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 Post subject: Oi, You! of Tubby
PostPosted: Sun Mar 14, 2010 10:28 pm 
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Football Clichés

What is a cliché and why are they so common in football? This page lists some of the more popular footballing clichés used by players, commentators and fans to describe the beautiful game.


Clichés are expressions or sayings that have become so overused that they have lost some of their original impact. In football, clichés are used quite a lot and they are often associated with the emotional aspect of the game. Sometimes the meaning is clear or extremely obvious, e.g. football is a game of two halves but more often than not the original meaning of a cliché is often difficult to understand. Why, for example, are parrots sick? How can a player give 110% when 100% surely is the maximum? And why does a victory send players and managers over the moon?

Many feel that the overuse of clichés demonstrates the fact that football players, managers, fans, commentators and pundits have a poor vocabulary and are lacking in imagination. However, clichés form part of the football discourse and though there is often no logical explanation to their meaning, they do provide some colour and humour for the football world.

You will often hear football clichés in interviews with players before and after a match, as well as from TV match commentators and pundits. Former manager Ron Atkinson famously introduced new expressions to the game such as ‘early doors‘, while British commentator Clive Tyldsley never seems to tire of referring to Manchester United’s 1999 Champions League win as ‘that night in Barcelona‘, among others.

Below are some of the more common clichés you may come across while reading about or listening to the football world but if you hear any others then let us know by posting a comment below. It will, to paraphrase the great manager, Brian Clough, only take a second.

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To run your socks off

This cliché is used when a team or an individual player is seen to work very hard during a game. The expression is often used with the verb ‘work’ as in he worked his socks off throughout the game. Indeed, this phrase is synonymous with certain types of battling midfield players such as Steven Gerrard or formerly Roy Keane who often run their socks off to get their teams back into a game. If a team works their socks off it means that they battled hard and did not give up. To work your socks off.

A great advert (for the game)

A great advert for the game is a cliché used by commentators and fans to describe an exciting match that usually represents the best of something or somewhere. Sometimes a match can be described as being a great advert for the Premier League, that is, it represents all that is good from the English league, such as battling skills, bravery, attacking play and so on. When it is used to describe a game from the lower leagues it is praising the standards of the two teams involved – thus, West Brom versus Newcastle was a great advert for the Championship – it was of a Premier League standard despite being played in a lower division.

You can’t win the title in August but you can certainly lose it

This cliché is a classic example of stating the complete obvious to make a point. As most European leagues start in August and finish in May it is mathematically impossible for a team to win the title so early in the season. So no matter how well a team begins the season it is far too early to predict that they will become champions. However, if a team that is tipped to do well has a bad start to the season then it might be difficult for them to recover and go on to win the title, meaning that a winning start is vital. You can’t win the title in August but you can certainly lose it.

A game of two halves

One of the biggest football clichés has to be it’s a game of two halves. Of course it is! The first half and the second half. But sometimes this cliché is true. For example, Liverpool against AC Milan in the Champions League final in 2005. AC Milan in the first half score three goals. Surely they are going to win. In the second half, Liverpool score three goals to force extra time and finally to win on penalties. Truly a game of two halves.

To be as sick as a parrot

This is the opposite of being over the moon and means to be upset after losing a game – usually an important one. This phrase is not heard as much as it was before, particularly in the 1970s when players frequently used it. Nowadays players tend to say that they are ’sickened’ at losing or conceding a late winner rather than using the expression containing the original unwell bird!

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