The MOTD intro scandal, Taxman FC & the most "cat amongst the pigeons" goal ever

Popsicles, sprinklers, a cool breeze.

Talk about refreshing.

You know what else is refreshing this summer?

A brand new phone with Verizon.

Yep, get a new phone on any plan with Select Phone Trade In MyPlan.

And lock down a low price for three years on any plan with MyPlan.

This is a deal for everyone, whether you're a new or existing customer.

Swing by Verizon today for our best phone deals.

Three-year price guarantee applies to then-current base monthly rate only.

Additional terms and conditions apply for all offers.

Bundle and safe with Expedia.

You were made to follow your favorite band and from the front row, we were made to quietly save you more.

Expedia, made to travel.

Savings vary and subject to availability, flight-inclusive packages are at all protected.

CRM was supposed to improve customer relationships.

Instead, it's shorthand for can't resolve much.

Which means you may have sunk a fortune into software that just bounces customer issues around but never actually solves them.

On the ServiceNow AI platform, CRM stands for something better.

With AI built into one platform, customers aren't mired in endless loops of automated indifference.

They get what they need when they need it.

Bad CRM was then.

This is ServiceNow.

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

Is Gas going on have a crack?

He is, you know.

Oh, he's there!

Brilliant!

But jeez!

He's round the goalkeeper!

He's 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 at last!

This nation is going to dance all night.

Can you be a veteran chairman?

An incredible development for the knowledgeable crowd phenomenon.

Equestrian clichés.

We have a fresh match of the day scandal on our hands.

The second coming of Michael Owen.

Accidental football clichés podcast in the full ruling from the Lucas Paqueta case.

What if there was a team who collected all the spare points from drawn Premier League games?

Debatable anachronisms in Darren Aronofsky films.

The most cat amongst the pigeons goal ever.

And which team did the centralized badge best?

Brought to your ears by Goal Hanger Podcasts.

This This is Football Clichés.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Football Clichés.

I'm Adam Hurry.

This is the adjudication panel.

Joining me, first of all, is David Walker.

How are you doing?

I'm very good.

How are you?

I'm good.

Quiz spoilers alert.

I realized in the last 48 to 72 hours, if I'd just read Jonathan Wilson's New World Cup book before the quiz, we would have got at least half their questions that we got wrong right.

A subliminal plug for the book, then, in some ways.

Every six pages or so, I'm like, I fucking wish I fucking read that, and then I would have got it with all these little clues.

Uh, but there you go, that's the page.

It was a good day, yeah.

It was a good, it was a good quiz.

Yeah, uh, that's the happiest I've been to lose, um, for the purposes of very good quizzing.

We'll be back.

A lot of people think it was a scandal that they had reserved questions for the final round.

I personally don't mind that.

Strength, hid-depth.

Yeah, no, I do sort of agree with that.

I think you should come with your quiz locked.

You know, you should have to hand in the team sheet before the game.

You can't just make changes halfway through depending on whether you're losing or not.

Yeah, I appreciate the spirit of this, actually.

You're absolutely right.

But anyway, speaking of strength in depth, joining you on the adjudication panel, it's his 33rd clichés cap in England terms that makes him Kieran Dyer, Nat Lofthouse, or perhaps happiest for him, Ian Wright.

It's James Moore.

How are you doing?

Hi, Adam.

Yeah, very good.

Thank you.

I thought you were going to say, speaking of being anal about quizzes, but no, thank you.

I did have to consider that.

Here's a man who knows a thing or two about the roller coaster of the clichés quiz.

Here's a question for you straight away, James.

The BBC's Paddy Geary writes in with a headline from Sky News.

It says Amanda Staveley, the former Newcastle United joint owner, will on Monday be forced to clarify her interest in bidding for Premier League Club Tottenham Hotspur following veteran chairman Daniel Levy's unexpected departure last week.

Are we accepting veteran chairman, James?

That seems a strange characterisation of him.

It does, but I mean, I guess it depends on your metric.

But 25 years in the job or 24 years in the job, that's got to put you in the market, right?

He is He's

63 or 64, which actually is slightly older than I thought he was.

So, I mean, I guess you do get, that is a job where you'll get a lot of kind of old grizzly blokes in their 70s.

So,

he does, maybe it's an old man's game, maybe.

It looks good for his age.

Fair play.

63.

He does, he does.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, like Doug Ellis, you could have described as a veteran chairman, couldn't you?

Like a proper sort of guy who did it well into his sort of elder years.

But yeah, he doesn't look like a veteran.

He still looks quite fresh, agile, and lithe, doesn't he?

I'd say you're a veteran player, you're looking at 33, 34 onwards.

And even that's getting pushed these days.

Veteran manager, probably 65 onwards.

A veteran chairman, you're looking at 75 onwards, I reckon.

Yeah, you're Doug Ellis territory, but yeah, strange, strange way of phrasing it.

By the way, the listener's question from the quiz last week, which was: for which epic FA Cup encounter did commentator John Champion describe as involving the biggest ever peacetime evacuation of North Derbyshire?

James, do you know this one?

North Derbyshire.

No, I don't.

I'm going to be exposing poor geography here because I feel like that's quite gettable if you know the geography of North Derbyshire.

But no, you're probably right.

Quite a few people got it right, but the first person to get in touch was Jarvis Cockup, who said it was Chesterfield versus Middlesbrough in the 1997 FA Cup semi-final.

It's just a mad piece of commentary from John Champion, really, but it could well be factually correct.

I hope it is.

Speaking of mass movement of people to big events, clichés live in 2025.

We're going to be in Brighton, Cardiff, Hackney Empire in London, Birmingham, Dublin, and Manchester.

Leeds and Glasgow sold out in October.

Go to tickets.football clichés.com.

Speaking of Dublin, Dave, we are confirmed we will be convening at the Comet after the show.

It's around 15-minute walk from the Helix Theatre.

Dozens of people said they were getting that they would be in there with us.

So I'm looking forward to it.

Should be brilliant.

Friday night in Dublin at the Comet.

Fantastic.

Yeah.

The owner of the Comet, James, when I inquired inquired about this, said,

So it's a football show.

What kind of crowd are we thinking about?

I said, Don't worry.

Don't worry.

There won't be any trouble.

Yeah.

Well, not unless you get into come of the hour chat again.

Yeah, or if someone gets a level eight in Happy Hundred Grounds, a chair might go through the window, but that's about it.

Other than that, I think it's going to be all right.

Right, adjudication panel.

Um, real international break vibe to the whole adjudication panel today.

It's like mid-week adjudication panel on steroids, but um, let's kick off with this: unprecedented scenes from BBC Radio 5 Lives coverage of England versus South Africa in the cricket.

Alex Hartley on co-commentary.

Deep third as well as Cars is in, tries to launch him high, won't get it over the head of mid-on.

The catch is taken, but it isn't a catch in terms of a wicket because he can't be out on a free hit.

But it's Sammy Baker who held it.

I think the crowd are sort of cheering him in possibly part not.

No, I think it was a free hit, possibly just giving Archer, sorry, Baker, a little bit of a.

I thought it's either a really sarcastic cheer or a really unknowledgeable crowd

that is the first time I've ever heard a crowd called unknowledgeable that's genuinely wonderful news a great development I don't know how to react to it never wasn't prepared for for this eventuality at all Dave to be honest you would expect cricket crowds to be among the most knowledgeable wouldn't you in general but then I suppose if it's if it is a sort of um a technicality or or relatively new rule or or element to the game, then maybe, yeah, maybe they aren't across it, but I like it.

The laws of cricket, James, are labyrinthine enough.

Yeah, so that does work against their knowledgeability.

Yeah, and with all the different forms, I guess, as well, it kind of, yeah, things can get lost in the cracks, I guess.

Ed Quoth the Raven writes in, Dave, says a couple of

things to play with here.

Alex is from Lancashire, so maybe she saw a chance to need all the fans from Yorkshire because it was at Headingley.

Okay.

So there could be an element of kidology going on there.

More tangentially, Ed Coat the Raven says says there's also the lead Sheffield rivalry.

Sheffield is home to the world's most knowledgeable crowd, the snooker audience at the Crucible.

Of course.

So I've probably played into it as well, but yeah, just tremendous.

I loved it.

Let's stay away from football even more.

This came from Mark Cox.

This is from the Burley Horse Trials.

And

I never thought in my life I'd ever hear this said about a horse.

Oliver, what a shame because that was set to be a really fast, very good round.

Yeah, very good.

People forget she's only 11

because she's been first, second, and third at the level already.

If you're old enough, you're good enough.

11?

That's quite old for a horse, surely.

Yeah.

Well,

the ones that race are like three, aren't they?

Don't think they're that young, are they?

I think they are.

I think they aren't.

They're normally sort of six or seven.

Okay.

I mean, I think 11, the veteran, is that it's a veteran, isn't it, for a horse, I think?

I would have thought so.

The life expectancy of a horse, you know, even the well-kept ones, is about 30 to 35.

So it's about what?

25, 30 in adult years.

Human years.

Peak age.

Yeah, but

people tend to forget.

The average age for all Cheltenham Festival winners combined across all races is 6.97.

Wow.

So there you go.

Yeah.

Veteran equine ace.

Incredible.

Right.

But this, this is the headline of today's episode.

Match of the Day has had a rocky few months, I would say.

It probably thought it had ridden the storm.

But no, there's going to be another storm, another controversy.

Heads should roll over this.

Here is the intro section to the Match of the Day theme tune.

Listen out to some of this commentary.

Welcome to Match of the Dead.

James, any alarm bells there for you?

I have a feeling you're going to tell me one of those bits of commentary is like not from an English Premier League or First Division game.

You're not far wrong because David Humphreys has written in with this bombshell.

He says has anyone noticed in the new BBC Match of the Day titles a snippet of Clive Tilsley's Wayne Rooney commentary for the Arsenal goal at Goodison is used but that was on ITV in 2002.

Here is that commentary.

Fantastic chances.

Oh, brilliant goal.

It's astonishing.

They've used commentary, but ITV is the premiership.

in the intro to match of the day.

How much of our TV license money are they spending on this?

How can that have been allowed to happen?

The apprenticeship lives on.

Maybe that is

a little subtle nod to those years, to the wilderness years.

Is that the BBC's property?

I don't think it is.

No, it's like...

They wouldn't use Tyler's Aguero moment, would they?

Would it be like ITV using the Ellis James Gold noise from some of their titles?

The BBC, whoever put this together,

have they gone to ITV to

get the rights or have they just done what we we've did?

been

off YouTube?

It's just absolutely mad.

Um definitely new for this season.

I'm not sure.

I have to say, I don't know if it was there last season.

They haven't drastically changed much of it, so it could well have been there last season.

They've had that little those snippets of cultural at the start of the intro for quite a while.

So I don't know if that's always been there.

Tilsley obviously has a bit of a match of the day.

Yeah.

Pedigree was was on it for years.

But so it's sort of you don't, yeah, you wouldn't notice it, would you?

Unless you were really eagle-eared.

This is quite boring, but it's not a chance that all of that stuff is now owned by the Premier League, is that?

That's my fear.

That is my fear, that that's the mundane explanation for this.

But even then, it's the Match of the Day body of work.

They're going to have something in there.

They're going to have their own stuff.

But James, an insider at Match of the Day, says it's being looked into.

Wow.

Heads will roll.

I'm telling you.

Someone's getting sacked.

I'm not proud of it.

But things standards have to be maintained.

I'm a BBC.

I'm a staunch BBC backer.

But I just want to see it flourish.

Poor.

I don't think the Premier League do own it, you know, because I think the Premier League have their own, you know, world feed sort of Premier League productions commentary, which you hear in various places.

But, I mean, maybe this sort of predates that.

But I think, yeah,

I think Skull Duggery is a fan of it.

Someone's got a sabotage for that.

I think someone has just done this.

I think someone's gone, oh, I wonder if anyone noticed.

I'll just stick this one in.

That's good.

That's a good line, isn't it?

Can we just get that one in?

Someone's either getting sacked for this, James, or they're going to have to get Tilty to re-record it.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, that would be great.

Perfect.

Well, maybe it was part of Wayne Rooney's negotiation for his new podcast and the deal with the BBC.

Can you just get a bit of my goal in, please, in a Match the Day intro?

It's ITV, I'm afraid, Wayne.

Doesn't matter.

Don't care.

Just do it.

It's a real deal breaker for me.

Yeah.

Genuinely up there as a possible explanation.

Speaking of scandals, the ongoing New York Times crossword scandal, this came from Orion Chuzzlewit.

The clue in the latest New York Times mini crossword, James, was soccer announcers cry after a goal.

And the answer is, it's in.

Yeah,

that is atrocious, isn't it?

You can't have an apostrophe in there, surely.

I mean, that's a separate issue, but a very pertinent one indeed.

But, Dave, I mean,

I sort of sympathise with it because it's in is an accepted canonical way of a commentator sort of announcing a goal, right?

I mean, it's okay.

It's not really trademarked for anyone, but it's a thing.

It's quite old school, isn't it, I think?

Who's the most it's in commentator?

It's a bit Motzon.

Maybe.

Motzon did love a sort of literal take on what's going on.

Yeah, just very short, oh, it's in, and it's in

because he was often quite incredulous himself for what had happened, especially in his later years.

He wasn't entirely sure that something actually had happened.

So it was often a case of him just confirming to himself, wasn't it?

Very much so.

Yeah, I can tell you that from

first-hand example.

Brian Moore, Dave, you suggested there, he loved, and it's in there, it's in there, nice.

Crucially.

Yeah.

And a lot of commentators have opted for the and it's there, which I love.

I like it's there, as if that's where the ball should belong, it's home.

Yeah, yeah, I think I mean, this isn't quite as bad as Euro Cup from um

last week, so it's it's all right.

The other thing they they often do, you notice if you do enough New York Times crosswords, you do notice that there's a lot of repetitive words that they get in there, particularly like the short ones, just to sort of fill a gap.

They often use

the clue will be something like crowd noise at a football match or crowd noise

in Spain or something.

And it's Olay.

They often have Ole in there.

Yeah.

It must be annoying when you have to resort, just recycle your answers, but who knows?

It's the New York Times we're talking about here.

A lot of chat about this this weekend on social media, James.

I'm starting to wonder if Michael Owen is moving into a new era of his existence, a kind of semi-ironic.

Here is a clip of him.

speaking to Rio Ferdinand and

covering lots of subjects, quite candidly, but this was my favourite.

In the main, it's easier to defend than it is to create, isn't it?

Explain that, please, because I don't know about that.

It's easier to spoil in many ways than to create, isn't it?

You asked me to build this house, I won't be able to do it.

But give me a few weeks, I'll be able to knock it down.

I really like his tone and the way he delivers his opinions.

I think Michael is increasingly class.

He has pivoted from being partridge to Brent, hasn't he?

Like, he was kind of unwittingly partridge to start off with.

That is completely knowing, that, isn't it?

And it is very, the delivery is so Brent.

And in fact, Rio Fernand's look into camera in the cliff, even that is straight out of the office as well.

Yeah.

But there's just the right amount of knowing this, Dave.

He's not, he's not, he's not doing it in a kind of what am I like kind of way.

He genuinely does believe this.

And if anything, what's the best the best thing about this for me is that Michael Owen is kind of going full circle.

He's going back to the 18-year-old Michael Owen that everyone used to talk about saying like he was way beyond his years.

Like he was actually quite a boring bloke.

He was just focused on being amazing.

Didn't give a shit about anything else.

He was really like a dull bloke at the age of 18, and he's just kind of gone back to that.

I think it's quite funny, yeah.

Yeah, I think, yeah, you're right, there is this hint of knowing this about it, but also, you're not quite sure.

I don't think it's just for show.

Like, I can imagine if you were, if you did end up spending any time with him, this is the sort of stuff he would come out with.

Yeah, because if you look at his tweets and stuff he puts on social media, it all sort of makes sense.

But also, in his defence, I kind of get what he's saying.

Yeah.

You know, there is a bit of this is not a bad point.

It's quite a good analogy, actually.

I think it would take you more than a few weeks to knock down a house bare-handedly, but like I hate to watch Michael Owen knock down or is he getting ahead some heavy machinery in?

He can afford some can't he, I suppose.

Yeah, I mean, I mean he'd probably back up his argument, James, with saying something like, you know,

how many defenders have won a ballon d'Or, for example?

How many defenders have commanded a hundred million pound fee or more?

These are all valid points, I guess.

Yeah, it is that kind of thing of

it does it does make you question yourself when you're agreeing with Michael Owen, but it does make perfect sense as well.

Yeah.

Because he goes on in the clip to say basically, you know, a park footballer could clear a ball into row Z, but they can't stick one in the top corner.

Like, and that, I mean, that's basically what, you know, so obviously defending, there's more to defending than just clearing the ball, obviously.

But

the basics of trying to stop something happening, I guess, is easy.

It is a bit easier to do than trying to make something happen creatively, I guess.

Michael Owens watched loads of sort of half-hearted montages on Match of the Day of defenders seeing the danger and dealing with it.

He said, I've had enough.

I've had enough.

It's harder to score 30 goals a season.

Fuck off.

Indignant Michael Owen is great and I want to see more of this.

I'm well glad he's putting energy into this.

Right, footballers names in things.

We haven't done many of these recently.

We've only got one for you today.

It's come from Darren Bradley and it's from the Jack Reacher novels.

Again, Jack Reacher's, the Jack Reacher author Lee Childs is an Aston Villa fan and he likes dropping in Aston Villa players.

We've also had a Keith Hackett in there before, but this is a new one.

It's from the latest novel, In Too Deep.

When he was done with the coffee, Reacher picked up the phone from the table next to the bed, hit 9 for an outside line, and dialed the number from memory.

The call was answered after two rings.

A man's voice came on the line.

It said, This is Woolwork.

Ronnie Woolwork was an FBI agent.

His path had crossed Reacher's a couple of times over the last few years.

For fuck's sake.

I mean, yeah,

I could see him being a strong-armed, shady character, Ronnie Woolwork.

Yes, but wow.

Ronnie Woolwork is not the name of an FBI agent definitely not no I don't really like it I mean we've got yeah Clint Hill was of course uh yeah JFK's bodyguard exactly right yeah yeah yeah Atlas as it turned out bizarre right that's the end of part one we'll be back very shortly

I get so many headaches every month It could be chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more.

Botox, onobotulinum toxin A, prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine.

It's not for those who have 14 or fewer headache days a month.

Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor.

Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms.

Alert your doctor right away, as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition.

Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk.

Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck, and injection side pain, fatigue, and headache.

Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness.

Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection.

Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions including ALS Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis or Lambert Eaton syndrome, and medications including botulinum toxins as these may increase the risk of serious side effects.

Why wait?

Ask your doctor.

Visit BotoxChronicMigraine.com or call 1-800-44-Botox to learn more.

Say hello to the next generation of Zendesk AI agents.

Built to deliver resolutions for everyone.

Zendesk AI agents easily deploy in minutes, not months, months, to resolve 30% of customer and employee interactions on day one, quickly turning monotonous tasks into autonomous solutions.

Loved by over 10,000 companies, Zendesk AI makes service teams more efficient, businesses run better, and your customers happier.

That's the Zendesk AI effect.

Find out more at Zendesk.com.

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.

Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game?

Well, with the name Your Price Tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills.

Try it at progressive.com.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates.

Price and coverage match limited by state law.

Not available in all states.

Oh, look at that!

That is wonderful!

Welcome back to Football Clichés.

We're recording episode episode 7 of Dreamland this week.

I think it's going to be an absolute classic.

It is our long-awaited review of the transfer window.

We were waiting for the Turkish window to shut.

Not going to wait for the Saudi one, though.

Can't be bothered.

For $5.99 a month, you'll get ad-free listening of all of our episodes, plus two episodes a month of Dreamland, our exclusive new show, and other bits as well.

Just go to dreamland.football clichés.com.

Right, looking forward to talking about this.

300-odd pages of the FA's written reasons for clearing lucas paqueta from his uh betting charges of or his charges of spot fixing as a west hand player and um buried in amongst this was some evidence from david moise and uh david moise was being presented with some evidence from stats perform integrity services who had noticed this kind of uncharacteristic patterns of play from lucas paqueta dave giving away yeah all these fouls and uh david moise basically said so he was presented with this analytical evidence and he just said, He just said, Are you sure that these people are specialists in football decision-making?

Because I don't see any point in me reading something that if it's from people who are only analysts and have no football experience.

He went full Allardyce on this.

Wow.

They haven't played the game.

Yeah, he went full.

They haven't played the game on it.

And he just said, Do you know what?

I'm not going to pay any attention to this.

So the person, the unnamed person, James, who was supplying him with this video footage with the analysis attached, said, Okay, do you know what?

I'll take this away from you.

He said, Okay, let's talk through the clips.

This is my world now.

Why he's doing it

sticking up for his own it basically clattenberg was also involved in the evidence providing here dave and uh and he basically just said yeah all these decisions were wrong so he basically was sticking the knife into the referees

these the agendas going on here are just superb wow so moise said this is my world now yeah to the guy wow that's like moisie is you know he does have that in him doesn't he yeah he's generally a lot of the time and increasingly as he gets a bit older he is sort of quite mild mannered quite sort sort of affable at times, but he definitely has that little...

He can turn, can't he?

The eyes can go and he can turn.

The FA were criticised heavily for the case that they brought to the Commission, James.

I think this is one of the pillars of this, is making David Moyes adhere to the findings of some spotty analyst.

Yeah, I mean, it's not...

I mean,

look, I mean, obviously it kind of went relatively well for Ketovis case, didn't it?

So, I mean, I guess Moyes, was this after Moyes had left West Ham?

It possibly was.

Moyes was in charge for the game,

or the games, but obviously he'd left by the time he was giving evidence, yeah.

I mean, it's not quite the O.

J.

Simpsons glove thing, is it?

But it does feel like a bit of a bungle.

The whole thing's mad, but

it's mad to me that 300 pages is necessary to solve all of this, but it but yeah, it's uh a lot of it is just like, yeah, this is what Paquetta does.

He just gives away, like, sort of fouls to break up play, and it's just

but um I am slightly fascinated, Dave, by situations where football knowledge is used as legal evidence.

And the most common situation for this is where civil cases are brought for bad tackles.

And they bring in football experts, which is basically people who have played football, to to analyse w whether whether a tackle is really bad or not.

And it j it just fascinates me that those two worlds could collide.

Like it's really like basically doing punditry in court, which is really cool.

But not in a sort of classic punditry way.

It's still a bit legalesy,

a bit sort of weird and clinical, isn't it?

This is actually my favourite part of the 300-page written reasons for Lucas Paquetta's case.

Someone said, James, that two quick fouls is something that is a pattern that repeats in a player's career, as is illustrated in the foul data over his time at West Ham.

Stats Perform integrity servers didn't agree with this, and they said that the analysts had used fouls within three minutes of each other as a measure of quick succession.

In their view, two fouls in three minutes did not constitute quick succession.

This is like the clichés podcast.

So get these lads on.

Yeah.

We're just going to welcome Mr.

Adam Hurry to the stand now.

Adam, in your professional opinion, where is the threshold for fouls in quick succession?

This is pure the second half of a midweek adjudication panel to fodder.

This is.

Stats perform integrity services, Dave, believe that two fouls within one minute would be a fairer measure of quick succession.

Yeah.

I think I agree.

I mean, three minutes is still pretty quick succession, but it does depend on the password

as well.

One minute is nuts, isn't it?

Surely.

That's a really short period of time.

Which is really hard to

It's a family game.

Yeah, foul, booking, restart of play, foul.

Basically,

three minutes just seems so long.

Meet him in the middle and just say two, two and two.

Yeah.

Simple.

It's a simple message.

I want that.

The problem is in court, you can't just sort of trail off like we can and just move on.

This court case is brought to you by NordVPN.

Speaking of David Moyes, I was thinking about this last time we mentioned him on the pod.

I don't know if I've ever told you this, but I once had to smuggle him out of Wembley Stadium.

Right?

It was the Caramel Cup final, the one where Kepa refused to be substituted

when Murichi Osari was Chelsea manager.

Chelsea be Manned City.

And David Moyes was doing co-comms for us on Talk Sport, and

he had to get back to Euston to go back up north where he lived.

But he was quite worried that basically the Chelsea fans and the city fans, if they saw him outside sort of at the end of the game, trying to make his way through the crowds, would just give him a bit of abuse and stuff.

Just give him a bit of hassle.

But he was also quite keen to like get out of there pretty quickly, so he didn't want to hang about in the stadium.

So I had to order him a taxi to get away from Wembley, back to Euston.

But if you've ever been to Wembley, like, you know, there's basically no way of getting a taxi close to the stadium.

You have to walk a little bit through all those buildings and hotels and everything outside.

So I had to basically, he had like a hood on his coat that like really pulled down tight.

And I had to basically sort of shepherd him through the crowds.

And the thing with David Moyes is, now next time you see him, you might see what I'm talking about.

He does have quite big eyes.

He saw big sunken eyes.

And when you've got a hood on as well, you did look a bit like E.T.

Stick him on a little BMX.

Exactly, yeah, yeah, no.

Once we got him through the crowds, I had a lovely hour with him in the back of a cab.

Bloody hell.

Very nice man.

There you go.

Always good to have a story to bookend this sort of stuff.

But to bookend part one of one of the clichés pod today, this came from Rory Bunk.

It's a story about Alexander Isak in the mirror.

Liverpool signed Alexander Isak on Transfer Deadline Day to end one of the transfer sagas of the summer.

But it may take some time for the Sweden international to hit the ground running.

James, Rory says,

can you make the claim that hitting the ground running is something you can work up to?

No, you can't.

Yeah, right.

That's quite literally against the whole concept.

The very nature of it implies that.

Yeah, yeah, that seems...

Yeah, I don't think you can kind of preempt that either, in no circumstances.

No.

Get up to speed.

It may take some time for the Swedish international to get up to speed.

Come on, lads.

Spot on.

Easy solution.

Easily done.

Don't often do these little shout-outs, Dave, but we've had a message from Joseph Pearson.

He says, No disrespect to egg, but can you give me a shout-out as I'm only nine years old and I was eight when I first started listening?

Wow.

What lovely little bit of information at the end there.

Yeah, that's great.

Listening across his birthdays.

That's class.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nice.

What is he?

Eight, nine, ten?

Yeah.

But yeah, wow.

he's to our knowledge, got to be the youngest listener, surely.

Yeah, can't come to the pub, I'm afraid, Joseph, but thanks for listening to the pod.

Anyway, James, here is an example of the cliché's community at his niche but efficient best.

Someone on the Reddit page, Jam Nut, asked, has a Desmond ever made it 2-2?

I was watching Match the Day and Antoine Semenio made it 2-2 versus Liverpool.

And it got me wondering if anyone with the first or last name of Desmond has ever made it 2-2.

You know, obviously I launched into this with gusto, but someone got in there straight away, immediate fee, 7536, and said the only one I could find,

Desmond and Zay scored for FC Gifu against Catala Toyama in the J2 league in 2013 to make it 2-2 in the 88th minute.

Fair play.

Yeah, that's nice.

People could have been searching for this for years, Dave.

Yeah, I mean, surely there are a few...

Like Des Walker, did he ever score

an equaliser in a 2-2?

Are there any other Des is in English football football history?

Must be a point.

Maybe a couple.

Yeah, one closer to home if any listeners are listening.

Has Richard Desmond, the owner of the

Express or whatever it is, ever scored an equaliser in a charity match?

Unlikely, Dave.

James, have you ever wondered this?

Probably not, but we'll try it anyway.

CM Katak got in touch on Reddit and he says he was inspired by the phrase of sharing a point when two teams draw.

So he's made a statistical analysis of the Premier League since 1992.

If a tax man team, that is a team who collected the third point from every draw,

was competing in the league.

So every time a team's draws, they get a point each and

that the third point goes to the taxman team, which is a hilarious concept.

HMRCFC.

Yeah.

So he dove deeper into the statistical phenomenon that is the one point lost and dug into the EPL archives.

Of the 33 Premier League season, the taxman would have won 23 of the titles with only Chelsea in 05-06, Man City 11-12, 13-14, and others, and Liverpool 19-20 pipping them to the title.

Do with that information as you will.

How has this not been done before, James?

This is class.

I mean, it's an incredible number of points if you break it down.

In those early Premier League seasons, in particular, looking at this table, they're absolutely miles ahead.

That's just a complete waste of points.

So the Premier League has just been pissing points away.

From what I can see, in 93-94, the Taxman team got at least 140 points.

Why were there so many draws?

There's more games.

That's a bigger league.

Yeah, true.

Yeah, true.

All these points just sitting there on the shelf, collecting dust.

Put them to good use.

For all the chat of kind of the evolution of Premier League tactics and how much it's changed the game, it is a fairly steady line from like 1999 through to now, isn't it?

There's not much deviation in terms of the number of draws there have been.

We should have a wealth tax in the Premier League.

So if the top teams draw, if like the designated big six draw, the promoted teams get the extra points.

Even things up.

Yeah.

Yeah.

If Liverpool Man City draw,

the extra point goes to the team that's bottom of the league.

Not bad.

Well, on a weekend, all of the points could go into a pot on one weekend, and then whoever, like,

you know, whoever gets match of a day, man of a day, gets all the points for their team.

I know they don't do that anymore, but you know, that kind of thing.

Okay, good idea then.

Yeah.

Thanks anyway.

Yeah.

These work.

Yeah.

I don't know whether to be blown away or not that the tax man would have won 23 of the Premier League titles since its inception.

It's extraordinary.

Don't know who'd be playing for this lot, but there we go.

Alex Kebble, Alex Murr, and Lee Warner all spotted this, Dave, when they went to see the new film Caught Stealing.

Alex Kebble says, I'm sure you've been sent this already by now, but the new Darren Aronofsky film Caught Stealing contains what must be the first ever example of the reverse premiership misnomer.

When annoyed about someone using a baseball analogy, Matt Smith's character says, How would you like it if I started talking about the Premier League, despite the film being set in 1998?

Yeah.

Lee Warner says it's set in 1998 and someone makes a comment about the Premier League but in 1998 it would have been called the Premiership.

It really bothered me because everything else in the film was so well done to match the era.

Dave I'm not sure about this because of course we know that the official name of the organisation is the Premier League and the competition name has changed over time.

I still think it would be acceptable to call it the Premier League in 1998 wouldn't it?

I don't know what I was saying back then.

I can't remember.

I think obviously Premiership would have been more widely used but in the same way that if someone says Premiership now, you still know know what they mean, and it's sort of still just about allowable.

Yeah, if you say Premier League in 1998, you're not going to get anyone looking at you strangely, like it would be obvious to see.

I actually saw this, I actually saw this film

last week, and it's true.

Like, it is very a big part of the film is the fact that it's set in late 90s New York.

There's lots of faithful attention to detail, like flip phones, what's going on, and you know, they recreate like the old New York Mets stadium, like Shea Stadium.

There's a scene where that's in, and they go to a baseball game and stuff.

But I think I went to the toilet when this, when this happened, because I definitely would have noticed this.

And I'm pretty sure I know the scene that it would have been in because,

you know, when you sort of pick your moments, you go, right, I don't think much is going to happen in the next few years.

But the time I got to be here.

Exactly.

Yeah, so yeah, I must have missed this.

James, think back to 1998.

Were you calling it the Premiership, like by default?

I really think it might have been interchangeable back then.

And I know we've kind of lent fully into Premier League now.

But i'm sure you know the kind of fans chanting we are premier league we are premier league when they've been promoted or whatever or premier league are having a laugh when teams have been relegated or failed to get promoted i'm sure that goes back to then i'm certain they're not changing the premiership would it doesn't really got a real mental black hole here i i really cannot remember where the premiership really caught on as the thing but then the kind of cultural hangover james of people still calling it the premiership by accident suggested it did so yeah i guess that's the power of the branding i guess i've done a fantastic job with the rebrand.

Yeah, there you go.

Right.

Here's some classic clichés questions for you.

Dylan Brady writes in and says, I don't know if this has ever been discussed before, but are there clear rules for what can mar a game and what can merely overshadow it?

He thinks an injury can do both, but bad refereeing can only overshadow.

What else can mar or overshadow?

I think marring, Dave, is worse.

Because like marring is like serious issues, crowd violence, I don't know, racist abuse, for example.

That can mar a game, regardless of the results.

So

it leaves the football behind and says the whole spectacle was marred by this very serious thing that transcends football.

Things that can overshadow a game are things that are just quite incidental, but don't threaten the spectacle itself, like a bad injury.

David Boost's broken leg overshadowed.

Yeah, that game wasn't marred.

Did it mar it?

Maybe.

It might actually might have marred it.

It was married.

But I don't think it was marred.

I think you're right.

I think marring is like outside influence.

It's yeah, a step away from football.

Like, it's more important than football.

It's like the game could have still still been a good game.

Like England a few years ago when they were away in I think it was was it Bulgaria, but there was they won the game, but the game was marred by the fact that there was racist abuse and that kind of takes centre stage, rightly.

Whereas, yeah, overshadowed is doesn't seem quite as serious.

My take on this was actually that a game would be marred by something that was kind of peppered throughout.

So like bad challenges or racism from the crowd or whatever else, whereas an overshadowing would be like one isolated incident so actually i would say the dave boost leg break which was the thing i was thinking of earlier as well that overshadowed that game rather than marring it but then the whole thing around it maybe marred the game as well because obviously it was just like unprecedented premier league injury so it's a poor example

vomiting on the pitch maybe yeah yeah exactly i mean yeah that that's that's close to a marring what about um cantonar's kung fu kick did that overshadow that game it definitely overshadowed the whole season if anything yeah it met it met the overshadowing threshold but did it mar the game?

I don't know if it did.

But did Roy Keene clobber and Gareth Southgate mar or overshadow the game?

That's the question.

That was the same game, wasn't it?

Yeah.

Was it?

That's not the same game.

I think it was, wasn't it?

I thought it was.

The one where he trod on his balls.

That was an FA Cup semi-final, I think.

Was that a park?

Was it the previous game, and that's why there was needlework?

Right.

Yeah, okay.

But yeah.

So, yeah, like a big, like a straightforward broken leg or a cruciate ligament injury could definitely overshadow a game, I think.

What about

a particularly bad VAR era?

So, the Liverpool-Tottenham game is overshadowed by an inexplicable VAR cock-up.

I think that's fair.

It's not marred by VAR.

By VAR.

VAR couldn't mar unless the truck blew up or something.

God.

It's miles away anyway, doesn't it?

It's 200 miles away anyway.

No one will ever hear it.

Not even in a truck.

You're thinking of Andy Townsend, mate.

Okay, I think we've established it.

Big, serious things are marring.

Incidental, specific situations are the overshadowers.

But this is more fun.

This came from Angus Wakefield.

It's a BBC live blog update during Oxford 1 Coventry 1.

And Peter Rhodes Brown, the former Oxford and Chelsea winner, was on BBC Radio, Oxford, saying that goal and the timing has certainly put the cat amongst the pigeons, hasn't it?

Angus Wakefield asks James, what exactly is a cat amongst the pigeons in football terms?

This was a grotesque use of the phrase as it was describing an equaliser from Oxford in the 19th minute.

An equaliser in the 85th minute perhaps, but not midway through the first half.

Please advise.

What kind of goal, what kind of scenario is pure catamonster pigeons?

Who scored the first goal for QPR at the Etihad in that, in the Aguero game?

Because that is the definitive kind of version of it for me.

Jamie Mackey.

Big match, the end of a season, an obvious favourite, an obvious underdog, and the obvious underdog go in front and kind of threaten to derail the bigger club.

So yeah, I think you're right.

It was Jamie Mackey, I think who scored.

That one was Gibraltar Sisai.

Jibbal Sisay scored in the 48th minute to make it 1-1 in that game.

And he seems like quite a good cat amongst the pigeons man as well, doesn't he?

A cat among the pigeonsman.

Do some players lend themselves a cat amongst the pigeons?

A bit of a controversial character at times.

Right.

Would the second goal for QPR that day, James, that put them 2-1 up, be cat amongst the pigeons?

Can you put two cats among...

I was going to say.

More two cats amongst the pigeons.

If anything, less spectacular, I imagine.

I think that's all right.

I think, I mean, what I also think, I mean, whilst that is very cat amongst the pidgey game, Dave, I also like cat amongst the pigeons for a two-legged situation, especially when the away goals rule was still around.

But I had a little search for cat amongst the pigeons in my Twitter feed, and there was a huge outpouring of cat amongst the pigeons when Villarreal scored twice in the second leg.

of their Champions League semi-final against Liverpool in 2022 to bring it back to 2-2 on aggregate.

Francis Cocherland scoring just before half-time, and that was deemed to be a cat amongst the pigeons situation.

Liverpool then scored three times in in the second half to remove the pigeons.

Remove the cat, if anything.

Okay.

Save the pigeons.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What about

Sam Marino's goal against England?

The really quick one.

Is that Cat Amongst the Pigeons?

You can't really deny its credentials there, can you, really?

But was there ever going to be any doubt that England were going to come back and thrash them?

Is it too silly to be Cat Amongst the Pigeons, that one?

I mean, there was the goal difference thing, but I don't think it ever felt like that was the moment that it was going to kind of threaten to derail England or whatever.

Yeah.

It had kind of been and gone, hadn't it?

Yeah, but Cat Amongst the Pigeons is not saying that the, you know, you're expecting the pigeons to still get away, aren't you?

Here we go.

The cat's not going to kill all the pigeons.

It's not going to kill all the pigeons.

He's just going to get in there.

He's going to stir it up a bit.

Cause chaos.

Might get one, yeah, but most of them are going to get away.

So it's not a fatal blow for all the pigeons.

Here's Peter Drury's commentary for the Villarreal equaliser, by the way.

Capoose crossed cockado!

Now the cat is amongst the pigeons!

Seems quite weird to actually hear someone say it out loud on the commentary.

Needs a couple more adjectives in there.

Sort of, yeah, here's the mischievous cat amongst the perturbed pigeons.

Does it feel dreary-ish to say cat amongst the pigeons?

He went a bit too literal there as well, though.

Like, you sort of would say, oh, that'll put the cat amongst the pigeons.

But he's actually gone, the cat is amongst the pigeons.

The yellow submarine among the liver birds.

I don't know.

At blinds.com, it's not just about window treatments.

It's about you, your style, your space, your way.

Whether you DIY or want the pros to handle it all, you'll have the confidence of knowing it's done right.

From free expert design help to our 100% satisfaction guarantee, everything we do is made to fit your life and your windows.

Because at blinds.com, the only thing we treat better than windows is you.

Visit blinds.com now for up to 50% off with minimum purchase plus a professional measure at no cost.

Rules and restrictions apply.

Honey bunches of otes la forma perfecta dependar en la conto familia.

Cono ju las crucientes y miyel leverad qual los niños les encanta.

Ademas delicíos estos trosos de granola, nuces y fruta que'todos vana dis brutal.

Honey bunches devotes para todos.

Toka alban para saber más.

Attention, all small biz owners.

At the UPS store, you can count on us to handle your packages with care.

With our certified packing experts, your packages are properly packed and protected.

And with our pack and ship guarantee, when we pack it and ship it, we guarantee it.

Because your items arrive safe or you'll be reimbursed.

Visit the ups store.com/slash guarantee for full details.

Most locations are independently owned.

Product services, pricing, and hours of operation may vary.

See Center for Details.

The UPS store.

Be unstoppable.

Come into your local store today.

Okay, let's move on.

Here's a fascinating question from Visual Cantaloop, James.

They say, Are Sunderland the most badge in the centre of the shirt club?

It looks much more fitting than Spurs's for some reason.

So both of the clubs have got their badge in the centre of their shirt this season.

Spurs are quite centre of the shirt, but I wouldn't say it defines them.

No, and I'll tell you why it works better with Sunderland as well.

It's stripes, definitely.

Right.

That's interesting.

I didn't consider that.

You think that lends itself to it better?

Does Sunderland have a central stripe, or are they kind of entirely

central?

It's a central stripe.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

that that gives it a nice kind of sense of it's not symmetry, is it?

But you know, I mean, it feels like level, it all feels kind of like neat and tidy.

The Spurs one looks a bit

naff, I think.

Okay, I mean,

I put it to you, and this is quite a big punt.

No club in history has ever, no club's most iconic kit has a centralised badge.

I'd love to be proven wrong on that, but I just don't think I spent a lot of time looking at that this morning.

I don't massively like centralised badges, Dave, to be honest with you.

No, the current Chelsea shirt with the centralised, they've had to centralise the badge to make room for the Club World Cup winners

badge, haven't they?

Because that's on the left

breast where the club crest would normally be.

And it just looks, it looks, yeah, it looks rubbish.

It looks like they, on first glance, it looks like Chelsea have changed their badge to like a big

gold circle.

But yeah, I think it is, it's quite hard to pull off a stylish central badge.

but like if you do, you could have a real classic shirt on your hands.

Potentially.

I think.

I reckon Dave and I have the same favourite centralised badge shirt.

Go on.

Mine, I would say, England at Euro 96.

Yeah, wow, you know what?

I didn't even think of that.

Yeah, of course.

Of course.

It's purely incidental.

It was just

a sudden design movement in the mid-90s to go, do you know what?

I thought we'll do centralised badges for a bit.

There's a lot of umbrella having looked for.

Manchester United had a couple in that era as well with a centralised badge.

Not much fuss was made of the centralised England badge because we never really had, we hadn't had one before.

I don't certainly don't remember.

Before social media, mate.

That'd be kicking right off about it now.

But I asked our listeners, Dave, who are the most centralised badgy team?

That's club or country in football history.

Chris says Bolton, not sure why.

Gary Regan says Bolton or Charlton, not sure why, which is always the greatest answer to this question on the cliché pod because that means they can just feel it in their bones.

Bolton had a centralised badge from 1993 to 2003.

10 years of a centralised badge.

That's a good stint.

Yep.

Charlton had five years in the Barclays era, 2003 to 2008.

So both instincts were proved correct.

In a more literal historical sense, James, Ajax had a centralised badge from 1973 to 1981.

And so that was the first time they'd ever had a badge on their shirt.

Centralized.

Next question.

Yeah, okay.

And then from 1991 to 2008,

they're regular central badges, but you've explained it.

It's a centralised stripe as well.

There you go.

The one that leapt out for me, and this is purely instinctive, was Bournemouth.

And again, stripes, I don't think, are always centralised.

But I've done the research.

They've never actually had one in the Premier League.

But between

1988 and 2002, they had five.

And between 2008 and 2011, they had three in a row.

So they've had like eight in a sort of 25-year period.

So maybe it's pretty good game.

Maybe it was against Premier League rules for a bit, you know, when they said you couldn't cut stripes into your pits or something.

He's like, I can't have that.

At least be consistent, please, if possible.

I think I had a Barcelona shirt.

One of the first

football shirts that I got.

I went on holiday in like 99, and I think they're, I think that was centralised.

Was it the home or away?

Home.

I had the away one.

I had the orange one.

It was 98, 99.

It was an orange one with a centralised badge.

Fair play.

Kindred spirits.

Yeah, there we go.

But do you know what?

My theory about this, to rival your centralised stripe theory, James, is that it's a vaguely communist thing.

Like, I think it's a vaguely sort of central to East European thing from.

You've been to Bournemouth.

do you know what?

I'm backed up by this.

Hungary had a centralised badge from 1950 to 1989, the longest stretch of a centralised badge I can find, 39 unbroken years.

Czechoslovakia had one from 1954 until 1990.

So there it is.

Their most iconic kit is going to have a centralised badge, then, is what you're saying, isn't it?

Absolutely.

So you're Hungary 1953 at Wembley, when they threw English football into a state of self-doubt.

Centralised badge.

Antony Ponenka, 1976, centralized badge.

Hungry Checkers of Akira and Bolton are all going to have their most iconic kits.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, there you go.

Wow.

What other podcast is covering this?

Nothing.

Right, final item from our listeners.

Tom Holder writes in and says, I was at the Oasis gig in New York the other day and noticed during the first song that Liam was berating a sound engineer due to a problem with his setup.

After a few seconds, it appeared to be fixed, and Liam pointed to his head and clearly mouthed, Fucking switch on, eh?

That just great.

It's because it works.

It's a universal concept.

When could I use that in my life?

Would I say it to my child without the exclusive?

Come on, switch on.

No.

Bonehead turns to the drummer and goes, oh, they're arguing amongst themselves here.

We're in trouble.

Not again.

Excellent.

I haven't got a speaking off today.

It's time for Keys and Grey Corner.

Yes, it's the international break.

So Keys has been in Mallorca.

He says it's his second home.

I feel like he needs to mix things up a little bit, Dave, especially just another sunny place, isn't it?

His second home.

Well, so then, does that mean the UK's third?

I don't know about his tax situation.

Yeah.

Is Doha number one?

Doha is surely number one.

Doha's, yeah, yeah, yeah, this beautiful little country is his number one.

But yeah, I believe he thinks

he's relegated to third.

Yeah, maybe.

I don't know how often he goes back to Coventry.

But he's been in London this week, James, specifically at the old American Embassy, which was bought by the Qataris in 2009 and turned into a...

a lovely hotel.

Some of the old features have been kept.

The big eagle still there.

On the roof of the old American Embassy tonight, my Qatari friends have done a magnificent job.

Thank you, Mr.

Trump.

So strange to just have Keesy and Trump in the same sphere of conversation there.

Is it though?

I'm not sure it necessarily is.

He's tweeted about him several times, none of them favourably, I can tell you, which is reassuring.

Yeah.

If Charlie was here,

he would say he's not surprised by that.

He wouldn't have Keesy down as a Trump fan, would he, Dave?

Yeah, I don't think this is him praising Trump.

Is he sort of saying thanks for selling it off

in the way that you did?

Yeah.

Exactly.

But do you know what?

You know how he said the other day that the Titanic was birthed in Liverpool when he was talking about the Everton Stadium, and it turns out that the Titanic had never been in Liverpool ever.

No.

Despite the fact that Keesy claims he's a big Titanic buff and he's got a scale model of the Titanic in his Doha home.

So he got that wrong.

He's got this one wrong as well.

The sale of the old American Embassy was actually completed during the Obama administration.

Oh, there you go.

Imagine Keesey going, Andy, we're going down.

I've found us a sub.

We're going down to see her.

Magnificent animal.

There she is.

Don't worry, we won't implode.

Okie, yep.

Yep.

On that note, thank you to you, James Moore.

Thank you.

Thanks to you, Dave Walker.

Thank you.

Thanks to everyone for listening.

We'll be back on Thursday.

See you then.

This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network.

Start your journey toward the perfect engagement ring with Yadav, family-owned and operated since 1983.

We'll pair you with a dedicated expert for a personalized one-on-one experience.

You'll explore our curated selection of diamonds and gemstones while learning key characteristics to help you make a confident, informed decision.

Choose from our signature styles or opt for a fully custom design crafted around you.

Visit yachtivejewelry.com and book your appointment today at our new Union Square showroom and mention podcast for an exclusive discount.

This is the story of the one.

As a maintenance supervisor at a manufacturing facility, he knows keeping the line up and running is a top priority.

That's why he chooses Granger.

Because when a drive belt gets damaged, Granger makes it easy to find the exact specs for the replacement product he needs, and next-day delivery helps ensure he'll have everything in place and running like clockwork.

Call 1-800-GRANGER, clickgranger.com, or just stop by.

Granger for the ones who get it done.