Vittorio Angelone on orchestral anthems, Lev Yashin's cap, and badge-avoiding classy touches

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Speaker 1 I'm sorry, you can sit there and look and play with all your silly machines as much as you like.

Speaker 1 Is Gas going on out of a crack? He is, you know. Oh, I think

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Speaker 2 Footballing compliments that sound like insults, a VAR era defining crowd noise, Rio Ferdinand on the NHS, the caveats to nutmegging Dimitar Burbatov, a passionate defense of classical music in football, a brief history of goalkeepers wearing caps, the not-quite-rise and not-quite-fall of front-flip throw-ins, the hyper-modern lower legs of modern footballers, avoiding the opposition badges on the floor, and the pampered millionaires warming the benches of top-flight English football.

Speaker 2 Brought to your ears by Goal Hanger Podcasts. This is Football Clichés.

Speaker 2 Hello everyone and welcome to Football Clichés. I'm Adam Hurry and with me for this latest mezza Harlan Dicks is Charlie Eccoche.
How are you doing?

Speaker 6 Very well, thank you.

Speaker 2 Alongside you, David Walker. How are things? Things are good.
First time in a couple of years we've actually recorded in the flesh.

Speaker 2 And you're staring at me.

Speaker 1 And I don't know what that is. It's very weird.
It's weird, isn't it? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yes, this is the latest Mesa Haaland Dix.

Speaker 2 With us for this one is Dimitar Burbatov, Nutmegger, Haringay Rhinos, Fly Half, ex-classical percussionist, comedian, writer, and first ever Mezza Haaland Dix guest to insist that we record in person and he's brought his own clips.

Speaker 2 It's Vittorio Angeloni.

Speaker 1 Land on the word insist so heavily there. All I said was, I'm happy to come into town if you fancy doing it in person.
I don't know how he said it. I always think it's a bit nicer to do it in person.

Speaker 1 I'm warming up. Although you all seem horrified by being in each other's presence.
That's spot on. Yeah.

Speaker 6 We really like to have some distance.

Speaker 1 You haven't smelled each other in years.

Speaker 6 Well, we were just off the live tour where we were kind of living out of each other's pockets. So yeah, we need about a year away from one another.

Speaker 1 I feel like such a diva when I was truly just trying to... I was trying to be accommodating.
I always offer in person instead of Zoom because I assume that's what the podcast is. I think it's better.

Speaker 1 I think it's a good idea.

Speaker 2 Bringing people together is exactly what you're all about.

Speaker 1 Exactly. Exactly.

Speaker 2 But funny enough, it is almost exactly seven years ago to the day that we had our only interaction on Twitter.

Speaker 2 I tweeted out in preparation for an article I was writing, what tiny things about football matches irritate you and why?

Speaker 2 And in response to that thread, you quote tweeted this is butte

Speaker 1 always in the whole thread yeah yeah yeah yeah that was so fun to read through seven years ago what what when's that 2019 2018 2018 god a pre-covid world where we were all just more innocent times truly more innocent times truly more podcasts were recorded in person and god i feel like such a dick

Speaker 2 100 of your twitter interactions with me have proved that you are indeed a perfect guest for mezarlandics because you you like this sort of thing i do like this sort of thing i I think as a man, as a white man moving into my 30s,

Speaker 1 this is exactly where I should be sort of getting far too interested in just fuck all.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 2 Mate, congratulations for only just moving into your 30s.

Speaker 1 Well, not yet.

Speaker 2 I'm jealous already. 29 and a half.

Speaker 7 As listeners will know, I recently moved into my 40s.

Speaker 7 And I don't know whether this is, you know, me. forcing it or not, but I was walking in my house the other day and passed my DVD collection, which I do have.

Speaker 7 And I looked at the band of brothers box set and I thought, maybe that's the time.

Speaker 1 This is not World War II in colour.

Speaker 1 That's your 50s.

Speaker 2 Right, we'll do a little adjudication panel before we get on to the main event. Let's kick off with this.
Footballers' names in things.

Speaker 2 Shout out to everyone who got an email this week asking if their national lottery personal details are up to date from head of customer and retail care Paul Lambert.

Speaker 1 Could be him.

Speaker 2 Could be him. Who's he up to?

Speaker 2 He's on at the moment on Talk Sport talking about Coco the Clown taking over a Celtic horse.

Speaker 1 Have I lost he's Celtic and Dortmund legend, Paul?

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. If you show up to Dortmund Stadium and a Paul Lambertop, they all like go mad for you.

Speaker 7 By the way, on that episode, so I wasn't on that episode.

Speaker 7 Neither was Charlie, actually. So it was you and Nick, wasn't it? Yeah.
With Rob Morgan last week. Now, this happens quite a lot when I edit the pod and I'm not on it.

Speaker 7 Maybe my ego is getting out of control. I don't know.

Speaker 7 But I was fuming.

Speaker 7 I was absolutely fuming that when you brought up the possibility of Ronald MacDonald managing Celtic, that none of you suggested that he could bring his brother Erwin MacDonald with him as his assistant.

Speaker 2 Oh, sorry.

Speaker 1 Sorry.

Speaker 2 I mean, I was already rattled by the fact that I hadn't realised that Ronald McDonald was a clown, which is, I mean, an astonishing blind spot in my cultural consciousness.

Speaker 2 But we'll move on from that.

Speaker 2 This came from Rob Sharrod from the iPapers match report from Sunderland's 1-1 draw with Everton, specifically the early contender for Miss of the season from Everton's Tierno Barry.

Speaker 1 Here it goes.

Speaker 2 As Sunderland laboured, a second goal looked inevitable, and Jack Grealish sent a crisp 20-yarder against the foot of Robin Rofe's right-hand post.

Speaker 2 The Sunderland keeper was a spectator again when the England winger sent over a cross from the left, which simply had to be put into the net. From less than six yards, an unmarked Barry skydeth it.

Speaker 2 Barry from EastEnders could have done better.

Speaker 2 Charlie, that feels unnecessarily sort of of informal, cruel, and just a bit loose from a national newspaper.

Speaker 6 Not the most contemporary reference as well.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 6 To be fair.

Speaker 6 Yeah,

Speaker 6 that's a good one of our favoured Virgil Van Dyke, Dick Van Dyke genre.

Speaker 2 Yeah, of course, Richard Keyes in his blog the other day, Dave, said, was talking about Rangers, and he said, how on earth did Kevin Thalwell, Rangers sporting director, come to the conclusion Russell Martin was the right man for a Goliath of a club like Rangers?

Speaker 2 He might as well have appointed Russell Grant.

Speaker 1 I was so expecting it to be somebody Martin rather than a different person. Well, yeah,

Speaker 6 Chris Martin.

Speaker 1 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 6 Or if you're going to go for a Russell, I mean, that's... Do you know who Russell Grant is?

Speaker 6 I mean, there's no reason why you probably would have barely been born when he was last relevant.

Speaker 2 Which is exactly why it's the ultimate Keesy reference.

Speaker 6 He's what, an astrologer from the 80s and 90s?

Speaker 1 Probably do a job for Rangers at the minute.

Speaker 1 Just absolutely mad.

Speaker 2 But yeah, poor old Tierno Barry. 12 appearances, 414 minutes of action, zero shots on target.

Speaker 2 This is a whole new realm for the, he just needs one to go in off his ass because he hasn't even had a shot on target yet.

Speaker 6 We need a shot on target to go off targets. Yes.

Speaker 1 But once he gets a shot on target, he won't still get loads.

Speaker 2 He's still hitting the bar, yeah, presumably.

Speaker 2 Charlie, this came from Sean Adams. It's from a Times piece about Leandro Trossard's key role in Arsenal's title bid.

Speaker 2 He has been picked so frequently frequently that he ranks 10th overall for appearances since Mikel Arteta took charge in December 2019.

Speaker 2 In that six-year period, only five Arsenal players have scored more goals than Trossard. No wonder Arteta recently labelled him a massive weapon.

Speaker 1 It's all in the emphasis, I think.

Speaker 6 An absolute weapon. Yeah, that's very good.

Speaker 2 Vittorio, do you think this is the football compliment that could be most mistaken for a pure insult? I can't think of...

Speaker 1 Massive weapon? Well, it could also be a very different compliment as well as the other thing.

Speaker 1 But I think a massive weapon, particularly in Scotland, I think it's like very Glaswegian to call someone a complete weapon.

Speaker 2 In a good way? No.

Speaker 1 Right. In like a very bad way.

Speaker 2 Why is weapon an insult, Dave? Like generally?

Speaker 1 You absolutely weapon.

Speaker 7 Yeah, it is weird, actually, if you think about it. And

Speaker 7 it's like, some people call it, it's like similar to, oh, you absolute whopper.

Speaker 2 What is a whopper in that context? Let's let's not get into that

Speaker 2 Aaron John writes in next Dave and he's pointing me towards a an advert from Blythe Spartans the self-proclaimed most famous non-league club in the country.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and they're advertising for a new first team manager and in the knowledge and experience section They've got all the usual stuff a good understanding of non-league football managing team and individual performance a proven experience of building a winning team experience of working within a budget and also

Speaker 2 with a demonstrable win ratio of 40% or more. Wow, this is highly modern stuff.

Speaker 7 Demonstrable. So, you've got to have a Wikipedia page that's done it for you.

Speaker 2 That's a good point.

Speaker 6 What do you have? Could you prove that you've got surely you've got more than 40% and you'd be able to be

Speaker 1 proved this season, it happened?

Speaker 6 Well, not this season, but overall,

Speaker 7 I'm not sure I'm troubling 40%. We have been relegated twice under my

Speaker 7 stewardship.

Speaker 1 I was deceived by this season's good forward.

Speaker 2 If they hadn't have asked for this, Vittorio, imagine turning up for the job interview with Blythe Spartans with that section of your Wikipedia page, assuming that you have one, with your win percentages on it.

Speaker 2 I mean, that's the sort of thing clubs are impressed by these days, because you need dossiers, don't you?

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, it's all about sort of everything's become stats heavy, and this Israel sort of old man yells at Claude as I move to the age of 29.

Speaker 1 But it is, everything's 40% also feels quite unambitious from Blythe Spartans.

Speaker 2 What is the target?

Speaker 1 Well, yeah,

Speaker 1 we even know.

Speaker 6 I don't know.

Speaker 6 What is a good win ratio?

Speaker 1 Well, Kep's around 70, but he's completely outlined. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 how to draw

Speaker 1 wins and then draws and losses are in the other.

Speaker 6 Yeah, well, I guess if you're winning half your games, then you assume that you're drawing and losing, you're drawing a roughly even split, you know, half draws, half losses. Okay.

Speaker 6 So that being a Premier League season, 19 wins and then, let's say, nine draws, that would be he's doing the mess everyone

Speaker 6 so that's about 66 points that's getting you about fifth generally that's very solid that's pretty good very solid

Speaker 2 that's 50 though this reminds me dave that uh lorry sanchez has his own website and he once in you know in his managerial pomp um combined his win and draws to calculate his win and draw ratio to snap pad himself.

Speaker 2 Yeah, the 58% combined win and draw ratio. Is that an acceptable thing for a manager to do to themselves?

Speaker 7 Well, it's very Laurie Sanchez, isn't it? Yeah. You know, happy with a point

Speaker 1 wherever he goes.

Speaker 7 Happy with a point. Looking at Sean Dice's managerial history, he's never had over 40%

Speaker 7 at any of his clubs.

Speaker 7 35% at Burnley.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Sean Dice is never going to get the Blides Bartons job. Yeah, so it's the 40 point, 40% mark, isn't it? So the magical.

Speaker 6 I've always thought as well, points per game is a far better way of measuring this than win percentage because that's not how we don't judge teams on how many games they win.

Speaker 6 We judge on how many points they get.

Speaker 2 Yeah, absolutely right. We need to rewrite this whole thing.

Speaker 6 If you're listening, Blise Barton.

Speaker 2 Over to the Champions League now, Liverpool versus Real Madrid, and one of the greatest crowd noises of modern times.

Speaker 2 I think that

Speaker 2 graphic there shows it's on the line.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 2 Vittorio, this is amazing because who said VAR was ruining the game?

Speaker 2 Who said that we all know what's going to happen when the referee goes to a little screen to almost certainly agree with their colleagues in a bunker somewhere?

Speaker 2 We've seen for the first time a crowd react in the most pathetic way to not getting the VAR decision that they thought they were going to get.

Speaker 1 Well, it felt like the ref was conducting the crime the way he sort of brought it in like to a close.

Speaker 1 I also think if we're going to keep VAR, which I'm mildly against, but if we're going to keep it, refs starting to doing like Simon Carl at Judges' Houses. Right.
Like switcheroo.

Speaker 6 Like it's not not good news.

Speaker 1 It's great news. You're not new to that.

Speaker 1 I'm a huge fan of that.

Speaker 6 It's not good news. It's not just a penalty.
You're getting a penalty. And the man's getting sent off the drive.

Speaker 1 Hey, you and me, we can lie.

Speaker 1 Cuts to the player's family and their own snake.

Speaker 7 Just keeping them waiting for like 30 seconds, like Dermot.

Speaker 1 Exactly, exactly.

Speaker 2 I really thought your month-long cold was going to hold you back, but apparently you're bringing it to this.

Speaker 2 Imagine how good it would have sounded without this um dave i've never heard anything like this before i'm not saying it is a defensive var but this is a kind of fringe benefit that we never saw coming because that is an incredible manipulation of crowd sentiment there

Speaker 7 yeah i mean i like it the referee must have known something like that was going to happen yeah i mean and the referee is very champions league referee

Speaker 2 they are more performative i'm sure in the champions league Charlie, this was basically the audio equivalent of the Hodgson GIF, right, when he's in the dugout.

Speaker 2 But the key difference was that the Liverpool fans were obviously so certain, based on, anecdotal evidence that the referee was not going to keep to his original decision and go with it.

Speaker 2 So that's why they had that certainty to their kind of original optimism. But so the letdown is sensational.
Yeah. It's genuinely amazing.
It's very pure.

Speaker 6 Yeah. And he definitely leans into that.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 6 He knows what the expectation is.

Speaker 7 Okay. You know, we were talking the other day about referees pointing to

Speaker 7 awarding gold kicks. But some people in the crowd think they've awarded a penalty.
There was a clip I got sent the other day. It's in Galatasarai.
Ossimen Ossimen got

Speaker 7 challenged. Yes.
Ossimen got tackled in the box. The referee pointed with his finger

Speaker 7 and then went, oh no, no, sorry. And then went with the palm.

Speaker 1 Exactly the phenomenon we were talking about.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 Of course, it's happened in Turkey. That's exactly where it should happen.

Speaker 2 Right, finally for the adjudication panel, here is Rio Ferdinand on LBC Radio talking about why Brits like him have left the UK for Dubai.

Speaker 8 A lot of people feel that their hard work is undermined by things like higher tax rates in the UK compared to places like Dubai. That's got to be a factor, hasn't it?

Speaker 8 That's got to be a reason why lots of, I'm not saying it for you, but that's got to be a reason why lots of people are leaving the UK and moving to Dubai.

Speaker 2 And it's understandable, no?

Speaker 9 Yeah, well, but if there was, if there was things like that, the health service and whatnot was absolutely flying and doing

Speaker 9 and working perfectly well, then I think people paying tax, you don't mind.

Speaker 2 Vittoria, I put it to you that only, only a recently retired footballer could describe the NHS as flying in any hyperplacion process.

Speaker 1 Absolutely flying. That is just why it's even invited on, ostensibly, a political radio show.

Speaker 2 It was an unexpected one, I'll be honest with you. But Charlie, in what state would the NHS have to be for it to be absolutely flying? Do we need it? Do we need that? Do we need it to be that level?

Speaker 1 What win percentage does the NHS need to have? That's the dream.

Speaker 6 I mean, when, you know, under Blair's government, waiting times were massively reduced. There was probably a time then when it was absolutely flying.

Speaker 6 Maybe early on in its inception under Clement Attlee, but yeah.

Speaker 6 Probably rarely been flying.

Speaker 7 You don't want it to get complacent though, do you?

Speaker 2 No, definitely not. Absolutely flying.
NHS years with Charlie there, by the way. Just an incredible bit of data.
But anyway, this episode is brought to you in association with NordVPN.

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Speaker 2 Indeed, let's travel back 28 years to the UEFA Cup clash between Aston Villa and athletic Bill Bowell, Jonathan Pierce on Channel 5 Duty, using some script that didn't quite make it into whatever football computer game he'd recorded commentary for a few days beforehand.

Speaker 2 Verberia!

Speaker 2 And it was buried by Ian Taylor.

Speaker 10 1-0 to Aston Villa, and Villa Park come to light.

Speaker 10 The last time I saw handling like that, it was in the shower this morning, and it was the sump that went squirt out of my hands and hit the bottom of the shower tray.

Speaker 10 Letce Berria is a professional goalkeeper.

Speaker 2 David is a double whammy of sounding like it was stitched on in a computer game and also being pure mid-90s Jonathan Pierce.

Speaker 7 It's so good. That is proper in his pomp, Jonathan Pierce, as well.
So he was just gone, just 97, so he's had sort of the Capitol Radio mid-90s heyday. Now he's getting the TV gigs.

Speaker 6 About to do Robot Wars? Is that that kind of it?

Speaker 7 Yeah, Robot Wars is probably a few years away.

Speaker 7 That's superb.

Speaker 1 It's amazing because functionally what it does is it's basically him going, and I'd like all of you to imagine me in the shit.

Speaker 1 Exactly right. That's what I'm thinking about.

Speaker 6 Do you think he ever did genuinely get like mud?

Speaker 6 You know, if you are doing lots of computer game commentary and then you're jumping to a different gig, like he would sometimes get a little bit muddled or it's just like, oh, what am I doing tonight again?

Speaker 6 Oh, yeah, no, it's a villa game. It's not recording actual soccer four or whatever.

Speaker 2 I guess, you know, of all the broadcasters, to throw that reference out on Channel 5 is probably the best because two hours later, it would have been some softcore porn.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 easing you in with Jonathan Pierce in the shower. But if you want to try NordVPN for yourself, go to nordvpn.com/slash cliches, and our link will also give you four extra months on the two-year plan.

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Speaker 2 Welcome back to Football Clichés. It's time for Mezzer Harlan Dicks with Vittorio Angelone.

Speaker 2 A lovely little list that you sent over. A nice little bonus one for us to

Speaker 2 take out just in case we didn't like it.

Speaker 1 Yes, you gotta always give an office. Real stress of debt.

Speaker 1 I do this when I write like comedy for like i used to do like a topical comedy show for this app that i was just sort of paying me a few quid to like make a little youtube video to promo their app and i would always in the script give them four jokes to for the lawyers to cut

Speaker 1 because it's like okay if you take those then you won't take the ones that i actually want to get rid of so i've maybe given you a little bit of fat that you can trim if needs be right then vittorio tell us about your first fascination of football please just before we get into it i want to shout out to my friends who are big fans of the football Cliches podcast.

Speaker 1 It was real sort of

Speaker 1 this, not me. This is sort of a committee effort of our WhatsApp group of like, are these going to be okay or am I going to get in trouble?

Speaker 6 Like I've kissed Arma.

Speaker 1 The general sentiment was there's no way you're going to be as bad as Jamie Carragher.

Speaker 1 Wow. As long as you don't say goals, you're fine.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 But up first, we have goalkeeper caps as a phenomenon because I just, I think they're, I think, bring them back.

Speaker 1 I also don't understand why they seem like I don't know about you guys. In my mind, it's like a lower league English football thing to have a cap on.
But it's like, I don't know.

Speaker 1 I'm not a scientist, but I think it's sunnier in Spain than it is in England.

Speaker 1 Why have we never seen a Spanish

Speaker 1 capered on a cap? That's a good point.

Speaker 2 That is a very good point. Statistically, Charlie, I can't imagine that cap wearing correlates with strengths of sunshine across the world in goalkeeper terms.

Speaker 2 And I've got no explanation for that whatsoever.

Speaker 6 Yeah, it's like in tennis, I always find it baffling that more players don't wear sunglasses because caps only do so much and you're constantly throwing the ball up and looking at it and yeah likewise with goalkeepers it does seem strange that they're not taking precautions.

Speaker 1 Nobody's Edgar Davids, in it. Yeah.
Some should do that. Nobody's got the sort of goggles on.

Speaker 2 What sports is it acceptable to wear sunglasses in?

Speaker 6 Well running, running

Speaker 6 in athletics, but that's because of like the light, so they'll all be wearing those kind of shades.

Speaker 2 It's more of a cultural thing than a practical thing, but there's no reason why you can't play football in sunglasses.

Speaker 7 George Campos never wore a sombrero, did he?

Speaker 7 Which, you know,

Speaker 7 could have served a purpose in USA 94

Speaker 7 in the Rose Bowl.

Speaker 2 Of all the gold gifts, you wouldn't put it past.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I did a little bit of research of like when it was common and when it stopped being common.
Excellent. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So I've been very bookish and I only became bookish about the prep for this podcast this morning. Excellent.
Because again, my WhatsApp group were like the screen rock boys absolutely smashed it.

Speaker 1 You should listen to their episode to see what like what a good episode is like. And Jake Farrell has sent me to my Word document and Google and every the weirdest Wikipedia pages I've ever been on.

Speaker 1 This is what we want. This is an unbelievable.
So, basically, apparently, flat caps were common up until the 1970s. They were like very,

Speaker 1 very go-to real, which I think, in the context now of like a post-Peaky Blinders world,

Speaker 1 would look very weird if like Jordan Pickford turned up in like a flat campaign.

Speaker 6 Yeah, Emmy Martinez.

Speaker 1 He's the most flat-capped goalkeeper in the Premier League right now. Well, Emmy Martinez would look like the mad dreamer.

Speaker 2 Also, there's not enough of a brim to a flat cap, Dave. Don't do the job.
No, it would be. They were never designed for shading yourself from the sun.
They're designed to

Speaker 1 get bald men to keep their heads off. Yeah, right, yeah.
Maybe they were like influencers for the like a specific flat cap company and Roy King was different from the people.

Speaker 1 Talk about them disparagingly. I mean,

Speaker 7 you wouldn't be totally surprised for Birmingham City to do a tie-in with Peaky Blinders and their goalkeeper had to wear a flat cap for one game or something.

Speaker 1 That would be a nightmare.

Speaker 2 Peaky Blinders is an interesting thing to me, Vittorio, because I've never watched the show itself, but I don't bemoan its existence. I'm alright with it existing.

Speaker 2 It's just everything around it that's bad.

Speaker 1 And I think that's quite...

Speaker 2 Is that quite a rare cultural thing? I don't mind the original thing, but I hate everything around it and everything that it's inspired.

Speaker 1 No, I think that exists in lots of different realms. There's plenty of bands where I'm like, the music's great.
Everybody who listens to it is the worst person I've ever spoken to.

Speaker 2 Okay, glad to know it's in good company.

Speaker 6 What is it like Adam Your Hatred of The Simpsons, which is like the finest show ever made. But you hate all the meme meme culture and everything around it.
Yes. But it is an absolutely phenomenal.

Speaker 6 I think it is the best show ever made.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but also that is essentially based on me being excluded from it. Right.

Speaker 1 But by myself.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So it's, yeah, it's a, yeah, it's, it's unfortunate.
Probably the best player to do the flat cap thing was Lev Yashin, Omigo, Kippur on the Ballon d'Or.

Speaker 1 So he was like, like he won the Ballon d'Or, basically like wearing a flat cap pretty regularly. and and throughout that season.
And he,

Speaker 1 I googled this, Yashin is famous for wearing his cloth flat cap of burnt brick color and he wore it for a significant part of his career.

Speaker 1 And according to urban legend, it was stolen during the 1960 Euros. And after that, he just stopped wearing a hat.

Speaker 2 Why the fuck did things keep getting stolen in the 60s in football?

Speaker 1 I know.

Speaker 2 Did you get found in a bush about two years later?

Speaker 7 Another job for pickles for dollars.

Speaker 1 You'd just eat it, though, wouldn't you?

Speaker 2 So, yeah.

Speaker 7 But with hats, I mean, they are incredibly tinpot, aren't they? They're just no way to make them look sort of stylish or elegant.

Speaker 7 And I mean, Dean Henderson wore one in the FA Cup final or semi-final, didn't he, last season? Yes, I think, notably.

Speaker 7 I mean, I guess part of the reason why we don't see them as much now is because stadiums are taller and there's not as much sun coming in.

Speaker 2 I think this is a perfectly reasonable explanation, but Dean Henderson is basically

Speaker 2 the last man standing when it comes to wearing caps for goalkeepers at the very, very top level.

Speaker 1 Pickford did it in 2020.

Speaker 2 He is very cappy, Pickford. But Dean Henderson back in 2021 clearly made a last-minute decision to wear one because he had to basically take one from the Manchester United club shop.

Speaker 2 And Darren Leithley wrote in in 2021 and told us that Henderson had worn a cap in that game from the club shop, but he didn't just wear it. He perched it on top of his head like East 17 style.

Speaker 1 Like

Speaker 1 smacked where his cap is unbelievable.

Speaker 2 That's a dreadful look.

Speaker 6 Oliver Khan used to wear them as well.

Speaker 1 2003, he was right up to, he nearly won the World Cup in a cap. Wow, God.

Speaker 2 So some good goalkeepers have worn them. So it's not necessarily a mark of a Timpok goalkeeper.

Speaker 1 So this is the thing. And somebody tried to style it out differently: of like you think cap doesn't feel like the best solution to that.
Jim Layton wore a visor, which should be illegal.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you can't be wearing a visor.

Speaker 2 What benefit does it have for

Speaker 2 keeping the shade but not protecting the top of your head in any way? Is it was it just

Speaker 2 maybe? I mean, Andy Roddick was a big visor guy at the start of his career.

Speaker 1 It's a bit poker, but he became very cap. Then he became

Speaker 1 now much more sort of golf. Yeah.

Speaker 2 In my head, it's a visor with

Speaker 2 the sort of

Speaker 2 coloured, sort of translucent

Speaker 7 like people wearing old Vegas movies.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 7 Damn gamblers for some reason wearing visors.

Speaker 7 But I'm sort of surprised that,

Speaker 7 you know, big stadiums and the lack of sunlight notwithstanding, that...

Speaker 7 A goalkeeper in the modern era hasn't worn like a snapback.

Speaker 1 Well, I was wondering what would the cap of nowadays look like? What would it be?

Speaker 1 I mean, I love the idea of, I think we've sort of lost the idea of a mad goalkeeper a little bit, of somebody wearing a cap because as a goalkeeper, he's allowed to wear a cap, but he just wears it backwards.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yes.

Speaker 7 I mean, exactly. You could wear it backwards and just turn it around for the second half or whatever.
Exactly.

Speaker 2 I just feel like there's a cultural resistance to goalkeepers wearing caps. A goalkeeper can't just wear a cap, Charlie, and it not be remarked upon.
Why?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 6 But I think that

Speaker 6 the sort of the death of the mad goalkeeper is all part of this. I think they want to be taken more seriously.
Whereas back in the day, they kind of prided themselves on being different.

Speaker 6 They don't wear tracksuit bottoms anymore either. You know, those kind of maverick wild goalkeepers.

Speaker 1 It makes sense. The tracksuit bottoms for like you're spending a lot more time sort of diving in different directions.
Like why, sort of, why are you wearing shorts? It seems absolutely cold as well.

Speaker 1 I genuinely think the reason Pickford wore a cap in 2020 is because there weren't fans in the stadium.

Speaker 2 How do you feel about goalkeepers like the famous Turkish goalkeeper Rostu Rekbear doing the sort of the black kind of paint underneath their eyes?

Speaker 1 I'm so into it.

Speaker 2 I think that's to avert the glare of the floodlights bouncing off their cheek into their eyes.

Speaker 1 Listen, I think the science is complete nonsense, but I'm well into the warp.

Speaker 2 It might have just been a look.

Speaker 1 I went down an even further rabbit hole. Sorry, I've done so much stupid research.
Basically, the origins, everybody used to wear caps in football because they didn't have kits at the start.

Speaker 1 So it was caps or scarves or sashes to like denote which who was on which team. Like way back, like 1800.
By the way, bring that back. Yeah, everybody has to wear a scarf.

Speaker 2 What are they called? Pontaloons. Is it what I've been thinking of? The big trousers.
Pantaloons.

Speaker 1 Pantaloons. Pantaloons.
I did it the French way. It's fine.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that was up until 1904.
Your shorts had to cover your knees. Wow.

Speaker 1 And then the, I don't know if this is obvious great football trivia or like sports brand trivia that I've missed out on.

Speaker 1 but I just found it out today. The first manufacturer of sports wear and football kits was Bookta in 1879, but they were overtaken by the Humphrey brothers in 1920.

Speaker 1 And the Humphrey brothers from just outside Manchester in Cheshire, they became Umbro

Speaker 1 as a contraction of like um

Speaker 1 umphrey brothers, umbro. And I just think that is such great trivia.

Speaker 2 I didn't know that.

Speaker 1 We are all learning stuff here. Um, and then one of the last mad goalkeepers, Chris Kirkland, wore a cap when it wasn't sunny because it stopped him getting distracted.

Speaker 1 Wow, that's that's those are Chris Kirkland's words. It kept out distractions.

Speaker 2 He's the ultimate cap-wearing goalkeeper.

Speaker 2 When Vittorio was only as far as 19-04 there, Dave, I had flashbacks to you reading out every football result from the 1990s and 2000s on the last episode, which I'm pleased to say had an overwhelmingly positive response from our listeners.

Speaker 2 But we only did that on a radio. Did you see one yawning emoji? That's fine.
That's fine.

Speaker 7 Can't please everyone.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 2 Vittorio, your second fascination of football, please.

Speaker 1 The front flip throw-in. The lesser spotted front-flip.

Speaker 2 Very lesser spotted.

Speaker 1 And just an unbelievable risk, I think, is the main thing that excites me about it. I don't think it's actually functionally better.

Speaker 1 Rory DeLap, you're not getting any more out of him if he learns how to do the front-flip thing.

Speaker 1 But I think the risk of it going catastrophically wrong is so exciting.

Speaker 2 There obviously is a risk-reward debate to be had here, Charlie, but it also strikes me as something that I can't believe the authorities haven't banned by now.

Speaker 6 Well, just because it feels too frivolous and sort of taking the pitch.

Speaker 2 Frivolous

Speaker 2 threat of injury.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And also just not being footbally enough.

Speaker 6 Yeah, I mean, I just think of it as something from like a Danny Baker VHS. Yeah.

Speaker 6 I mean, but there was one at the 2018 World Cup, wasn't there?

Speaker 2 Milad Mohammed.

Speaker 1 There was an attempt. Yeah.
Well, yeah, he tried, and it was like an aborted one. I've got it here.
It's awful. He kisses the ball and points to God.

Speaker 2 This is injury time of Iran's 1-0 defeat to Spain at the 2018 World Cup.

Speaker 2 And And the crucial thing is here is he gives it the big build up, he kisses the ball, points to the sky, and then just completely bottles it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you've got to commit.

Speaker 2 There's a real lack of commitment.

Speaker 1 Oh, that is really mad. It's so heartbreaking.
He does like a sort of bastardized cartwheel and then just has to stand up and doesn't even launch it into the box after that.

Speaker 2 She goes for a short throw, which is just awful. And then there are Spain players in the middle, Charlie, just going, what is he doing?

Speaker 2 The body language is basically, he hasn't broken the rules. It's just, what the fuck is he doing? Because he's not.

Speaker 1 World Cup hard

Speaker 1 the greatest show up

Speaker 1 but it it's

Speaker 7 I'm sort of my mind's sort of blown really to think that this has ever happened in an actual professional football match and it obviously has happened was Steve Watson did it in the Premier League he was doing it from the age of 16 yeah and

Speaker 7 I suppose in a way though if you had someone who could absolutely nail it like every time

Speaker 7 especially given the current discourse around throw-ins like surely somebody

Speaker 7 at some point might learn to do it so well that we see it again.

Speaker 1 Well, that was the weird thing about that Iran one. That felt like he'd never done it before

Speaker 1 in his whole life. And on the biggest stage he's ever played at, he thought, I'm going to give this a go.
I reckon I can figure it out in the moment.

Speaker 2 But someone presumably invented this at some point

Speaker 2 or realised that it could be a thing. It was a child.

Speaker 1 A child. So there is a MLS coach called Shellas Hindman, who is head coach of Dallas FC.
Of course, we all knew that, obviously. His son, Tony Hindman, sort of like went up to his dad and was like,

Speaker 1 why doesn't anyone do like a front flip? Because his mom was a gymnast and taught him how to tumble. So he showed his dad this mad sort of front flip throw-in, and it's obviously started in America.

Speaker 2 So it has to be someone whose mum was a gymnast and dad was a fucking coach.

Speaker 1 So yeah,

Speaker 2 that is the perfect

Speaker 1 gene pool you need.

Speaker 7 I guess the end point could be, you know, because there are several players,

Speaker 7 plenty of players who can do like multiple tumbles and back flips and stuff you see you know when you see like these mad shots of like the the gymnasts who run down the thing and then you know and you i saw one the other day and it was like almost looked like

Speaker 7 you know i was checking it to see whether it was ai it was like incredible like five flips then a big twirl like somebody could do more than one like if you'd like started at the halfway line and went down the touchline and did look

Speaker 1 three and then you know

Speaker 1 at west Ham and go, right, that's it. I've got loads of space.
Like, surely Nanny could have pulled that off. Like, he was the alley.
I'm over Famy Martin. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 6 Imagine him launching a throw after one of them.

Speaker 7 You could sort of bounce off the ball, couldn't you?

Speaker 1 You could use the ball to.

Speaker 2 I mean, it begs the inevitable question, Vittorio: is it better to teach someone who can already front-flip to do a good throw-in, or are you taking a Rory DeLap and teaching them to front-flip?

Speaker 1 I think it's you can't be trying to teach Rory DeLap how to do a front-flip.

Speaker 2 Do you think that would take longer?

Speaker 1 That's a fool's era, I believe. You're wasting years of trying.

Speaker 1 I think I found the most successful front-flip throw-in

Speaker 1 was Nadir Mohamedi, no relation to Milad Mohamedi, who absolutely spaffed it at the 2018 World Cup. And this was in the Persian Football League.
So basically, back in Iran as well.

Speaker 1 Pretty close to the halfway line, does a front-flip throw-in. And the keeper sort of comes out but misjudges it and just tips the ball and it goes straight in.

Speaker 1 So he basically scores directly from a front-flip throw in. It wouldn't have counted.
Exactly.

Speaker 2 Which would have been a real shame.

Speaker 7 What is it with the Iranians and the front flip throwin'?

Speaker 1 Love their front flip throw-ins over there.

Speaker 2 Dates back to 1979, I believe, the revolution.

Speaker 1 And it was quelled.

Speaker 1 There was a brief period between 1882 and 1898 where you've never been allowed to score directly from a throw-in, but there was a brief period where you could score an own goal from a throw-in. Right.

Speaker 1 Just in case somebody.

Speaker 1 I don't know why they brought in that rule and then subsequently took it away, because when is that happening?

Speaker 7 It's one of those rules, though. So this happened recently with ribblesdale uh right someone did a long throw and it like it nearly went in and i was on a touchline going is that allowed yeah

Speaker 6 can you score from a throw in yeah yeah um i mean i wonder i wonder if in the premier league they would outlaw it if it was happening quite a lot if players were regularly doing front-flip throw-ins whether they would say just stop doing this like it's too silly

Speaker 1 that is that would be the reason they would come up with a different reason that would be the injury one or whatever but it is this is too silly it just looks it doesn't look like you're taking things seriously about it.

Speaker 2 In defence of ifab, the game's lawmakers, as I'm just obliged to describe them, they very rarely intervene with this sort of stuff on the basis of taste, do they?

Speaker 2 It has to be a functional impingement on the evolution of football. But I don't think they would, and they should, but they wouldn't get involved on the basis that it just looks wrong.

Speaker 6 So you think, so you reckon teams could just be doing this all the time?

Speaker 2 Are we talking about front threat throwing still? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yes. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I mean,

Speaker 2 it's aesthetically a disgrace and doesn't belong in football, but but as long as their feet are on the line, I don't mind. That would be amazing.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I love it. I just love the risk.
It's risk-reward.

Speaker 1 One thing from my googling of throw-ins, an early

Speaker 1 edition of the throw-in rules was no matter who kicked the ball out, whoever gets to the ball takes the throw-in.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Like, whoever touches it first after it goes, it's your throw-in. You have to do it.
And honest to God, bring it back.

Speaker 1 Wouldn't that be unbelievable? Just have a mad scramble every time the ball goes over the line.

Speaker 7 Okay.

Speaker 1 I'm so into it.

Speaker 2 I just think, I mean, what an extra amount of effort that's going to be for literally everybody involved.

Speaker 2 Everybody, from fans to referees to players to linesmen to everybody. And the ball boys getting in the way.
It's an assumption.

Speaker 1 That's why it's called kick it to touch.

Speaker 2 Can I just ask, what is the word count on your notes?

Speaker 1 It's not, I'm not quite up there with Jake Fowl. We're at 801.

Speaker 2 801? Yeah, yeah. You've used up quite a lot of them already, I fear.

Speaker 1 No, no, no.

Speaker 2 Can we have your third and final fascination for you?

Speaker 1 Now we're getting into my sort of special interest. Right.
The third fascination is classical music in the football world. And I think it exists far more than people are aware.

Speaker 1 I nearly wrote my dissertation as a classical music student about football chants and how they relate to classical music. Oh, nice.

Speaker 1 But the reason I wasn't allowed to do it for my bachelor's degree, my undergrad, was that there wasn't enough existing research.

Speaker 1 So at an undergrad degree, you have to basically just pull from other people's research. You can't do it.

Speaker 2 But you can't just create a topic out of nowhere.

Speaker 1 exactly you can't be the first guy looking into this too innovative a real blow for football cliches

Speaker 1 the director of music was like you can probably at some point do a PhD in this but you can't do this at undergrad level

Speaker 1 wow

Speaker 1 very very well so the obviously obviously you know you feel very strongly about classical music as that is your grounding so do you think it's being used too frivolously in football no no i think it's amazing and i also think the people from the classical music world could learn a lot from football the argument that i ended up making as a small portion of my dissertation, which was that classical music isn't for everyone, but it could be, is that football matches are the largest community music events in the world every single week.

Speaker 1 Because where else do you get 40,000 people potentially all singing a song at the same time?

Speaker 7 Out of time.

Speaker 1 Yes, sort of roughly large in the stadium, but like broadly speaking. You don't get that anywhere else.

Speaker 1 And I think, and they're sort of generated in communities and localities, and they've become the sort of, we don't really have folk songs being developed anymore, but football chants absolutely are that.

Speaker 1 And I think it's not viewed in the same way, which is probably positive in a weird way. But it, but I think there is something really interesting about the presence of music because it doesn't exist.

Speaker 1 Like if you talk to Americans about going to see American football or anything, they just don't have, they don't sing. And then you see the videos of them trying.
When they do,

Speaker 7 have you seen the thing? Someone posted it on our Reddit yesterday.

Speaker 7 There's some company in America has released an app which may or may or may not be well received from the American fans, but it's for it was for the Buffalo Bills fans, I think it was targeted at.

Speaker 7 Basically, an app where you can

Speaker 7 like it tells you the words for the chants and like it sort of bobs along like a

Speaker 7 karaoke thing so you can do it in time to the to the rhythm of it.

Speaker 2 That is unfortunately going to be in the Premier League within the next 10 years.

Speaker 1 And it's absolutely

Speaker 1 nonsense.

Speaker 1 That is awful.

Speaker 2 It is going to go very badly. I was surprised by this.
I assumed that this was going to be about classical music being used in kind of football broadcasting, things like that, to kind of...

Speaker 1 We've got Zadok the Priest in the Champions League thing. We've got a couple others.
Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto was the Gazprom Pre-Champions League ad.

Speaker 6 Wasn't O to Joy for Year 96?

Speaker 2 Yeah, BBC have... gone big on classical music as they're kind of opening

Speaker 2 soundtracks. And Charlie, it seems to me that they're trying, not unreasonably, to depict football as a kind of high art form.

Speaker 2 You can see how they dovetail a little bit, but should football be presented in that way?

Speaker 6 I mean, yeah, there's a sort of grandeur to it. It's a sort of shortcut.

Speaker 6 It's become completely expected that every major tournament, I think ITV, they certainly used to anyway, their opening credits would be with a piece of...

Speaker 7 As you two will have heard a few times when we've done

Speaker 7 our recordings have been interrupted by people delivering packages. My doorbell is Ode to Joy.

Speaker 1 Is it? Yeah.

Speaker 7 Wow. And because for that reason,

Speaker 7 Year in 96 was like, it's like the theme music that I can remember first out of all others.

Speaker 6 That is, I believe, the most commonly chosen song on Desert Island discs.

Speaker 2 Is it really? But it's crucially not, no, it's not Brexity, is it? Out to Joy. That isn't like one step to having like a flagpole in you.

Speaker 1 No, no. Right.
The opposite. It's Beethoven.
Is it right? Just check it. Yeah, it's truly not even English.

Speaker 2 Speaking of the absolute masters, there's that famous YouTube compilation of Matt Letitier's Southampton Goals set to Mozart's Divertimento in D major,

Speaker 2 which, you know, for everything we know about Letitier now

Speaker 2 is still a great legacy for him to have because

Speaker 2 there is something about an elegant footballer sort of tip-tapping his way through a game that lends itself to classical music. So it can be a good soundtrack.

Speaker 1 And ballet. Shostakovich wrote a ballet about football.
It was broadly about how football can sort of prevent war, which I don't really think adds up, but it's called The Golden Age.

Speaker 2 Tell that to George

Speaker 1 And he's a massive, he was a huge Dynamo Zagreb fan, Kostakovich. Really? And my favorite football fan composer is James Macmillan, who's a Scottish composer who's a massive Celtic fan.

Speaker 1 And he's done all sorts of amazing things, had countless pieces performed at the proms, at the Albert Hall, and all this. And somebody asked him what his most nerve-wracking moment as a composer was.

Speaker 1 And he said he was asked to write

Speaker 1 a piece for like the 120th anniversary of Celtic Football Club. Right.
And he completely lost the head and didn't know what to do.

Speaker 1 But he wrote a piece that he's very proud of about Celtic losing to Partisan Belgrade in the 1989 European Cup qualifier.

Speaker 1 So he wrote a piano concerto about this sort of two-leg fixture called the berserking because I think the first leg was 2-1

Speaker 1 to

Speaker 1 Belgrade. Not at Belgrade, but it was their home game because they weren't allowed to have home games because they were a bit naughty.

Speaker 1 And then at Celtic Park, the score was six. It was 5-3 in the 89th minute to Celtic.
And then Partisan Belgrade scored to make it 5-4, but it was 6-6 on aggregate. And Belgrade won on the old,

Speaker 1 sorely missed away goals rule. And James McMillan has a claim to fame as writing the only piece of orchestral music about the away goals rule.

Speaker 1 That is absolutely incredible.

Speaker 7 It's a shame you've explained to us which game that was from, because it would have been good to play you, Adam, the music, and see if you could have guessed which game it was from the rhythm.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 Mate, if you were going to come up with sort of, you know, several concertos, you could feasibly do it about Celtic losing in the qualifiers for European competition, to be fair.

Speaker 2 So that's probably not quite fertile ground. But coincidentally,

Speaker 2 when you sent this one over to me this week, at almost exactly the same time, I got a WhatsApp message from Ellis James, who, completely out of the blue, said that Ludovico Inaudi's Divineere,

Speaker 2 specifically for 1 minute 46, is the most Gabriel Clark does a positive report from the England camp piece of music ever.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Hopes are high.

Speaker 1 Exactly the right.

Speaker 2 It's early days, but.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Ellis James says here, Charlie, the hugely gifted young player, I think Owen 98 Rooney04 is smiling and pulling on his boots as the piano motif kicks in.

Speaker 2 I mean, this is a ubiquitous piece of music, but

Speaker 6 yeah, but it just does have that kind of hopefulness and that, you know, we're early on, but

Speaker 6 we're dreaming big and why not?

Speaker 7 No, you think it's early. I think it might be semi-final.
So they've, like in the Euros last summer, they've had a real journey to get there.

Speaker 7 And we're looking back at like the last-minute goal against Slovakia, the penalty shootout against Switzerland, Ollie Watkins, last gas winner against the Netherlands, and there's one final step to be made.

Speaker 7 Can this group of young lions make the step?

Speaker 6 I think there's too much at stake by then. Like that there's just

Speaker 6 yeah, I feel there's a slight lightness. Okay.

Speaker 2 Okay well on the back of that then you know as a classical musicsman yourself.

Speaker 2 A classical musicsman that's like how do you feel about national broadcasters weaponizing classical music to manipulate people into thinking that this stuff is going now to be dramatic because we have been told so because classical music has been played over the top.

Speaker 1 See, I think this is a misnomer that people think that classical music is being like pushed from the top down upon football, like it's being placed on football.

Speaker 1 classical music exists like in football going up the ways as well so quite a lot of like football chants are from classical music like you know is this a library is this that's la donna e mobile by giuseppe verdi

Speaker 1 and uh there's a couple others the but so i i i don't mind it's just dramatic that's that's anything that in broadcast anything is like oh there's a bit of drama it's orchestral music or it's a bit sort of retrospective or reminiscent and you're sort of nostalgic there's going to be piano and it's going to to be A and R D, which is sort of that's sort of that's the he's sort of the pop of classical music nowadays.

Speaker 1 It's a bit like you speak to sort of composers and they go, Fuck's sakes, that we should just on the whole episode on this. It's fantastic, yeah.
It's well, it's good stuff.

Speaker 1 The and I tried to find the first um football, oh, a real stretch one is Go West by the village people.

Speaker 1 It's based on Paco Bell's cannon, which has now obviously become your shit, and you know, you are your shit. And but El Gartrett was a huge Wolverhampton Monderers fan, Okay.
And he tried to write.

Speaker 1 Ever since.

Speaker 1 And he tried to write the worst, the first, not the worst, the first football chant. And it had one line of lyrics.
And it was He Banged the Leather for a Goal.

Speaker 1 And it never took off. But I want to play you.
Somebody found the original manuscript where he'd written the sort of tune that he wanted football fans to sing.

Speaker 1 And they played it on their keyboard at home. And I want you to try and work out how you sing he banged the leather for a goal to this.

Speaker 2 He banged the leather into the gold.

Speaker 1 You'd have to go really early with that thing. Just get it out of the way.

Speaker 6 He banged the leather into the gold.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 So that never took off, but Wolves fans now sing Nimrod from Elgar's Enigma variations with no words to keep it going.

Speaker 1 And then Pom and and Circumstance, March number one is Land of Hope and Glory, which becomes like all sorts of different football chants of we hate Nottingham Forest, we hate Arsenal 2, we hate Manchester United, Tottenham, we love you.

Speaker 1 But Elgar was beaten

Speaker 1 fairly soon after by a guy called Albert T. Smith, who wrote a chant in the 1890s for Norwich Teachers FC.

Speaker 1 But it was then adapted for North City because that was it was written before North City existed as a club.

Speaker 1 And it still gets sung today. I think this is the oldest still existing football chant because North City is still on the ball.

Speaker 2 Obviously, kicks off his seven nation alley.

Speaker 2 Here we go. Three, two, one, get

Speaker 2 it on, run away, say,

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 it'll spread. Hey, hey, hold on, swing me first.

Speaker 2 Overweight balls

Speaker 1 I don't think they did the city clap clap clap back in the 1890s.

Speaker 2 Fair play, Dave, that the first ever football chant essentially could, if you'd invented it today, be deemed to be essentially an approximation of every other football chart.

Speaker 2 So it's basically did its job straight off the bat.

Speaker 7 It's patient zero. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Isn't it? The language is very 1890s. Yeah.

Speaker 7 On the ball, ball city.

Speaker 1 Yeah, there's a couple extra.

Speaker 1 Would you mind a dramatic reading of the first ever football channel?

Speaker 1 So obviously they just do that sort of chorus bit, but there's like there's verses that, you know, nobody knows the verse. Nobody knows the second verse to On the Ball City.

Speaker 1 In the days to call, which we've left behind, our boyhood's glorious game, and our youthful vigor has declined with its mirth and lonesome end.

Speaker 1 You will think of the time, the happy time, its memories fond recall, when in the bloom of your youthful prime, we've kept upon the ball.

Speaker 1 Kick off, throw in, have a little scrimmage, keep it low, a splendid rush, bravo, win or die, on the ball city. Never mind the danger, steady on, now's your chance.
Hurrah, we've scored a goal.

Speaker 1 Let all tonight then drink with me to the football game we love, and wish it may successful be, as other games of old.

Speaker 1 And in one grand united toast, join player, game, and song, and fondly pledge your pride and toast, success to the city club.

Speaker 1 Kick off, throw in, have a little scrimmage, keep it low, a splendid rush, bravo win or die, on the ball, city. Never mind the danger.
Steady on. Now's your chance.
Hurrah, we've scored a goal.

Speaker 1 Fair play.

Speaker 7 If Norwich gets the FA Cup final, full version.

Speaker 1 There you go.

Speaker 1 There you are getting it.

Speaker 1 You've made it then.

Speaker 2 Oddly, parts of that seem verbatim, like Keir Starmer's Mezzo Hollandix.

Speaker 2 Well, well, that brings to an end Vittorio Angeloni's crowd-sourced, focus-grouped fascinations of football. We'll be back very shortly with his irritations.

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Speaker 2 Welcome back to Football Clichés. This is Mezzer Harlan Dix with with our guest, Vittorio Angelone.
He's told us about his fascinations of football. Now it's time for his irritations.

Speaker 2 What's your first one?

Speaker 1 I will say these are far less well-researched than the fascinations. That's right.

Speaker 2 We can go top heavy.

Speaker 1 I didn't want to spend any time on them whatsoever. Okay.
Tiny shin pads. Right.
Get rid.

Speaker 1 I'm bored. It seemed like it's become a weird competition between all the coolest players in the Premier League to have the smallest little shin pads.
And I don't get it.

Speaker 7 It is ridiculous. Like, I don't mind

Speaker 7 people wearing small, the small sort of shin pads that are that you could that you know without the sort of ankle straps.

Speaker 7 That's fine. Yeah.

Speaker 7 But the ones that you see now, yeah, where they're literally just like a square.

Speaker 1 He's got an SD card in there, Soc.

Speaker 2 I mean, it's ludicrous. It looks like they are smuggling something, Charlie, like into prison.

Speaker 7 They shouldn't be allowed, really. That is, you know, talk about like throw-ins not being allowed for being too silly.
That is clearly ridiculous.

Speaker 2 Well, this is a good point. Charlie, on the idea of whether they should be allowed or not, the laws of football have no accommodation for the size or shape of shin pads.

Speaker 2 They just don't bother to specify.

Speaker 6 That said, having grown up in an era where shin pads could be absolutely enormous and unwieldy and uncomfortable, I can see why there has been a sort of pushback against that.

Speaker 6 And I do think that is preferable to those days when some kids certainly would have these massive ones and they could be really uncomfortable.

Speaker 6 So, you know, yes, we've gone too far, but I can see why it's happened.

Speaker 2 Well, I have done some research on this, but I've gone a bit meta with it because you are the second Meset Holland Dicks guest in a row to evoke something that Jeff Shreves once raised on this podcast in his own Meset Holland Dicks.

Speaker 2 So, what a cultural influence he is, after all. Yeah.

Speaker 6 Shreves, he was on the money.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so singer-songwriter Shura and ex-Games Master host Dominic Diamond also raised small shimpas as one of their irritations. Like, Vittoria, why does this annoy so many semi-famous people?

Speaker 1 Well, I just think, thank you for Sammy.

Speaker 1 I was trying to capture the entire variety here.

Speaker 1 You can't come back with that because you'll maybe have to claim it yourself.

Speaker 1 I just think either it should be that you have to wear proper shin pads.

Speaker 1 Also, I don't really buy, I get when we were eight or nine years old and you had these sort of unwieldy things, maybe you were between a kid's size and an adult's size, and they were a bit big and they were uncomfortable.

Speaker 1 I'm willing to bet that every Premier League footballer can afford a nice, well, like a custom-fitted

Speaker 1 pair of shin pads part of me thinks like

Speaker 1 what is the thinking behind you having to wear them surely it's sort of your own prerogative of like wear them don't wear them if you get injured you don't play and you don't get paid or whatever but then if you know i don't understand the necessity of it yeah i always did used to wonder that i mean i always thought it was like how often have i been kicked in the shins

Speaker 2 like how often am i aware of them like really doing their job i mean oh mate you miss them when they're gone i'm sure that's true a toe on your shin at five a side it's actually i think pound for pound one of the worst injuries you can get really yeah just uh because you your shin bruises so easily yeah because the bones yeah yeah i was building a chest of drawers this week and i knew that at one point during the process i would bang my shin against a piece of wood it happened and it was awful yeah for that split second it's the worst thing that could ever happen to you but it's it is and i bet it will be a really arbitrary reason that they took hold in a way like ankle supports and things like that being but they're frowned upon by paramedics Is that right?

Speaker 2 They hate Sunday League footballers who have broken their leg and have they have to cut off the ankle protectors, which otherwise do no good job. So paramedics like really rail against.

Speaker 7 I'm a big ankle support guy. I still have been.
I still wear them. I've never worn them.
If I don't wear those big chunky ankle support shin pads, I feel

Speaker 7 my legs feel too light. I feel like my legs are going to snap.

Speaker 1 Are you all wearing shin pads to five aside?

Speaker 7 Not five aside, no. 11 aside, yes, but not five aside, yes, absolutely agree.

Speaker 1 Shin pads for 11 aside. But if somebody shows up in shin pads to five aside, red flag.
That would be me.

Speaker 2 I'm all or nothing. No, I'm sorry.
No, no, I completely disagree with this. I understand the spirit of your argument.
It's like, actually, no, I don't get it.

Speaker 6 Well, yeah, because 11 aside is different studs as well.

Speaker 1 So there is more of a threat to five aside. If everybody's in Astros, then you don't need shin pads.
But there's more contact.

Speaker 2 So it's more imperative to wear.

Speaker 1 Studs demand shin pads.

Speaker 2 And loads of people wear blades to five aside as well.

Speaker 1 And I have a go at them for that.

Speaker 2 But I have to say that my choice to wear shin pads to five aside is not based on fear for my shins necessarily.

Speaker 1 For my shins, it's not

Speaker 1 shins.

Speaker 1 It's not cowardliness.

Speaker 2 I want to be in football mode. I want to dress as a footballer for 11 aside and five aside.
There are no modes for me. It's all or nothing.

Speaker 1 These actors that need to get into costume before they can get a bunch of people. It's Daniel Day-Lewis of Power League.

Speaker 2 In many respects.

Speaker 2 But I mean, Dave, it feels like the lower legs of footballers are the epicentre of a potential Games Gone revolution because we've got small shin pads. You've got socks being cut off at the ankles.

Speaker 2 You've got football boots, and there's so many debates there. You've got brightly coloured football boots, which has been a Games Gone staple for many years.

Speaker 2 Footballers who steam their boots to make them smaller. so that they get a better touch of the ball.
And then you have players who famously wear a size too small so they can feel that.

Speaker 2 so this is a games gone playground holes in the back of the socks as well

Speaker 6 yeah but it's quite a mess it's quite funny though isn't it that those are all as you correctly say those are games gone you know we're like football purists but they're also just attempts to get marginal gains yeah and they're actually taking football very very seriously yeah which is normally what we bemoan young players you know games gone merchants will be like oh these young players they don't care you know they're all these over pampered no they're really really caring about their craft the sort of things that we'd be like lionizing fergie and brian Clough for doing.

Speaker 6 It's just doing it in a way that you don't like.

Speaker 1 I mean, is that why they have holes in the back of their socks that they really care? I think

Speaker 1 that's gullible idiots.

Speaker 6 No, but some of them, with like being very specific about their boots and things like that, I do think comes from a position of, I want to feel as comfortable as I possibly can.

Speaker 6 I think there's a lot of people.

Speaker 7 There's a huge copycat element to it, though. One person starts it and everyone thinks, well, I have to do it.

Speaker 2 See also set pieces. and long throwings.

Speaker 1 It was a flare jeans, skinny jeans, flare jeans. Exactly.

Speaker 2 But holes in the the back of socks made it onto FIFA.

Speaker 1 Oh, has it? A couple of years ago. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So you could choose to have a...

Speaker 2 So will small shin pads become a thing that you could customise in football games? I suppose it hasn't.

Speaker 6 If the cutting socks did, I suppose it hasn't.

Speaker 1 Where do you get them? Like the really small shin pads? They don't seem

Speaker 1 to be shocking.

Speaker 2 They're definitely a thing you can buy them now.

Speaker 7 You can't buy them in Sports Direct, though, can you?

Speaker 1 No, definitely.

Speaker 2 I mean, what can you buy in Sports Direct now to be like?

Speaker 1 Can I tell you a great bit of crime I did recently? All right, here we go. That's Sports Direct.
So I have

Speaker 1 Adidas Predators that I play rugby and my occasional 11-aside, I'll play in them as well. And one of the studs came out.

Speaker 1 It was a bit of an annoyance, but I was like, okay, they're soft-ground, Adidas boots. I'll order some Adidas soft ground studs and then I'll just replace it.
They arrive.

Speaker 1 They don't fit into my boots. And I was sort of irrationally furious about it.
But then I thought, no, I'm just going to solve this problem. Go to the Adidas customer service sort of chatbot thing.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, hello, these are the exact boots I have, the kind of item code, all that stuff. What studs do I need to buy to replace a stud on these boots?

Speaker 1 And they're like, yeah, here's the ones you need. And they sent me a link to the ones that I'd already bought and clearly didn't fit.
And I was like, right, that's not true.

Speaker 1 Mike's actually up to his old tricks again. Exactly.
I've already been here, so I'm not doing that again. And they were like, oh, yes, sorry.
Can you tell us what boots they are?

Speaker 1 And I was like, I've fully already told you this. Sent them it again.
And they were like, oh, it's actually these studs. Order them.
They don't fit.

Speaker 1 And I am just incensed at this point. So I march down to my local Sports Direct, walk in, grab the pair of boots that are the same as the boots I have, unscrew a stud in the pocket.
Wow.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 2 It's a victimless crime.

Speaker 1 It's a victimless crime.

Speaker 2 It is a victimless crime.

Speaker 1 I try.

Speaker 7 Until a child buys that pair of boots, takes it home.

Speaker 1 Are you not opening an eggbox before you put it in your basket?

Speaker 2 Listen, fair play to you for finding something in Sports Direct that would actually, is actually the thing you wanted to play. It's worth stealing? What is going on with Sports Direct these days?

Speaker 2 Like, yeah, if you need to buy a last-minute pair of boots, it's just an absolute...

Speaker 1 Tell you what, you can get a captain's armband. Yeah.
That's always on sale in Sports Direct for no reason.

Speaker 2 Just you suddenly feel some leadership instincts kicking in.

Speaker 6 No actual captain's armband.

Speaker 2 If you didn't get one.

Speaker 2 I don't think that an opportune moment is going to come in this second half of this show, but we do need to raise your nutmegging of Dimitar Berbatov.

Speaker 2 Is that something you plan for in advance? Did you have the right studs on at the time? It was an artificial pitch, wasn't it? So

Speaker 1 does that help? Oh, I think proper pitch. I think it was a grass pitch.
It was pretty low-level football. It was Sea View.
It was a very nice pitch then, innit? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 It's a proper, like, it's Irish League Seaview surrounded by sort of loyalist paramilitary flags, which is quite an exciting element to have in a football match, in a charity football match.

Speaker 2 What charity game was this? What was Berbatov in that part of the world?

Speaker 1 So it was comedians against

Speaker 1 sort of ex-pro footballers. And I only found out after doing that, and I sort of now look back and go, well, obviously, all the footballers got paid cash, sort of thousands, thousands of pounds to go.

Speaker 1 And they just do that. It's like sort of an ex-pro little earner that they go and do.
And so our pros were like Jermaine Beckford, Jermaine Pennant, Dimitar Berbatov, Ryan Giggs, Jason McAteer.

Speaker 1 and Stillian Petrov. So like a good little sort of,

Speaker 1 you know, like the streets won't forget, like a few of the streets won't forget along there. Very good fun.

Speaker 6 That would be the threshold of could have done with you out there today if you saw them at stage.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 to me, Berbatov was like the Berbatov and Petrov. I was for some reason, I was well into the Bulgarians.

Speaker 1 But I was just, I was like, God, Berbatov, that's

Speaker 1 especially because even retired, Berbatov is basically playing the same game that he played when he was in the Premier League.

Speaker 1 And it wasn't planned. I wasn't like, I'm going to nutmeg somebody today.
I was like, we're going to go out there and have a good time, do whatever.

Speaker 1 And I just pick up the ball and Bervatov stood in front of me. And again, I'm all risk-reward.

Speaker 1 I like a front-flip throw-in and I like just going for it. And only when watching the video back did I realize that I was the last defender.
Yes.

Speaker 1 Really?

Speaker 1 Wow. It's an absolutely insane bit of play.
And then I just pass the ball and do a full lap of the pitch celebrating after I'm not riding it.

Speaker 2 And that lap of celebration that he did, Charlie, really does imply that it wasn't pre-planned.

Speaker 1 It was something you could possibly plan in advance.

Speaker 2 But what I did want to discuss, actually about this was,

Speaker 2 now you're not shy to mention this, and quite rightly so, and your celebration

Speaker 2 is joyous. But Charlie, my question is,

Speaker 2 is there more kudos to nutmeging Dimitar Berbatov than there would be to a famous defender like Paolo Maldina or something?

Speaker 2 Is it a greater achievement to nutmeg

Speaker 1 the potential nutmeg?

Speaker 2 Is it like kidding the kidder, essentially?

Speaker 6 No, I do think a defender would be, like, not that I'm at all diminishing your achievement, but I can also...

Speaker 1 But Berbatov is also quite tall. He's quite easy to nutmeg.
He's very nutmeggable, isn't he?

Speaker 6 Yeah, Berbatov, of all the players I can least imagine sort of pressing with any kind of purpose, he's kind of right up. This is great.

Speaker 1 Anything else?

Speaker 1 What I will say is that I'm not.

Speaker 2 Also, Bulgarians are notoriously nutmegable.

Speaker 1 I did try not. I tried to find somebody else nutmegging Dimitar Berbatov on YouTube, and it doesn't exist.
I think I'm the only fucking person. What did you search for?

Speaker 1 Like, nutmeg Berbatov. Shorbatoff gets not meg, just like all of these.
But he just never pressed hard enough for it. Exactly.
Well, that's what I mean. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But I will respond to you with what I responded to one of the first Instagram comments on the

Speaker 1 video of me not making Barbatov, which we have in like super slow-mo, which I personally don't think I should have. This should be a story I tell in the pub and nobody believes me.

Speaker 1 But it's not right that I can go, oh, well, actually, here's me not making Barbatoff. But somebody replied, he's not a defender.
And my response to that is, I'm not a footballer.

Speaker 1 Fair play.

Speaker 2 Actually, he played centre-back for Manchester United once.

Speaker 2 I knocked Meg Dimitar back. He was deployed to the emergency centre.

Speaker 1 He was a centre-back. Yeah.

Speaker 2 That's great. So you can use that in your next place.

Speaker 1 I'm the only footballer to ever knock Meg Demeter Barbara. I'm claiming that.

Speaker 2 Well, I'm glad we got that discussion out of the way. Tell us about your second irritation of football, please.

Speaker 1 This

Speaker 1 thing. that people have got into their heads, it's really important and respectful, not walking on the badge on the way out of the tunnel.

Speaker 1 I just think it's completely pathetic.

Speaker 2 Do you think this is this is the kind of

Speaker 2 the end game for classy touches?

Speaker 2 Like there's there's but there's been this sort of 20-year-long obsession with minor gestures that are deemed by the consensus to be great things for a footballer to be seen doing.

Speaker 2 Yeah, do you think this is now the unacceptable end point for this? Because it is ludicrous.

Speaker 1 It's absolutely ridiculous, especially but when it's a badge that was designed two years ago. You know what I mean? Like people are walking around the Man City badge as if it's not brand new.

Speaker 1 It's like, oh, you've got to respect the badge. Why? The badge is a toddler.
What are we talking about?

Speaker 2 But I mean, there are other elements to this, Dave. I mean, the design of the badge is going to make that trickier.

Speaker 2 I mean, take the Spurs badge, for example, which has no discernible outline, no outer limits.

Speaker 2 It is just a thin, narrow cockerel standing on a ball.

Speaker 1 I mean, do you take the radius from centre? Yeah, exactly. Imply a circle?

Speaker 2 Yeah, exactly. I mean, if it's...

Speaker 7 Well, that gives you more room to work with, though, doesn't it?

Speaker 1 You could just hop over the cockerel, yeah. We could all hop over the cockerel, yeah, exactly.
Well, is there like a badge...

Speaker 1 Like, the man in Edward's probably quite good to do a little bit of, like, fast feet work on the way.

Speaker 1 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 But this has, um, this is, this has sort of broken out of the limits of football as well, Charlie. Matt Craig wrote in the other day.
He says, I was at Central Park enjoying the...

Speaker 2 John Lennon Imagine mural last week. A very poignant audience gathered watching an acoustic guitarist covering Beatles songs.

Speaker 2 People were tightrope walking around the edge of the ground mural, and parents were grabbing children so they wouldn't step on it out of respect.

Speaker 2 Yet instead of reflecting, I was struggling to hold in laughs as it purely reminded me of the bizarre Bellingham obsession of avoiding similar sized badges on the floors of stadiums.

Speaker 1 So it happens in the wider world.

Speaker 6 Is it part of the superstition as well as a respect?

Speaker 7 It's also just like

Speaker 6 I'm a bit worried.

Speaker 7 Like it's like stepping on three drains.

Speaker 6 Yeah, it's just, oh, I don't want to, I just don't want to.

Speaker 1 It's not a great badge. Yeah.

Speaker 1 People think of it in those terms.

Speaker 2 I mean, I'm sure we've made this point on the podcast before, Vittorio, but, you know, if you don't want your badge walked on, don't stitch it into a massive carpet in the tunnel where everyone's going to be walking.

Speaker 1 This is classic, my dad. If I've left a cup on the living room floor and he kicks it, and I'm like, you've kicked my cup.
And he's like, well, don't leave it on the floor then. Exactly.

Speaker 1 Don't leave it on the floor then. It's exactly that.
Sort of with him there, I've got to say.

Speaker 1 Sort of asking for trouble. It's a clear health and safety hazard.

Speaker 1 But the material. This is a Northern Irish thing.

Speaker 2 What's going on?

Speaker 7 The material it's made of, it's basically doormat material as well.

Speaker 2 It's like

Speaker 7 it's situated there. I don't know purposefully or not, but it's before the tunnel, you can scrub your boots.

Speaker 2 And we know this is definitely caught on as a cultural thing because script writers have got involved in this as well.

Speaker 2 Neil Thakra wrote in Vittoria and says, I was watching the new series of The Recruit on Netflix.

Speaker 2 And in the first episode of series two, the main character walks around the CIA logo on the ground like he's walking around a football club crest on his way onto the pitch.

Speaker 2 I had to rewind it several times and try to explain it to my bemused wife. So, yeah, even the CIA, I won't even tread on their emblem.

Speaker 1 Where does it end? The dorm out of Tasco?

Speaker 6 I mean, the CIA might feel they're a more important institution than a middle-aged Premier League club.

Speaker 1 Far more respect for Tasco than the CIA.

Speaker 1 Tasco didn't do 9-11.

Speaker 1 They had the resources to do it, though.

Speaker 1 If you'd ordered it, it would have happened within the next 6 to twelve hours no it would have been a terrorist attack replacement like a substitution

Speaker 1 instead of getting 9-11 you get a wheel of edam

Speaker 1 who would have thought that conversation would turn to this not walking on the badge in the tunnel the ultimate classy touch right your third and final irritation of football please vittorio this is a broader thing of everybody being just money grabbing bastards right players who are sat on the bench at like a big club and not getting playing time and complaining about not getting playing time pushing for a transfer it all seems to be going through and then the smaller club can't meet the wage demands but we're talking like instead of getting 150 grand a week they would be getting 120 grand a week and i just think do you want to be a footballer or do you want to sit on the bench This is amazing.

Speaker 2 Charlie, even Jeff Shreves didn't go with the overpaid, pampered millionaire title.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 6 They're channeling the spirit of Keys and Gray.

Speaker 6 Yeah, I mean, I've always thought with this, I think it comes from a place of being like, well, why should I be paid less than, you know,

Speaker 6 if I'm looking at someone else who I know is worse than me, why am I getting paid less than them? But where do you stand on like Raheem Sterling? I mean, he's currently what?

Speaker 6 He's being paid way too much by Chelsea for anyone to go anywhere near. And he's what? He's kind of just training

Speaker 1 with the youth team, isn't he? I'm a bit like if I was Raheem Sterling, like, you've been making crazy money for such a long time.

Speaker 1 You're sorted, your kids are sorted, realistically, probably, grandkids are sorted.

Speaker 6 But I guess we don't always know that.

Speaker 7 I do think that sometimes I agree.

Speaker 1 Like,

Speaker 7 it's pointlessly principled. I mean, putting any issues that they have aside, you know, people do say, oh, you know, your lifestyle.

Speaker 7 will go to whatever you're being paid, you know, and all that stuff. But put that to one side.
Sure, correct. But like, if I was Raheem Sterling or any player like that, like, can't you just go and

Speaker 7 have fun? Can't you just like pick a club? Can't Raheem Sterling or equivalent level player just say, I want to play for this club in the championship? They'll take you.

Speaker 2 If you run up

Speaker 7 Stoke and said, do you fancy me for a season?

Speaker 1 I don't even think we need to dip as low as that.

Speaker 6 He might not want to, but like if we're taking him, he might not want to leave London to go.

Speaker 7 Oh, go and play for QPR or someone.

Speaker 1 You know, just go and have a look at Starbucks for a career. There we go.

Speaker 1 In stereo notes, In unison, that's unbelievable.

Speaker 6 Well, also be more ambitious. Be like, I want to go and play in Barbados.

Speaker 1 Fuck it. I want to go and play Barbados.
You want a nice quality of life? Yeah, exactly. You're going to play in the Swiss league.

Speaker 6 Yeah, whatever it is you want.

Speaker 2 Look, I mean, I guess the problem we're facing here is a sense of distance between, you know, our humble lives and the hundreds of thousand pounds that footballers earn. Now, I realise that the

Speaker 2 premature ejaculation medication ads are going well for this podcast, but I'm still not in a position to be able to sympathise with footballers like that.

Speaker 2 But I do often wonder, Vittorio, just take the hit of a few tens of thousands that means you can do what you love and possibly reignite your career. It's a one step back, two steps forward situation.

Speaker 2 So maybe we're focusing on the wrong thing here.

Speaker 2 It's not that

Speaker 2 it could be a potential lifestyle change for a footballer. It's just you've got to think two chess moves ahead in your career, right?

Speaker 1 I think

Speaker 1 Grealish, I think, is a good example of somebody who sort of took the big move to the big club. It didn't quite pan out and is now like

Speaker 1 money class, but beyond a certain amount of money, like there's all those studies like over a certain amount per year, like happiness doesn't increase after that and they're earning that a week no matter what.

Speaker 1 So it's like take a notch down and enjoy your life. Be beloved by a good fan base.

Speaker 1 Go to, to quote the screen drop boys, a proper club who will absolutely adore you being there and become like a cult hero.

Speaker 7 Comedy is a quite a good analogy for this. If you played the O2,

Speaker 7 right, you'd still like to go and do the odd night at a small club as well, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah, and also, like, I'm so

Speaker 1 not money-motivated. I think it's so, I think money, like, and talking about how much money you're making and arguing about it publicly is so gross.

Speaker 1 Like, there's a weird thing that some comedians do, and it's very American, where they say, oh, I just had the highest grossing weekend at this comedy club.

Speaker 1 And I'm like,

Speaker 1 say most attended, because all all I think now is like, well, multiple people have sold out a whole weekend. You've just managed to charge the most.
It's really embarrassing.

Speaker 6 And that is a very different cultural theme. You see that across the like a lot of the time in America, yeah.

Speaker 1 There's all that sort of stuff. And sort of Ricky Gervais has like adopted it.
I think he has the highest grossing comedy show of all time at the Hollywood Bowl. And you just think like,

Speaker 1 yeah.

Speaker 1 And I go, why are you like chuffed with that? Because he himself once might have said, oh, love me. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But there is a difference.

Speaker 6 Like, footballers, there is a difference because they are, like, their earning potential does just plummet after a certain point. So I can understand why they are like, just max this out.

Speaker 6 Like, I know what I'm worth. I don't want to, I don't think it's fair that I'm, you know, because they might feel, I don't want to be exploited.
I don't want to be underpaid.

Speaker 1 But do you think in your 40s, you're more likely to be like, oh, I wish I'd played more football in front of a crowd that like really wanted to see me play football and had more amazing moments?

Speaker 1 Or like, oh, I'm glad I could put more into some, like, I could hand more to an investment banker I trust to look after all my money.

Speaker 1 But but that's all that's happening with all that money but I bet there are some who are like I've spaffed away all my money if I'd been you know because there will be there'll be loads who even though they earn an absolute fortune will then have lost it like 10 years after but I don't think the 20 grand a week difference is what's causing that maybe what's causing that it's not like it's not like going to it's not like Raheem Sterling is like being very very sensible with his money but if he went somewhere else he would spaff he's not yeah he's obviously an extreme example what cautionary tale this is going to be for the uh select few MHD would-be guests out there who price themselves out of an appearance on this podcast.

Speaker 2 Hopefully, they're rethinking things. Now, actually, you've got a little bonus one here to do with the bench.

Speaker 1 Tags on is like, why do you want to

Speaker 1 sit on a bench for loads of money rather than like, you know, playing for slightly less?

Speaker 1 Can we make it a bench again?

Speaker 1 Can we make the bench a bench?

Speaker 1 And not for some reason racing car seats.

Speaker 1 Why are they all in?

Speaker 2 Is this pampered millionaires again?

Speaker 1 No, because they're not even comfortable. If they were all in big like armchairs that were reclining, I'd be like, okay, that's sort of like pampered millionaires.

Speaker 1 But they're all these like rock-solid Formula One chairs for no reason.

Speaker 2 They seem to be designed, Dave,

Speaker 2 for the spectacle of a player who's been hooked after 60 minutes and is furious with their manager and just wants to slump in a seat.

Speaker 1 You couldn't do that on an old school bench.

Speaker 2 You couldn't sulk on an old bench. You can sulk in a Recaro Formula One seat.

Speaker 1 You get hit it quite hard on the way back.

Speaker 2 Really slump. like pull your track suit up.

Speaker 7 I mean, we wouldn't have been the only club to do this, but Watford,

Speaker 7 well into like the 80s,

Speaker 7 actually still had two benches, and they didn't have dugouts. They didn't have any covered

Speaker 7 sort of bit over the top of it. And because Graham Taylor said that because we had terraces that were uncovered, he said, if the supporters are going to get rained on, I'm going to get rained on too.

Speaker 7 So he refused to install a proper dugout. And now his statue outside the ground is of him sitting on that bench, like crouched down on that bench.

Speaker 7 But you do see it, I mean, even in like the documentary of Graham Taylor that we talked about on Dreamland the other day, like he's on the bench, Clough like on the bench in like in those big European games.

Speaker 7 There is something quite nice, romantic about just a humble bench.

Speaker 1 The Bielsa bucket? I love the Bielsa bucket. That was a good bit of fun.

Speaker 2 Maybe, you know, we were talking earlier, Charlie, about how steady architecture is sort of mitigated against goalkeepers having to wear caps, but presumably overhanging side stands in Premier League has negated the use of what look like small conservatories.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 1 polyton.

Speaker 2 Oh, Highbury had one, didn't it? That's sort of a sort of a, you know, essentially white and perspex shelter

Speaker 1 for the sexes to sit in. What happened to those? Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Much beloved.

Speaker 1 Kim's gone. I mean, yeah,

Speaker 2 there are basically several tiers to modern-day Premier League benches, Dave. They are a whole section to themselves.

Speaker 7 If you've spent billions on the stadium and you just sort of install a little bench that you would find in like the school gym, it's not going to wash, is it?

Speaker 1 With the flappy things on the

Speaker 2 vivid memory of the wooden bench.

Speaker 1 With the white dots.

Speaker 1 Somebody sat on the Jack Grays on the white dots, like fuck's sake.

Speaker 1 That's right up my ass.

Speaker 2 The old Trafford bench is going to take some... sort of removing because basically they have to walk up some steps to sit behind some brick that looks like it's the front of a magistrate's court.

Speaker 2 Yeah, a really very particular look, the old Trafford dugout. But a player shouldn't have to walk up steps or downsteps

Speaker 1 or leave a hole. That's a health and safety risk.

Speaker 2 Exactly, exactly.

Speaker 2 But yeah, especially in tiny, tiny shimpads. Vittorio, it's been an absolute pleasure.

Speaker 1 Thank you for having me on.

Speaker 2 Thank you for the effort you put into both preparing this podcast and for placing us in a studio for the first time in two years.

Speaker 1 I'm so, so I feel like I've made such a faux pas by dragging you into a picture. This could be function here.

Speaker 6 Yeah, we've really put you at ease over that.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I'll invoice you for my train. It's fine, as you should.

Speaker 2 But yeah, it's been absolutely pleasure to have you.

Speaker 1 Thanks for coming. Thank you for coming along.

Speaker 1 I should plug my tour. My PR people will be annoyed if I don't plug my tour.

Speaker 2 So, are you mid-tour right now?

Speaker 1 No, I'm about to start the tour. Well, I fly to New York tomorrow to do

Speaker 1 my

Speaker 1 one-off tour show in New York.

Speaker 6 Highest gross thing ever.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah, to 80 people in New York.

Speaker 1 And then I start my UK and Ireland tour in January through to like April. So I'm coming just all over the place.

Speaker 7 How many dates are you doing, Jay?

Speaker 1 It's at least 50, but then we're doing like Australia and Europe and then a bigger America tour in May. So like the last tour cracked 150.
I'm hoping not to hit so many this time.

Speaker 7 We've just done an eighth date tour and all of us went quite insane by the end of it.

Speaker 7 And we were looking at in the dressing rooms, you look, they've got all the posters of comedians who've done previous tours and we were looking at how many dates they all do and just sort of trying to get our heads around doing that many.

Speaker 7 How'd you do it?

Speaker 1 Well, it's not like we don't have to put up with anybody else, which is nice.

Speaker 1 I don't even have a support act on this tour because I'm paying a band, which is so stupid.

Speaker 7 Just you listening to classical music in the dressing room.

Speaker 1 Dvorak's eighth symphony is a very good post-good gig listen.

Speaker 1 Add it to the playlist. Actually,

Speaker 2 I think that's exactly what Adam needs, actually.

Speaker 7 A bit of classical music just to chill him out. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, there was only two sort of near-Saipan moments on our tour.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we started ourselves. We should never talk to each other like that.
Anyway, thanks to you, Charlie Eckleshare. Thank you.
Thanks to you, Dave Walker.

Speaker 6 Thank you.

Speaker 2 Thanks to everyone for listening. We'll be back on Tuesday.
See you then.

Speaker 11 This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network.

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