Own-goal flavours, casual retirements & football clubs as sperm counts

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It's the Smuckers Uncrustables podcast with your host, Uncrustables.

Okay, today's guest is rough around the edges.

Please welcome Crust.

Thanks for having me.

Today's topic, he's round with soft pillowy bread.

Hey, filled with delicious PBJ.

Are you talking about yourself?

And you can take him anywhere.

Why'd you invite him?

And we are out of time.

Are you really cutting me off?

Uncrustables are the best part of the sandwich.

Sorry, Crust.

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

is gas going to have a crack he is you know oh he's there

brilliant

but jeez he's round the goalkeeper 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 giving 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!

The calm after the glorious clichés live in London storm.

Lee Dixon invents some welcome new goalkeepers not saving that hyperbole.

Sean Deish's podcasting career set to be interrupted by his actual job.

What characterises the fine line between a comedy-owned goal and a bizarre one?

Footballers who forget to retire, terrible football speak in microwave adverts, Duncan Ferguson takes us deep into the mind of a goal scorer, and Peterborough's slightly unnecessary passing shot for a player sent out on loan.

Brought to your ears by Goal Hanger Podcasts.

This is Football Clichés.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Football Clichés.

I'm Adam Hurry, and joining me on the adjudication panel today are two people who I hope are as weathered feeling as I am.

It's Charlie Eccleshare and David Walker.

Charlie, the Hackney Empire, we did it.

Yeah, it really was an incredible night.

Amazing venue, great crowd, great drinks after.

Just ticked every box, really.

Packed to the absolute pat rafters.

That place.

Dave, it's a little bit surreal.

I genuinely have run out of superlatives and platitudes for the post-show period.

I actually,

it's the most intense come down I've ever felt.

It's really difficult to deal with.

Yeah, it was quite a sight seeing.

Well, I reckon there are about 200 odd people that made the journey over the road from the Hackney Empire into

the Wetherspoons in Hackney Central.

And yeah, I think there were some bewildered locals who probably frequent that place on a Sunday evening because it's quiet and they can get a cheap pint.

And then all of a sudden, hordes of football clichés listeners turned up.

There was literally a queue out the door for the bar.

But it was great.

We spoke to so many good people, had some really nice chats with everyone.

You did a massive game of happy hunting grounds in one of the booths.

And people came from far and wide as well.

We spoke to a guy who came from Seattle all the way just for this show.

We had Haitor who from Ethiopia via Brazil.

There was a couple who came from Budapest.

There was a guy I spoke to who was from came over from Brooklyn, came over for a wedding, but it was a happy coincidence that he listens to the pod, so he was able to go to our show as well.

So, yeah, well, look, whether you came from another continent or whether you came from down the road, we were very happy to see everyone there.

It was a great night, and we, yeah, we thank everyone for coming.

Yeah, nicely put.

Yeah, special mention to Aitor, a star of the show in many respects.

I had lunch with him the afternoon before the show.

I'm not going to do that for any listener.

That's a top-tier dreamland.

He's paid a lot for that.

Yeah, just an absolutely flawless human being.

Hate all your legend.

My dad dad came.

He hates football and he absolutely loved the show.

So what better validation could there be?

So yeah, all in just a tremendous evening.

But we don't stop here.

Cliches Live goes to Birmingham and Dublin this week, Thursday and Friday night.

Doors open at 6.30.

Show at 7.30.

And we'll finish, well, maybe at 9.30.

Who knows how long the fun will continue?

And then we'll be straight to the pub afterwards for some lovely chat.

So go to tickets.footballcliches.com.

It's just an incredible show.

Right, adjudication panel time.

I want to take you back to England versus Wales at Wembley on ITV.

Lee Dixon brings out a brand new way to describe a goalkeeper who can't save a shot.

The little touch just takes it a little bit further away from the defender.

He can't get his leg up to block it.

Brooks.

And the keepers absolutely no chance.

Got a dive last Thursday and he still want to save that.

Charlie, I think this is brilliant.

I think the whole two goalkeepers wouldn't have saved that.

Yeah.

Thing was getting a bit knackered.

This is great.

Just turning the time space continuum on its head yeah i mean we hear about goalies diving too early but um yeah

maybe not in this instance i don't know we've heard about goalies on a stepladder saved it seven days is a lot dave that's a lot of time to use in this situation i think yeah i sort of like it but also yeah it doesn't bear any scrutiny whatsoever does it of course absolutely not but yeah yeah it really really rammed home the unsavability of bakayasaka's effort next up this came from dave williams here's scott minto on Talk Sport talking about Thomas Tuchall criticising the England fans at Wembley.

And do you think that maybe then bearing in mind the information that you seem to have here, that's a play on his behalf?

No, I don't think it's a play.

I think it's just him being him.

I think he is what he is, and he's a very forthright, very believing in himself,

and rightly so, because he is, you know, one of the top managers in the world.

So I've got no beef to grind at all with Thomas Tuchall.

That's it.

I want it to be beef to grind from now on.

You can see how it's happened, Dave.

Yeah, you can.

Grinding the beef.

Lovely fine mints.

Where does the England pod, which I know, which is now obviously the official mouthpiece of all things England, Dave, stand on the thorny issue of Tuchel against the England fans?

You know, the reaction that stemmed from that from various outlets, I felt like I could have predicted

in advance.

It's not that big a deal, is it?

We were there on Thursday and we were actually recording our post-match pod while he was doing that interview and we saw we saw the quotes like midway through our record.

So we kind of reacted to them on the spot a bit and it's weird.

Like he's not, he's definitely not wrong.

Like it's not a pulsating atmosphere at Wembley, but it rarely is.

And it's at friendlies in particular, but even qualifies as well.

Like Wembley is just England at Wembley.

There's a lot of families.

There's a lot of kids.

There are like a hardcore of England fans who go home and away who are there, but there's no real sort of singing section.

So there's perhaps like a bit like he needs to sort of learn a little bit that like that's just not the way.

But also I think it speaks to the fact that like

this is something that I think an English manager probably wouldn't say.

He's got that distance where he can sort of challenge us a bit and say, look guys, like I think we need to do this better, whether it be the fans or whether it be any other aspect of the whole situation.

And also like he's just had two matches, two good performances, two wins, probably feels a bit bold and confident.

But on the flip side, I was sort of thinking, ah, you've finally had two games that you've won really well and people are starting to feel positive.

And then you just throw this in there of your own accord.

I like that slight loose canonness about him, Charlie.

Doesn't like to do things the easy way, does he, Tuchel?

No, clearly.

But some of the more reasoned aspects of the criticism that I read, Charlie, was that, you know, Thomas Tuchel's just passing through.

He doesn't really care how he's perceived in this way.

He's not going to leave that sort of legacy like an English manager might do.

But it did spill over into something like this.

I read that Tuchel should have been more mindful of the fact that the Metropolitan Line was not running

after the game.

Doesn't know our tubes.

Yeah, there were delays.

And if he'd been checking his TFL app, he would have been across there.

It's quite a weird thing as well, because, I mean, obviously, you know, you want to keep the fans on side in the broader sense, but the atmosphere at Wembley will make so little difference to how this Ignan team does.

I mean, it's not like a club team where that will decide their fate, you know, their home form.

They're going to win whatever easy games they have left to qualify.

And then it's all about how this tiny pocket of support, you know, helps them in whatever way it can in the US and, you know, Canada and Mexico.

But it's not like it's really going to make that much of a difference anyway.

And also, it's not going to change at Wembley either, Dave.

He's not going to suddenly get a reaction out of a completely nebulous sort of set of Englandmans who may or may not choose to go to an England game.

We're not talking about 80,000 hardcore here who are going to respond to their managers' rallying cry, are they?

Exactly.

You know, away from home in Latvia.

on Tuesday, I'm sure they'll get a big response.

But you know what I think the big problem is about Wembley?

The paper aeroplanes.

They need to sort out, like, there's too many people that have got, like, printed tickets and they turn them into paper aeroplanes and start chucking them about everywhere.

Come on, guys.

Get that sorted.

Is that what it is?

Is it printed tickets?

Is that where they're going?

Not all of it, but some of it is, yeah.

I feel like that could be a fad that passes.

But, you know, we've all seen the viral video of it hitting the Peru player on the head, and it's people just trying to live up to that.

Right, back to domestic matters now, Charlie.

Sean Deish is emerging as the frontrunner for the Nottingham Forest job.

Should Ange Postacoglu be binned after mere weeks in the job?

Could this be the first managerial unveiling press conference where we hear a Brian Clough impression from the incumbent?

I don't think he'd do it in his unveiling press conference.

I think it might be more when he gets sacked and he's then on a podcast talking about his experience at Forest and then he feels emboldened to

kind of do that.

I don't think he'd go.

You're already writing him off.

You've not even got the job.

Yeah, I mean, well, I think we probably all know how it's going to go.

But yeah, I don't think, I think unveiling certainly would be too soon.

Yeah, I think, yeah, it's interesting.

He might do.

Like, he obviously, it would be something of a full circle moment for him because he started his career at Forest when Clough was still there.

Like, didn't really play, but he was sort of in the youth team in and around it.

But I wouldn't put it past him doing it.

It's like towards the end of the press conference, maybe.

What must the producers of his podcast feel right now, Dave?

Sean, I mean, at least make half a dozen episodes before you actually go off and do the thing you're you're actually employed to do.

Yeah, that was always the danger.

I remember working with like Stuart Pierce years ago at Talksbook, and

he would be sort of all in with us, but there would always be the provisor of like, if I get the call to like a football job, assistant to David Moyes or managerial job, whatever, I'm out of here, sort of thing.

And that was kind of always understood.

But I guess it's probably the same with Daishi.

Yeah, I'll do this, but like, you know, there's always the chance that something comes up.

Yes, meanwhile, in international football, Israel were thumped by Norway.

And Beautiful Square says the BBC's write-up of Israel's own goal used comedic to describe it when is an own goal comedic and what else can it be apart from bizarre so what's the threat what's the kind of cut off point Charlie for a an own goal to be weird and then funny like what fundamentally

defines a funny own goal from a just a a hapless one?

Yeah, I mean you you imagine like comedic or comedy own goal.

You do think sort of can I picture this on like own goals and gaffs?

Yeah, Jamie Pollock.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, I mean, I guess a bizarre one could also go on own goals and gaffes, but in a slightly different way.

I think that one, a sort of bizarre one on own goals and gaffes, would be more one that takes a little bit of like diving into and working out, you know, what's happened here?

Whereas a comedic's more like

as he whacks the ball off his head and it flies in or whatever.

It's more just sort of slapstick.

Yeah, I think comedic, yeah, you're right.

There's like, it's a level down from that.

It's a bit more humble than the sort of bizarre freak own goal.

Because there are own goals that are just unlucky.

They still have, they have to go down as own goals, like the ball coming off the bar and hitting the keeper in the back of the head or a defender at a corner sort of goes for the clearance but just slightly gets it wrong and it goes in and it's an own goal.

But comedic is like when a player's under no real pressure but still somehow ends up striking it or heading it into the back of the net.

Like there was the...

Wayne Hatswell.

Yeah, was there one at Leeds earlier this season, I think, against Fulham?

It It was like a bit of a weird one where the defenders ended up just sort of

just heading

out into the goal.

A couple of weeks ago for Ribblesdale, the Oppo scored an own goal, and it was one where we all sort of looked around and gone, did that just happen?

Like one of our players just sort of squared the ball across a six-yard box and the defender just clearly didn't really have his bearings and just planted it into the net.

Wow.

Like a good finish.

He just put it into the top corner.

He obviously thought he was going to clear it because he was under pressure, but he just sort of got it wrong and it's just gone in.

Where would you classify?

Do you remember that Alan Smith one for Leeds where he kind of slices it at the near post from a corner?

He catches it.

It's one of the, he goes to clear it and he basically just slices it and he backspins it and he goes in off the post and goes in.

Probably not on the clasp.

Yeah, it's right on the dividing point, but probably more comedy.

And the reason I would say that is the dividing line I think is now bizarre owned goals are the cause of just chaos theory.

They're a bit of pinball.

It looks a bit unorthodox.

have something you've never seen before, but is fundamentally an accident.

Comedy-owned goals, as Davis essentially outlined already, are avoidable acts of individual haplessness, ineptitude, like making the wrong decision or just executing what you wanted to do really badly and it goes in the goal.

And that is fundamentally quite funny when someone does something that they could have avoided.

So yeah, I think that's that's the dichotomy there explained.

So there you are, beautiful square.

Now, a slight tangent now.

This came from Henry Tiedman.

He says, there's a truly remarkable error in Stephen Stephen King's 1986 novel, It.

How, how has no one thought to check this most basic of cricket idioms?

The union boss was big but soft.

Freddy, who still played football every chance he got, and who had once bowled a century at cricket, was big and hard.

There are two aspects to this, Dave.

First of all, obviously, how has this happened?

You know, and it's just, you know, American person getting cricket wrong.

But secondly,

what do you think Stephen King thinks that bowling a century means in cricket?

100 wickets?

100.

Yeah, 100.

What's the maximum amount of balls any bowler would bowl in a spell?

Do you do 100 in a row?

I don't know if you would, to be honest.

Not sure what kind of achievement.

I mean, either way, it's pretty outlandish.

But yeah, not necessarily within our remit, Charlie, but I think

it's a good wicket.

Yeah.

But I'm glad Henry Tyman has brought it to our attention nonetheless.

I mean, this would be one for cricket clichés and people more learned than us, but like, could it be 100 hundred balls with no runs scored against you?

That would seem plausible.

The inverse of

the century.

That's actually, that's that's what bowling a century should be.

Cricket clichés podcast needed more than ever.

On the back of the row next to Charlie about Gary Neville's comments about the um the English flag being displayed at a building, one of his building sites, uh, the Daily Mail have taken it upon themselves to construct a Champagne Socialists 11.

Um, in goal, Neville Southall, a back four of Graham Lassow, Pep Guardiola, Jamie Carragher, and Gary Neville, a midfield of Marcus Rashard, Javier Zanetti, Diego Maradona, and Stan Collymore.

And up front, Gary Lineker and Eric Cantonahl.

A genuinely great team if you don't worry too much about their individual roles.

Yeah, Guardiola filling in at centre-back, but

he's smart enough.

He's so left-wing.

I'm sure he could find a way of making it work.

You worry about Maradona in the engine room, perhaps slightly.

Zanetti's like two players in there, though, isn't he?

Yeah, he's like two commies in there, isn't he?

And Fergie's the manager as well.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

But I mean, curious, really.

Is Diego Maradona a champagne socialist?

No.

He's your man of the people, isn't he?

Yeah.

But yeah, I'm fascinated by the lineup, just how great it was, to be honest.

The next thing came from the great Colin Roberts.

It's Martin Kelly casually announcing his retirement in an interview with the Athletic.

He said, I've never actually got round to writing the social media post to announce it.

I've only told friends and family.

But yeah, I've retired.

It was March when I sat down with the family and told them I was thinking about it.

around the same time i got asked to play for liverpool in a legends game against chelsea one of the stipulations was that you had to be retired so that just reaffirmed my decision i'm really fascinated charlie by the idea of just casual retirements i mean there's probably a pfa sort of rigmara we have to go through so you can get your pension from now on and and maybe there's an insurance aspect to it but other than that maybe maybe some people just go i don't really want to announce it i want people to just ask me and then i'll wonder where i am yeah i did a piece on this actually in relation to tennis on different ways to retire because some player, there was a player who just was suddenly listed as inactive on the WTA sign.

It was like, they're retired.

It was like, yeah, that's sort of how they do it.

And like, so I was talking to players and some were like, yeah, I'd love to just not have to do a big thing about it.

Yeah.

Just be like, just not play for a few months.

And we'll be like, is that player still playing?

And then it turns out no.

Yeah, I love the tone here.

Like,

I've only told friends and family, but yeah, I've retired, yeah.

Oh, cool.

Okay.

I was like, I've just tried to sign you an FPL.

Where have you got

the feeling of like, oh, yeah, I never never actually got around to doing that thing is something I'm very familiar with in general.

Yeah, I've still got a post in the US Open on Insta that I haven't gotten.

That's the thing, yeah.

It's like, oh, it's sort of too late to post those really good pictures that I took from that holiday.

Could I just sort of lump it in with the general things I did this year?

Or

2025 madness.

But there are players like that.

Like, if they don't have a natural sort of crescendo or end point to their career, like I'm, I always think this about Troy Dini because he went from playing for Forest Green,

and then their manager got sacked, and he got made the Forest Green manager, but then spectacularly crashed and burned within about a week after he went mental at all the players in public and got sacked.

And then, and then he's just never, he's just been a pundit ever since.

But I'm, unless I'm wrong, I don't think he ever announced his retirement.

Right.

He's clearly not, you know, he's been playing in the bloody baller league now and he's, you know, he's not going to be playing

football ever again but he's you know it's like you still

if you don't say it have you is it like you know have you have you completely shut the door left the door ajar but i mean you know there was certain element of formality to this charlie because he says you know he wasn't allowed to play in the legends game unless he'd officially retired so oh god i suppose it might be fun i quite like that again i think that's quite relatable being like you need a kick up the ass sometimes actually gets an admin done it's like well if you don't renew that you do realize you can't do that you're like oh okay i better do that then but then you can come out of retirement can't you?

Like Paul Scholes, yeah, but would undermine his appearance in the Legends game, though.

I mean, there's gonna be an asterisk over that from now on, isn't there?

Um, speaking of this Legends game, I've caught snippets of it, and no one in their right mind would be watching the whole thing.

But there were cameos of Eden Hazard rolling back the years in a very pedestrian kind of way and skipping around defenders.

But sadly, there were some pantomime elements to it, Dave.

Diego Costa getting involved in a few skirmishes with Martin Skirtle, and you just thought, oh, God.

Does he go out there thinking, well, I've got to do this'cause uh twenty thousand people in and I think they're expecting me to have a bit of a dust up with Skirtle, so I I'll leave one in late on him.

So it's probably just a bit like wrestling and that I feel really, really bad about that.

Yeah, you've you've seen occasionally like elements of this creep into soccer aid, and like when Jose Mourinho's been involved, he'll like tackle a player who's running down the touchline or whatever, or run onto the pitch and nip the ball away.

And it's it's fine because these obviously these things are supposed to be fun occasions for all the family and fans to go and watch.

But in the same way that I would be annoyed if I was playing a friendly game of five-aside and somebody did something that undermined the sense of competitiveness, I would get annoyed with that.

Like, you know, you know, occasionally, if you're playing five-aside and somebody tends to be like, if you're like playing with colleagues, or you know, there might be like somebody who's playing to make up the numbers who's not really much of a footballer, but happy to muck in.

And they'll just like catch the ball because they've like fucked up and they can't clear it and they can't head it.

And they'll sort of just catch it and go, oh,

and you're like, what are you doing?

You're playing football here.

Stop doing that.

Yeah, it should be a base level of seriousness.

You can still have fun.

You can still have fun.

Just do it properly.

But mark your man.

Yeah.

It may wonder, Charlie.

I mean, you know, you know, in forthcoming years, players who are sort of known for certain individual acts in their careers, having to re-enact them in Legends games sort of really half-heartedly, I don't know, is Michael Coyote going to do a long throw and he's turning out for a Legends game at Brentford in 20 years' time?

Go on, Michael, do the throw.

Go on, Cucurella.

Could you just waste a bit of time, please?

I don't know.

Tactical fouls in Leonard's game, because that's what he was known for.

Rodri doing a tactical foul.

Oh my god, he's done it.

I know you're sort of moving into your 40s now, Mark, and you probably want to cut your hair and have a bit more of a respectable haircut in middle age.

But can you just leave it?

Because we do want someone to pull your hair

friendly and you can go down.

Oh, no.

Right.

Could this be a triumphant return?

The next installment of Get the Shot Away.

It came from James Bunts.

It's from uh the seahawks versus the jaguars and uh seven minutes 43 into the game the jaguars punt the ball and the commentator gives a lovely sing-along heard somebody yell offside the punt is away and horton lets it go

touch of elvis there charlie

was he referring to someone having sort of sung it I don't know.

Very strange.

Yeah.

Again, Dave, there's a hint of, you know, ball trajectory to

the delivery of it.

But are we allowing this into the Irv?

Yeah, I think so.

Okay.

Oh, well, we've got something out of the NFL this week at least.

This, wow.

It came from McRoy.

And he says, this Brent-like doctor from a documentary about IVF is comparing football teams to sperm.

You can pinpoint the exact time the documentary was made through his choices of club.

When Charles needs to speak to a man about the quality of his sperm, he tries to get onto the man's level.

I'll say, do you follow football?

And they'll say, yes.

I'll say, well, your sperm is Fulham.

Your sperm is Wigan.

And they'll say, what does that mean?

So, well,

you'll probably stay up this year, but it'll be

a tough fight.

Rarely are they Manchester United or Manchester City.

Most of us are Stoke

or West Brom, although West Brom are doing particularly well this year.

And then some of us, unfortunately, might be Southampton.

The West Brom caveat, Charlie, is superb, by the way.

I really think

with a subject as sensitive as this, just be more direct with your feedback.

Like, I don't think giving people like

you're kind of West Brom, right?

Exactly.

Is that in a broader macro sense, or you mean, like, specifically this season?

No, no, this season.

I've got yo-yo sperm, have I?

Yeah.

Charlie, on the basis of the analogies there, can you work out

what season they were currently in when he was speaking?

Was it 10-11, West Brom?

I mean, West Brom started really well in 10-11, I think.

So, 10-11?

Yeah, was it the season that Hodgson was at West Brom before he got an England job?

Not quite.

You both scored no points in happy spunking grounds there.

It was actually 12-13, the season that West Brom finished eighth in the Premier League.

That does make more sense.

Yeah, I knew I had a reason for thinking it wasn't that long ago because the way he talks about City and United, he talks about them as being more established as a top two.

And of course, they wouldn't, City weren't in 10-11.

Yeah.

Anyway, this episode is brought to you in association with NordVPN.

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Indeed, over to Pakistan, we go next.

Dave, were you aware that Norberto Solano is the head coach of Pakistan these days?

I was not aware, no.

Yes, indeed.

And it seems that he's stamping his identity on their way of playing already.

This came from Shrew123.

It's from Pakistan versus Afghanistan in an AFC Asian Cup qualifier.

Like you've said multiple times this could be

a new start, a new dawn.

I think Nobby Ball in Pakistan, I think that

it comes across as a completely different style than Stephen Constantine.

Ehmed, you've hopped onto the ball wagon very quickly, huh?

I didn't expect Nobby Ball to come in in in his third or fourth game in charge.

I love everything about this, Charlie.

I love the fact that Nobby Solano is Pakistan's head coach.

I love the fact that they've dubbed his style of play Nobby Ball.

And I love the fact that the commentators have discussed the concept of calling it Nobby Ball.

There's a healthy amount of awareness going on here, and I love it in every angle.

Yes, Nobby Ball is great.

Good on them.

Personally, Dave, not massively keen on really quirky names for manager ball.

I want it to have some heft, some sort of philosophical, some philosophical depth to it.

But if it has to be Nobby Ball, so be it.

Nobby Ball, yeah.

Solano Ball would have been nice.

Solano Ball is nicer.

It is, but I mean, Nobby Ball, it's weird.

I wonder what his style play actually is.

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We'll be back very shortly.

Okay, Chad.

Today you're gonna drive the all-electric Toyota BZ.

But my electric vehicle phobia.

I'm not ready, Dr.

Ross.

I believe in you.

Oh my gosh, oh my gosh.

We're inside it.

Try to take deep breaths, okay?

Move the ventilated seats.

They're touching me.

You can do this, Chad.

Drive the car.

How do you feel, Chad?

I feel cured.

Woohoo!

I'm doing it.

I'm doing it.

The all-electric BZ, one drive can change your mind.

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Oh, look at that!

That is wonderful!

Welcome back to Football Clichés.

We're recording episode nine of Dreamland this week.

If you want to get involved in Dreamland for just $5.99 a month, go to dreamland.football clichés.com and you'll get ad-free listening of all of our episodes, two episodes a month of Dreamland, our our exclusive show, and all sorts of things as well, including merch discounts, which will be available as soon as we finished our tour.

So you can pre-order those for November delivery.

Right.

This came from Gasmond.

Charlie, simple question.

When the ball is put back into the box with interest, what APR rate is assumed?

A difficult one to approach this.

I'm not sure.

Not a big interestman.

No, but to put in kind of layman's terms, he's put that back in with interest.

What percentage would you apply to the ball being put back in?

Yeah, it's not.

The ball is usually cleared fairly aimlessly, Dave, you know, quite desperately.

They don't really care where it goes.

But it's returned quite forcefully, quite purposely, quite quickly, and presumably aimed towards a hitman in the middle.

So, you know...

Taking the APR aspect out of it, it's returned with at least 50% interest.

It's coming back with something.

Yeah, I think that makes sense.

Trying to think...

So

is it like a second go or something, or can it just be any cross forcefully put in?

Well, this is important, Charlie.

What is the classic returned with interest situation in football?

Is it a shot or is it a cross or a pass?

Yeah, I think it's a shot, usually, isn't it?

Returned.

Yeah, I think it is a shot.

He's returned that within, and he's returned that with interest.

I mean, you think like that Danny Rose incredible goal where it's kind of headed out, and then he, boy, did he return that with interest.

I mean, that's a lot of interest that he returns that with.

Any sort of half-hearted-headed clearance, Dave, which is then half-volley back in from 25 yards, is the textbook returned with interest.

But I think

like Rose's one, I think.

Yeah, hyper-literal to be applying any APR to this Gasmond, I'm afraid.

Now, next up, we're really familiar now with tenuous football speaking in advertising.

We realize how little effort some parts of this industry put into their marketing spiel.

But this takes it to a whole new level.

This is an advert for high-sense microwaves.

And I want you to decide what you think is the most pathetic football speak in here.

Meet the big game player.

Choose your game plan.

Escape the routine with bold moves and tricks.

Feel the heat, master the field and keep a clean sheet.

Don't waste time.

Play tiki-taka

and finish the game before your match starts.

with your home fortress for fans of all generations

Meet the big game player in your kitchen.

Meet the new HighSense microwave ovens.

I think it's going to have to be Charlie playing Tiki Taka.

Yeah, Tiki-Taka.

Which they use to describe the touch-sensitive controls on the front of a microwave.

Finish the game before your match begins.

I mean, this is an interesting choice they've made because are they thinking that their audience for microwaves is so overwhelmingly people who are into footy that it's worth doing this and risking...

Because if you're not, are you not watching this ad and you're just a bit sort of befuddled by a lot of the language?

I mean, I presume it's some sort of topical tie-in, Dave, but some people just want to get their food quickly on the go so they can sit down and watch the big match.

And

making your home a fortress.

Who wrote this?

There's so

many weird bits in this.

Weirdly, I think actually, like, finish the game before the match starts is one of the better bits of it.

Like, that sort of makes sense.

Yes, get quick food, microwave, eat it before you, you know, before you watch the thing.

Okay, I'm on board with that.

Like choose your game plan from the nine preset it, preset options.

I didn't mind the game plans are basically analogous to picking which program you want on a microwave.

I'm more of a just a full power at all times, man.

The ticket tacker thing just doesn't work at all.

Completely shoehorned in.

There's a bit where they say keep a clean sheet and it's somebody doing the dishes.

Yeah.

And sort of, so what's that got to do?

The microwave's no use there, is it?

I don't, yeah.

No, I don't think so.

I mean, guess.

You're saving a little bit on you cooking utensils.

Yeah, you're saving a bit on washing up in terms of not having pots and pans and stuff.

There's the Slovenia.

I think it's like the Slovenian women's

captain who's in this advert, and she just pops up at the end, just being given a plate of salmon.

Oh, right.

Which, yeah, fair play to her.

But we've managed to get the Slovenian women's captain to be the face of this.

So we need to make sure that the retrofit chat is tipped everything to it.

Over to rugby, we go now with a heavy heart.

A headline from the BBC Scarlett's nilled in the league for the first time in 18 years.

Jay's Van UK says different sport that's much higher scoring but I just can't get on board with a team being niled.

Now Charlie of course it's much bigger spectacle in rugby to be you know kept scoreless but I quite like niled as a verb.

I mean do you think it could work in football?

Is shutting out the other team in football enough of a thing to warrant a verb?

I was gonna say it'd be shut out wouldn't it?

Scarlett shut out which you could use.

I don't know if niled is a is a commonly used expression because you could just go shut out here and it would and everyone would know what it means i think i guess that like you say rugby more high scoring obviously not very common for teams to not score any points but isn't that isn't that the point that being niled suggests that the attacking team have you're praising the attacking team for restricting you sure yeah

isn't it isn't it more notable that how could you not score in a game of rugby shouldn't it be like they've not been niled they just didn't manage to score themselves.

Yeah, it does take some of the agency away from the hapless low-scoring team to a certain extent.

But, you know, it's just...

But that might be deliberate here because they're a dominant team.

So I think the point is that the opponents have had a big old say in this.

It's not just that they've been...

They played their part.

Yeah, they've been like overwhelmed and overran.

As a word, though, I really like it.

Niled.

I mean, it's vaguely FOS cast.

I felt like it was something that Ben Foster would say on his podcast.

And we'd go, what?

They can't say that.

And then suddenly it becomes unacceptable.

Provisionally, I'm liking nil.

How would you get it into football?

Someone like Man City, who you know who may have scored in 58 consecutive games, have finally been niled

by, I don't know, big attacks.

Thomas Frank Spurs.

Yes, thank you.

I mean, just yeah, I like the poise of it to a certain extent.

Now, next up, this came from Dave Martin.

We always enjoyed Charlie, little glimpses of true insight from professional footballers, especially in their autobiographies, which can often contain hackneyed anecdotes, the usual guff, but then there's just occasional glimpses of them appreciating football in a way that us mere mortals perhaps wouldn't.

It says, I'm just listening to the Ronald Kuhman chapter of Duncan Ferguson's autobiography, and I thought this bit was very interesting.

I tell Rom,

in fact, all cenophores I work with, that they should be listening to the net every day.

They should hear the sound of the net so they can imagine the ball hitting it.

Different parts of the net make different sounds.

I know that sounds mad, but it's true.

Hitting the side of the net, you get a whoosh.

Hitting the bar and the ball going in, or hitting the stanchions, all different sounds.

And it's all about repetition.

Listen to the sound of the ball, entering the net and repeat, repeat, repeat.

I mean, I just feel worlds colliding here, Charlie, in a really nice way.

This is the sort of thing that we would obsess

ourselves with.

But this is also also a very striker-y thing.

You can imagine Jermaine Defoe sort of talking about this, you know, in training.

I used to love the sound.

Imagining that he scored loads, yeah.

Yeah.

This is a good level of obsession, I think.

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting as well that you can hear these noises even in a match environment where you'd think the noise from the crowd and everything like that, that it would still be visceral.

Or maybe it is more of a kind of training ground thing.

Yeah, I like the idea.

I mean, I'd be curious to ask Lineker or someone about this.

Like, I'd imagine he would have views on the different very specific areas of the net and the noises they make.

It's an incredibly satisfying sound, and knowing that you've made it happen, you know, 0.7 seconds earlier than Dave.

But I support a psychologist would have a field day with this.

I mean, this, this is everything they kind of evangelise about.

It's like making associations and it's helping with the visualization.

You want to hear that sound and you've heard that sound so many times you want to repeat it.

Yeah,

initially and you hear Big Dunk there saying, listen to the net, you sort of, it did bring to mind an image of sort of him standing right next to it with his ear kind of cucked the network to the net, yeah, exactly.

But it's nice, um, you know, does this sort of slightly open the door for a potential Duncan Ferguson MHD?

More about him than we thought, maybe, yeah, yeah,

there's depth to that man, and uh, I think he would have a very good MHD indeed.

Um, next up, this came from Lyle Taylor, quite the character, I understand.

Um, this came from Ben Norris.

Uh, Lyle Taylor was on Five Lives 72 Plus, really taking a metaphor and running with it here.

The problem with football football fans is we all won it yesterday and it's not always viable but in the meantime while you are trying to build a house you need to have a roof on your caravan so that in your back garden so that you can live on it you need to have running water so you can have a shower and and and uh gas so that you can make your dinner and and the problem is is it seems like when the gas is on the water's off When the gas and the water's on, the roof's blown off because of Storm Amy.

It just seems to be, it's almost impossible to keep all of those plates spinning at once.

Really runs and runs that metaphor, doesn't it, Charlie?

Yeah, yeah, it does.

I slightly lost the thread of what he was talking about as he went deeper and deeper with it.

I'm assuming that, you know, fans are impatient and they don't realize that you know you need to build the foundations at a club and build from there rather than just having instant instant success.

But yeah, where the caravan comes in, I'm not entirely sure.

Is it

an interim manager?

Is it

Storm Amy coming in there?

Great to clarify what blew the roof off the house, though.

It Didn't just, wasn't, yeah, just a mild gust.

Right, final item comes from Ben Murphy, who was reading Peterborough's website, and this was their top story.

Chris Con Clark has completed a low move to Enterprise National League Carlisle United.

Con Clark joined Posh after a stellar season with Altringham at the same level, but has struggled to hold down a regular place in the Posh starting line-up.

Ben Murphy says, Dave, you know, should clubs be sort of, again, editorialising this aspect of his departure?

Why bother dropping that in?

It's a bit neggy, isn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah, that is.

He's struggling to hold down a regular pace.

Don't say that.

But his formerly tailed off, and here he is.

Just say he's looking for more minutes or something like that.

Yeah.

But is he a young, like, is he a young player?

He scored.

Con Clark has scored once in 30 appearances for the club, but hasn't featured this season for the club.

It's a bit unnecessary.

Yeah, seems to be.

I guess we want this, though, don't we?

You know, we often accuse club websites of being like weirdly myopic and sort of protective and not really giving the truth.

So, you know.

Good on Peterborough for laying it down to a certain extent.

But I bet Con Clark's on the phone, Charlie, saying, Could you just say I was in and out of the team or something like that?

Very, very worst.

No, no, you struggled to hold down your place, Chris.

If you're honest, you struggled to hold it down, didn't you?

Yeah, okay.

Well, all well, that ends well with that one.

Thanks to you, Charlie Ecclesia.

Thank you.

Thanks to you, David Walker.

Thank you.

Thanks to everyone for listening, everyone who came to the live shows so far.

And well, we've got five more to go.

So bring those on.

See you soon.

This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network.

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