the staff, um it turned out to be that.

This incredible segue between the two.

I was really impressed.

Yeah, it did do the rounds.

Sam writes in Dave and says, Any foreign player using gaffer makes me smile.

A lot of Venga's players used it despite him being the least gaffery gaffer of all.

Do you get called gaffer at Sunday League?

Is it uh yes, sometimes even in an English Sunday league context, does that feel authentic sometimes?

But with a bit of there's like a bit of knowingness to it.

I mean, it's you know, but um do you like it?

Does it make you feel special?

But

the Venger point's interesting because especially when the French players are calling their fellow Frenchmen Gaffer, like when Patrick Vieira or Thierry Henri,

it feels to me like Vieira would say it more than Henri, but when calling Wenger Gaffer is even more jarring, I think, than if it was Ian Wright or Tony Adams.

It really does strongly suggest, Charlie, that this is one of these set words and phrases that they're kind of given when they join and say, do you know what, if you use this, you know, you'll settle in a bit more quickly.

So, I mean, it might well be that straightforward.

They just get given words like gaffer and say, just call the manager Gaffer, and everything will be fine.

The starter pack, yeah.

You, what you get a lot of now at clubs is boss, and to the point where all staff, like at Spurs, everyone would call Ange boss, like, not, you know, not just players.

That was very much, um, and I don't know if that was particular to him or other managers.

You know, or if you get to choose, if it's like a papal title, when you come in, you know, you've got you've got boss, you can have gaffer, but it does kind of like stamp their authority.

And it's really jarring, Will, when in interviews, certain players have been bestowed the privilege of being able to refer to their manager by their first name.

And it's like calling your parents by their first name.

You shouldn't be allowed.

No, definitely not.

No, I can't think of any examples offhand, but I know I've seen them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's like dividing the club into the elites who are in there with the gaffer and those who still need to earn that.

I think the one exception to that is the fact that Fergie got his knighthood means that you can call him Sir Alex, which is still deferential enough.

Whereas if they were just calling him Alex, it would sound weird, wouldn't it?

Really odd.

Alex.

Go for an Alec.

Yeah, I can't imagine.

Imagine a Spurs player just calling him Ange, Charlie.

It would be so odd.

He wouldn't stand for that.

Big Anne.

I think it's Big Ange just said.

Yeah.

Right.

Well, speaking of gaffers, this brings us nicely on to your second fascination of football, Will.

Which is Chris Wilder.

Just Chris Wilder in general.

Just in general, yeah.

The archetypal football man, absolute gold mine for Brian's Brian's gun clips.

I've got a Yorkshire branch of my family who reminds me a lot of them.

So it's, you know, it's genuine affection I have for him.

I don't think anyone's picked just an individual for Messer Harlem Dix before.

I know, I like this.

So, I mean, if I were to have a specific reason for it, it'd be his, you know, his unique use of language.

There's one expression which he uses a lot, which is when he's won, we did a job on them.

When he's lost, they did a job on us.

And he uses it regardless of what the case is, whether whether he's out-tactic the opposition or thrashed them or it's been a last-minute smash and grab winner.

So maybe he just refers to it as a win.

So that's how he calls a win.

But yeah, maybe more one for an adjudication panel than a fascination.

No, this is ripe for our exploration.

But let's hear Chris Wilder's use of his famous catchphrase.

You know,

they've done a job on us.

They did a job on us.

They did a job on us.

We've done a job on a couple of teams recently.

But then, you know,

they did a job on us.

Everton did a job on us you've done a job on it massively went in and really done a job on them do a job on us and they they did a job on us did an absolute job on them and we haven't done a job on on on southampton and they did a job on us and it's up to us to do a job on them we really have to do a job on them what's your job to do a job on the opposition that's your job yeah of course that's it that's your job that's my job as a manager that's your job i know i know so charlie this is really interesting to me um because wilder's obviously very keen on this and and will said will kind of theorizes that wilder uses it for a vast array of possibilities and scenarios.

But to you, what exactly does doing a job on a team entail?

Is it a physical thing?

Is it a tactical thing?

Is it a bit of both?

I think it's more allied with the idea of outthinking.

And almost like you've laid traps that they've fallen into.

Right.

Or, you know, you've just been a little bit cuter and a little bit cannier.

than them.

So, you know, they've come in.

I'm trying to think, you know, I think like Newcastle are a team that would do a job on a team better than them because they would kind of, they might go ahead early and then they'd suck you into their little game and there'd be some dark arts and things like that and and you you just wouldn't they've got you right where they want you done a job on them to the point where you end up i think you need to really frustrate the other team because you know or you know or you might walk into their trap because they're they're doing niggly fouls and then you lash out and you get the red card you've had a job done on you this is very viceroyal like he's talking from experience here dave but anyway there is a slight implication that they've had to resort to doing a job that they that they couldn't couldn't quite go toe-to-toe and just, you know, outplay us.

They've done a job on us.

I think it is a bit dark artsy.

I don't think it is out-tactic necessarily, but I mean, it is sort of vague enough for it to be used in different ways.

I think it's, is it similar to someone like doing a number on someone?

Yeah, yeah.

It's kind of, yeah, not doing them over, but yeah,

there's an element of calculation about it.

There's also the sort of tacit admission as well that maybe we should have seen this coming.

Yes, absolutely.

But yeah, I really like Charlie's provocation point here, Will, the idea that you lay traps both in a tactical sense, like a counter-attacking way, but also riling them into making silly decisions and maybe getting sent off.

Is that part of doing a job, do you think?

It's essentially mind games.

Yeah, I think so.

I think I like the idea of the setting the traps and someone's fallen for it and yeah, we've done a job on them.

But I think might be missing one little angle on it that, you know, there's a business-like nature to the win.

Like, yeah, we just did a job, turned up, did their job, got out in business-like fashion.

Literally, Will.

Welcome to the path.

Dave, what would you say is a textbook doing a job win then?

Give me a scoreline, give me kind of rhythm to the game.

I think it can depend on the level of the two teams, but

if it's a big team losing to not like a terrible team, but a mid-table or a slightly lower down team, I think you can lose one nil and someone's done a job on you.

Right.

Oh, so could it be a thrashing Will?

Yeah, I mean,

that's part of the business-like fashion of it.

Just, yeah, turn up, thrash them, get out, go home, back down the M1 with three points.

Great choice of motorway.

A routine, sort of routine 2-0 could be a jobbing.

I think Mourinho pulled off some.

He did a job on some teams that were 2-0s.

You know, teams that other big teams would come and play them and they would sit back and say, all right, what have you got?

Can you break us down?

And then, you know, then Lampard would find Drogba.

They'd go 1-0 up.

And then the other team would just sort of have a lot of possession, but wouldn't really do anything.

And then they'd get a match setter in like the 70th minute.

And it would be a sort of like, yeah, we've just, we've just come here and absolutely done a job on you.

The Andy Gray style question, what have you got?

We're here.

Come and break us down.

It's so crucial to the doing a job.

Completely agree.

On Wilder, I was doing a bit of kind of Wilder priming before we got into this podcast, Will.

And I feel like he's a master of a very specific managerial facial expression, which I realize is now terrible for podcasts.

I mean, we're going to do it anyway.

It's, if I asked you, if I asked anybody to do a kind of pretend sad face, a pretend sad mouth, that's the kind of face Wilder does when he's, it's kind of like, well, people can say what they want.

And he just sort of does a,

and it's just kind of like, everyone else can go fuck themselves kind of face, basically.

And it's, um, he's really, he just does it in every single interview with almost, regardless of what he's asked, he will do that face, which basically means, I don't give a shit.

And he, he's right at the top of the tree for this.

That's why he's so fascinating.

And I think that's part of the, you know, the Yorkshireness I see him in as well.

So the interview he gave after Shuffle United beat Shuffle Wednesday the other day, Dave, where he it was just the right amount of lauding he gave.

He said he was constantly reiterating how many points they were ahead of Sheffield Wednesday and that they've ended their season.

And it was just like, he's so good at this because he doesn't quite go overboard.

It's not quite Sunes planting the flag.

It's just the right amount of, you know, I get what the fans are feeling.

But this is actually also my job.

Yeah, he's very sure of himself.

And he's quite, he can be quite chippy at times, but he does have a lighter side to him as well.

You know, we had him...

You may have forgotten this spell, but we did have him for a few months at Watford.

He blew my mind when I saw him earlier.

Can't believe it.

A couple of years ago, and he was quite prepared to basically call out the whole situation for how ridiculous it was with the owners and everything.

You know, he didn't really endear himself to Watford fans, but that was more about the bigger picture.

But I think he is a sort of manager that if you've got him at your club, you do like him.

And if you don't have him, you don't like him.

I think this has been broadly a celebration of Chris Wilder, hasn't it, Will?

Yeah, I think so.

And quite rightly.

Quite rightly so, yeah.

Well deserved.

Right, time for your third and final fascination of football, please.

The third one is goalkeepers just booting it.

That's it.

That's it.

Yeah, it's uh, I think this is just a very special footballing thing for me.

Two main reasons.

One's the boring one, where it seems to have become like the focal point of the um intergenerational debate around playing it out from the back or just welling it up there.

The second one is that it just looks beautiful.

I haven't put this video out yet, but I made a sort of condensed the 1987 cup final into just Steve Agrizovich booting it out.

And you just see this guy disintegrate over the course of 120 minutes, wilting in the Wembley heat and just trying to boot it out each time, and it becoming more and more difficult.

It's just a beautiful side.

I just love it.

That's a Brian's Gunn B-side, if ever I saw one.

I think it was one of your early video hits, wasn't it?

The montage of goalkeepers booting the ball up the pitch.

And the more you saw it, the more outdated you realized it had become.

So, Charlie, I mean, if you had to pick your favourite.

I'm going to ask this question.

Charlie, from history, if you could pick your favourite pound-for-pound act of goalkeeper distribution, which one would it be?

So not booting it, but something else?

Any form.

Any form of releasing the football?

I do still marvel at when they do that sort of like spirally technique

and they can like land it on a sixpence.

The sidewinder.

Yeah.

Yeah, maybe because I grew up, when I first got into football, goalkeepers did still sort of just launch it.

So I'm kind of in awe of what I would still consider to be kind of the new school of goalkeeping.

Dave, this is very much an opportunity for me to talk about when I have to go and goal in Sunday league every now and then.

And when I did have to do this about five, six years ago, I had done it for a while.

And I thought this was very, we were very much in the sidewinder era at elite level.

And I...

My instinct was to try and do it.

Way more difficult than you think, isn't it?

Insanely difficult.

But my second problem was, once I'd ascertained that I couldn't do it reliably, like one in five would be good.

Then I thought, okay, I'll revert to the old style.

And that feels so weird.

It feels so odd, like to just booting.

I can't do this.

Were you sort of out the hand straight up in the air?

Or were you trying to get a lower trajectory on it?

I don't know.

Yeah, sort of.

Was it out of one hand or two hands?

There's a lot of options.

Left hand diagonally to the right boot, sort of waist level, and then absolutely going for it welly.

And it's a lot harder than you think because you don't have the opportunity to do it very often.

I went in goal about

three years in that, three years ago now.

I did one random game in goal.

And yeah all of a sudden because you when you're faced with going in goal you're mostly worried about the goal kicks off the ground because they're the big ones you've got that you you don't want to be the keeper that go on lads push up we know he can't kick

but but when you you so you think oh the stuff out your hands is going to be easy when you fuck one of those up oh god why is that hard that shouldn't be hard straight off for a throw in

but it's interesting just because you said there about how knackering it is and well you were saying how you know grizzovich looked exhausted understandably by the end of it because I was taking the other day I saw I think Courtois was rested from either a training session or a game and the explanation was sort of like fatigue and I thought God that's a very modern phenomenon isn't it you you know a goalkeeper being rested because of fatigue in the red zone yeah goalkeepers don't shouldn't get tired and and you know I thought well I guess that's the consequence now of them playing more like outfielders but it sounds like in your view, it was far more knackering then when you're just launching balls all day, which to be fair does sound more tiring many ways.

He's not much of a sweeper, Kipper, is he, Courtois, so it had to be the booting that's done him in.

You know, having watched, re-watched your booting the ball up the pitch montage, Will, it made me realise that, you know, even as recently-ish as the kind of late 80s, early 90s, the concept of goalkeeper doing the very specific act of releasing it from their hands to the floor, looking up and sort of pinging a clearance upfield was still really novel.

back then.

Like it was, it was really kind of considered quite a continental thing for keepers to do.

So do you miss, do you miss the kind of proper old-fashioned boot up the field?

A little bit.

I want my team to do it, but only maybe in the last five minutes or

I think that's just like a

muscle memory from

being a kid that I just want to put as much distance between my goal and the ball as possible.

But I think the pitches are so good now that you can properly train to work out from the back, whereas you couldn't rely on being able to do that in every game back in the day.

That's true.

So just, yeah,

couldn't rely on it.

Just give it a good old welly.

It was interesting that you mentioned that the agrizovic and how he how he was getting more tired because i i watched the your original video earlier on and i noticed that as well just how like how grueling it looks for them like they're really putting absolutely everything like the heads down like the legs going all the way through like they they look a bit stressed before it's about to happen like it's a proper big effort for for those keepers back then but also i mean and the one the shots you've done you know very i suppose purposefully and it adds to the effect but you don't really see where the ball goes but it it feels like, just from looking at the way they kick the ball, it feels like they don't really care where it's going to go.

Yeah.

It doesn't feel like they're aiming.

They might disagree and say, no, I was always aiming for this player's head or whatever.

But it just kind of, as you say, just felt like, I just want to get this ball as far away from me as possible.

The thing I noticed is that when they have the camera angle behind the goal and they boot it out and it looks like it's going to go flying miles off the pitch, but then it cuts back to the main picture and it's just landed right on Cyril Regis' head in the centre circle.

How is that possible?

Yeah, heavy balls back then.

That's why.

Charlie, when I was thinking about how little you see regulation time acts of goalkeepers just punting the ball out of their hands up the pitch aimlessly, it made me think that when you get to like the 93rd minute and you're hanging on and you want to waste some time, when goalkeepers have the ball, obviously they lie down on it and that's going to be, that's going to become...

essentially banned from now on.

But their options are pretty limited because they have to kind of release it and then

the ball is back into general play and it could get recycled.

But have you considered the time-wasting potential of a goalkeeper keeping keeping the ball for as long as they're allowed and then booting it into the sky as high as they could?

Like a goalkeeper these days, like Edison, for example, could I reckon clear a stand height-wise with it.

Then the ball would have to come down, probably bounce, because no one's heading that these days.

And even if they did, it would probably be another two to three interactions before it's under control by anybody.

You're probably looking at a good 15 seconds.

It's a great act of time wasting.

Do it.

Well, yeah, maybe we'll see Edison doing it.

Would he be the one you think would get the most height just because because you're not it's does accuracy doesn't really matter there does it it's just power who can just absolutely smash it up aim for the corner get some height on it make it bounce make the fullback do some work and i think i think it's a great sort of wholesome way of wasting time organic way of wasting time dev yes good point actually how high could they get it could be this should be like some sort of skills challenge like how surely guinness have got a world record for this by now

also just how much how little anyone's going to want to have to deal with that I mean, what a fucking pain if you are, if you are a fullback or something like that.

Just a really high ball up in the air that you're not, you know, you're just not, you're de-skilled.

You're not used to having to deal with that sort of thing now.

The other bit, the other bit from your video that I really liked, and

you never see this anymore, is the half-volleyed kick, which a really notable feature of the sort of 80s and early, well, and before that, but the early 90s as well.

Which I suppose, more of a difficult skill.

And probably, if you nail it, you can probably, probably more effective, I suppose.

Yeah, why did they do it, Will?

Have you got any theories about goalkeepers choosing to half volley, which is such a more precise science?

If you try it, it's harder to kick the ball straight out of your hands as in like you have to physically put more effort into it.

If you let it bounce slightly first, then it's kind of already heading in the direction you want, so it takes a bit of the stress out of the kick, maybe.

I don't know, I'm not a goalkeeper, but that could be it.

Or maybe they just think, maybe they just think I look pretty cool doing it this way.

Oh, definitely.

It's incredibly satisfying.

I think it's a trajectory thing.

It's like a drop drop goal in rugby.

It's that kind of technique to get it high enough.

Yeah.

The perfect kind of Mesa Holland Dick selection here where we get into such a rabbit hole that I forget what we're doing.

This is great.

That wraps up your footballing fascinations.

We'll be back very shortly with Brian's Guns Footballing Irritations.

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Welcome back to football clichés.

This is Mez at Harland Dix with Brian's Gunn, aka Will.

Do you know what?

Everything I know about you so far, you seem like a really mild-mannered, pleasant guy who only wants to focus on the positive things about football.

I couldn't even envisage you coming up with three irritations of football.

Was it tricky?

Very tricky.

So I think I had, like, I sent you about seven or eight fascinations.

I probably could have, in a bit more time, done 50 or 60.

Irritations, much more difficult because I just see anything irritating is just an opportunity to laugh at it or, you know, in my case, make a little video about it.

So, yeah, it was tough, but there are, yeah, a few things, but I'm fully prepared to be ripped apart by you guys on every one of them.

Embrace your dark side, then.

Tell us about your first one.

The first one is the myth of the away dressing room having any sort of impact on the game, as they always say when a big team plays a minnow away in the cup.

I sort of get it.

It makes a good story, like pampered prem stars made to sit on like plastic school chairs in a wet dressing room.

But they they repeat this every year.

I just don't think it's true.

It's just a room.

They get changed and go out and play.

The crowd, yeah, make a big difference.

But yeah, I'm not having this one.

Really enjoyed pampered prem stars there, Charlie.

I want us all to talk in tabloid headlines for the rest of this episode.

No, I was going to say, yeah, I'm interested about that one.

I mean, I don't know.

You don't think that they're sort of it, it knocks them out of their rhythm a little bit and their preparations are a bit affected and they're maybe not as loose as they would be as they come out because they've been so barely able to move in there.

Maybe a little bit.

I don't know.

I just don't see why having a bit of extra room and wood paneling and underfloor heating is going to make them play better.

I get your point.

It's part of a whole thing to unsettle them and it might play a little part that way.

But yeah.

Okay.

Get your point.

Do you know what?

I would have poured scorn on this concept before, Dave.

And then I watched, I think it was Tamworth Spurs in the FA Cup this season.

And to be fair, the Spurs players were getting ready in a very cramped space.

When if you factor in all their staff, I have to say it might have been quite limiting.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's probably annoying.

And I think they're definitely, if you play in a stadium like Spurs or any of the Premier League stadiums, modern stadiums these days, but especially Spurs, when they have like enormous dressing rooms, they have their own dedicated space.

It's like a dressing room complex.

There'll be three or four different little rooms

for various functions and massive showers.

Like, it would be, it's the sort of the equivalent, if you're used to staying at like six-star hotels and you have to slum it in in an e-tap for for you know for some reason one weekend like it's you know it's not quite up to up to scratch is it well my knowledge of elite level dressing rooms is basically gleaned from people doing stadium tours and taking pictures in a dressing room the appeal of which i can't fathom and secondly watching nba documentaries where they're sort of in you know in the dressing room and sort of chatting to the players whatever and the one thing i've noticed about elite level luxury dressing rooms is that they've really embraced the kind of individual.

Like, it used to be a big communal space, a dressing room, where everyone,

what goes on in the dressing room stays in the dressing room.

But now you've got your own little place to hang all your clothes.

There's little drawers.

Like, it's like a sort of little dressing table.

It's too much.

Pampered Prem Stars is exactly right.

Yeah, I guess

if you get used to that, then if it's suddenly taken away and it's a cold January, then you may be a little bit annoyed.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I suppose if you're, I mean, even at Sunday League level, Charlie, the array of dressing rooms you could be confronted with, even at a really, really modest level of Sunday League, could be you could be in the the crappi possible scenario like it will be a shipping container with tape with a table inside the and and things might have happened in there that go unspoken yeah I mean Hackney Marshes they they sort of rebuilt all of their change rooms and made them actually quite nice but there was a period there until fairly recently I think it was like the mid-2010s and they were horrendous.

I mean like properly horrendous.

Like a prisoner of war camp.

Which like for visiting teams would have been like, what is this?

Yeah.

I much prefer to get as much kit on you as you can before you leave the house get your boots on at the side of the pitch crack on and yeah relying on a dressing room to get changed for Sunday league is mad.

Get yourself changed straight away.

Don't turn up any clothes.

That's not no definitely.

Yeah, I don't understand that.

Okay, so okay, so

I think we've allowed a little bit of breathing room for this myth at least.

And if Tamworth had beaten Spurs, it would have sealed it forever.

Right, your second irritation of football, please, Will.

My second irritation is forcing forcing managers to get involved in pitch side banter, which is

a recent trend of when they bring their little table onto the pitch at the end of the game, grab one of the managers, and they just like plonk them straight in there right in the middle of the usual post-match chit-chat, which I'm fine with the banter.

Just I need a little bit more distance between my banter and the serious matter of talking to a Premier League manager.

If I'm going to go with Chris Wilder, it is the broadcasting equivalent of talking to a Premier League manager whilst eating a sandwich.

Love the little table there.

The derision in there was just right.

Of course, it's crept into pre-match interviews as well, Dave.

They've somehow managed to get into the contract that managers have to speak to them before the game

as well.

I mean, Gary Lineker, of course, was on MHD expressing his disdain towards pre-match interviews with managers in these scenarios.

There was one before the League Cup final, and it was this exact scenario.

You know, there was the little table, it was Chappers, it was Les Ferdinand, Rednapp, Kerraga, maybe one other, and Arnie Slott just appeared out of nowhere, you know, because that's the thing.

There's no decorum, is there?

It's this sort of, there's this, again, I think it's this really, really subtle sort of power move.

Like, I'm not waiting, I'm not waiting till they get to the break, I'm just, I'm going in.

What are they going to do about it?

Then he has to do all the handshakes, has to do the four handshakes, and then it's just, oh, it's all a bit clunky.

Because the handshake thing is, I would make this almost a fascination because I'm so curious as to how that's going to play out.

Also, the very relatable thing of when you walk into a party or something and you shake one guy's hand or you say hi to one person, you're like, oh, I've now got to do, have I got to do it with everyone?

Or

now I've sort of made her off my own back.

So watching all of that play out, I do really enjoy it.

It dominates the whole thing for me, Will.

I'm on the edge of my seat watching the handshakes roll up.

What if they miss one of them because they're too far away?

They have to go down the line.

But there's a real earnestness about the handshake.

And then when you get a pundit-manager combination, you think they've never met.

Yeah.

their pars have never crossed.

How sincere?

How, like, how warm can this handshake be?

Really cursory, no doubt.

That's what I love.

And like you mentioned on a slot, and you're like, I just like him and you're like, does he know who Deion Dublin is?

He's never like Joby Mackena.

He does it.

He's doing a good job of it, but he doesn't have a clue most of these people are.

Oh, it's the guy from the Bryan's gun.

I just...

You okay?

That forced formality kind of kicks things off, Will.

And then, yeah, then every pundit has to have a go at asking a question as well and they have to the manager whose mind is clearly elsewhere has to kind of politely kind of play along yeah I think you're kind of convincing me that this is way more fascinating than irritating maybe it's just that it's new I'm not used to it and you know stuck in my ways a bit so yeah I definitely the uh the handshake thing could be I'm gonna watch out for that now

but yeah they always make a really hasty exit don't they so he's got to go like see you later then they don't know where to give the microphone to well how have they not sorted this out there should be a process there should be a procedure.

I know, just walk off with it.

Don't sometimes they just put it down on the table, then someone else has to like a hand will appear off-screen, and so producer sort of looms into the frame.

Sometimes they do the thing where they've got the spider-cam going around, and you sort of see the manager being shepherded off.

I think this happened at the final, actually.

Again, you saw a slot walking down the tunnel, walking past all the others.

Why are we seeing that?

Absolutely spot on.

Like, Charlie, you know, just to throw another thing into the mix, exactly, as Dave says, you get to see like one of the production teams sort of ushering something like they shouldn't shouldn't be in it.

I know.

Yeah.

There'll be a little comment as well.

Normally it's while a player, because some fans might have stayed behind and they're sort of cheering and be like, oh, there are plenty here still for you there, Claire X or whatever.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I think there's also an element of this to bring back to sort of, you know, the original point, Will, with the banter.

The kind of chimes of what we were talking about earlier on about the managers not understanding.

colloquial phrases and stuff.

Sometimes, especially when it's this sort of group scenario, maybe it's after a game, the manager's won or the players won.

In this day and age, we want to have a bit of fun with the players, don't we?

We don't want to be too serious.

But then sometimes, you know, the manager won't hear the joke.

He won't hear the gag or he won't understand the banter and they're all laughing and he just sort of either has to laugh awkwardly or just go

sorry.

See also Arsen Venger on every appearance on BN Sports.

Poor bloke.

He just doesn't get it.

And it's fair enough and nor should he.

But I'm telling you, Will, if this does irritate you genuinely, I'm telling you, this has not peaked yet.

Because within the next two to three seasons, a broadcaster is going to make a manager blind rank some

after a match for social media purposes, and they'll have to do it live.

Imagine how excruciating that will be.

Should we get Brian's gun to blind rank some suck for some social content?

He's out, he's down.

No way, I'm out, no way.

Two down his line, right?

Fair enough.

Right, your third and final irritation of football.

I can tell you're loving doing this.

So, yeah, third irritation is why are they trying to sex up the FA Cup draw?

Are they?

Well, I kind of regret using the term sexed up when I sent you over the picks yesterday, but but honestly, if the benchmark is Graham Kelly and Sir Bert Miller Chip in a stuffy boardroom pulling out the balls, then maybe it works.

I don't know.

I don't, it doesn't annoy me too much, but

we saw the draw at the weekend, right?

Are we happy with that?

Is that like the requisite level of gravitas that you should give to this

important occasion?

I'm glad you brought this up.

It was a disgrace.

I didn't actually see it.

What happened?

Right, so Joe Hart was in the studio with Chappers at Deepdale after Preston versus Villa, which wasn't even the last tie of the weekend, but you know, that's a separate point.

So he did the FA Cup semi-final draw, Dave, on his own, sitting down next to Chappers on the sort of soft furnishings with the bag of balls in his hand.

What, just dangling?

Just had

the bag of balls in his hand.

Just like he was passing around some sweets.

Robert Saunders on Twitter said it felt a bit like having your Christmas dinner on your lap.

It was honestly so weird.

And also, because

they're always at such pains to kind of big up the majesty of the FA Cup and its history and everything.

It was like that in one breath.

And then the next, like the most tim pot, casual, who really cares about this anyway?

We're just going to joke and just pull out some balls from this bag, please.

And do you know what?

Part of the old-fashioned appeal of the FA Cup draw wheel was this undercurrent, this never spoken but always implied idea that like the national lottery, it's all a bit of fun, but there is like an ombudsman sort of adjudicating all this shit and making sure, an auditor, making sure this all goes right.

There was no hint of that with Joe Hart with a fucking bag of balls in his lap.

No, the illusion was totally ruined.

Yeah, just go back to how it was.

Did he still have the little tray?

I think they had the little, that little sort of board.

I mean, the balls were still the old school balls.

Really happy about that.

They haven't upgraded the balls.

They're still the black ones with the white writing on.

But I think, yeah, he did place them in front of him in a little sort of frame, you know, with the, yeah.

Hard to describe what that is really what is that?

Well, it is like a it's like a tray I suppose yeah, and you and you sort of put them in the little holders, but um, yeah, do you think they are actually the same balls that have like never changed?

Doesn't they have different sets of balls?

Yeah, I mean who makes those Charlie who manufactures the FA Cup balls for a cliché's cliché.

There's an athletic long read in the middle

I'm on it.

Don't worry.

But if it's it was the semi-final, so which is obviously the fewest amount of balls you're going to have in any of the draws.

And that's probably the temptation for them to just go, oh,

it's only four balls, isn't it?

Fuck it off.

It's fine.

You've got still got to do the final, Dave.

They're still going to be for the final.

Home dressing room for

home and away.

Do they really?

Yeah.

Has it ever been televised?

Don't think they televise.

Welcome to the FA Cup final draw.

Who would do that?

Well, speaking of which, we asked our listeners, Will, who they thought the purest FA Cup drawsman.

Oh, no, Preston are in the final.

Oh, but shit.

It's a nightmare draw for Preston.

It's interesting that, I mean, we've watched so many draws over the years.

Interesting to work out the true kind of generic dynamic of the two people who were to draw out the FA Cup balls.

Listener, Sam, says Deion Dublin, David Seaman, and especially Laurie Sanchez are as pure FA Cup drawers it gets.

What kind of elements do you need to your personality, to your footballing CV will, to be an FA Cup drawsman?

Well, you need a bit of the FA Cup in your own personal history so that those three fit the bill there.

Do you need to know a thing or two about the FA Cup or winning it?

Yeah, and I think the yeah, a voice with the right gravitas.

So again, David Seaman's definitely your man there if you want if you want gravitas in a voice.

With Seaman, you obviously get you get the laughter as well.

You've got to have, I think you're right.

You have got some, you've got to have someone who respects the occasion, who's got a history of some sort of relationship with the FA Cup.

You've also got someone who's prepared to do a little laugh at all the little gags and

drawing out his old team away from home.

Exactly, exactly.

This is the point, Charlie.

I mean, you can't have a player who's featured too prominently for too many clubs.

I mean, it doesn't happen very often, but take a player who might have played 100 times for three different clubs.

That's a minefield of potential banter for former clubs.

Maximum of two, I reckon.

Yeah, that is a lot.

Yeah, I think you sort of want a vaguely familiar, comforting face as well.

You know, the FA Cup is such like a...

Don't know, it's so steeped in tradition.

Teddy Sherringham, he's quite FA Cup draw.

He's quite slick.

Maybe too slick.

Is he too slick for the FA Cup?

I don't think he's sexy.

Yeah, I don't think he'd have the fondness for the FA Cup that you want.

Like he's a bit...

Do you know what I mean?

He's a bit honestly Sherringham.

I think he'd turn you down if you ask him to do it.

Well, I think he'd either turn you down or if you said to him like, yeah, Teddy, yeah, memories for you, of course, of the fourth round away in 96.

I think he'd sort of be like, don't remember that.

Is he that factually correct?

No, no, that's made up.

Okay.

He'd probably know somewhere in the fourth round in 96.

But yeah, I don't think he'd sort of sort of give you the lip service of like, yeah, yeah, no, happy memories from the dead on that day.

Sam Munnery writes in, Will, this is great ledley king and les ferdinand on the drawers affable always around don't need any introduction this is these are two always around is so good just available but these are two really good examples of of the right sort of players to have for an fa cup draw because they're club ambassador types they're there's something really sort of grand about them and they're used to doing this sort of thing and particularly they're fully trained in standing with their hands respectfully clasped around their groins waiting to do something so they're the right sort of you need statesmen, basically.

Yeah, exactly.

You need people to, they can do the banter, but they know how to code switch and realise that they're in a different setting and they need to, you know, pay a bit, pay tribute to the FA Cup and its history and

put on their slightly more austere voice.

Yeah.

On that note, Dave, it makes you wonder if his management career takes another tumble, would Frank Lampard be the best FA Cup draw person possible?

Oh, God, a Lampardian transition mid-draw as he draws out Chelsea away

to Tottenham.

Yeah.

Sorry, Les.

With a good sprinkling of management in there as well, which because that's not quite the level of a former club and it's still a bit like, oh, they'll be your old employers won't be thanking you for that one.

You're up club, of course, Frank.

Wait, I don't want to talk about that.

No, seriously.

Well, no, in accordance with FA Cup Draw Protocol, that concludes our official business with Brian's Gunn, aka Will Powell.

How do you feel?

It's been a pleasure to have you.

It's been so much fun being honest.

A dream come true to visit my mecca.

um it's been tremendous and um it's an absolutely fantastic thing you're doing will um in its new campaign trussell is encouraging football fans to sign for trussell fc a team united in the belief that no one should need a food bank to survive just go to trussell.org.uk slash trussell fc dave will put the link in our podcast description as well will i mean as i said this is the first kind of brand partnership you've done and it yeah just a classy act from you it is a classy touch actually isn't it yeah thanks adam I'm just really proud to be working with Trussell on this campaign.

And if you know, if the nonsense of Brian's gun can be channeled into doing something worthwhile at a crucial time, then yeah, all for it.

Using it for a force of good.

Love that.

Thanks to you, Charlie Eccleshare.

Thank you.

And thanks, Will.

That was great.

Thanks to you, Dave Walker.

Thank you.

Thanks to everyone for listening.

We'll be back on Tuesday.

See you then.

This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network.

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