It was one of the first football clichés I can recall and goes back to the 1970s. ‘As sick as a parrot’. There are many different explanations as to the origins of this particular cliché although my favourite dates back almost a century.
Tottenham Hotspur went on an overseas tour in 1908 and the captain of the ship they sailed on presented them with a parrot as a gift. The bird sat happily in the confines of White Hart Lane in North London. However, controversy arose in 1919 when Spurs arch-rivals Arsenal were admitted to the First Division - at Spurs expense. The day the decision was announced the parrot died (I won’t make the obvious Monty Python gag…)
Clichés are so ingrained in football these days it’s little surprise that
players and managers will trot them out ad finite. In my more idle moments, I
have wondered when they were first spoken and who by. I’ve often heard it said
after a particularly physical game that ‘no quarter was asked’. What does that
mean exactly? How does that fit with another well-worn cliché ‘a game of two
halves’? I’ve never quite understood what no quarter was asked meant. I can
fathom its use in other scenarios. I had an argument with my local sweetshop
owner the other day when I accused him of falling short with the number of liquorice
all sorts he put in my bag. His response of ‘well there was no quarter asked’
was understandable if somewhat irritating. However, what it means in a football
sense is less clear.
Then there’s the 'stonewall' penalty. I heard one of the seemingly endless
summarisers on television say the other week after a player was hauled down and
the referee waved play on that ‘for me, it was a stonewaller’. The pundit is
far from alone in using this phrase, but it does make me wonder what it means
in a football context.
Some pearls
of wisdom remain etched in the memory. Craig Burley was summarising a Newcastle
United v Aston Villa game a few years back. At 0-0, Villa’s John Carew blasted
his penalty into the upper tier of the Gallowgate Stand of St. James Park inducing
Burley to opine ‘he hit the ball too well….’
One that I haven’t heard for a while - educated foot - as in "he's
spraying the ball around the park with his educated left foot" Now there
are two inexplicable clichés in the same sentence. Can you spray a solid,
spherical object? And in what context can your left foot be educated? Did it go
to St. Andrew’s University while the rest of your body hopped around the
streets with a sweeping brush?
BT Sports Champions League coverage includes summaries from the former
Liverpool defender Jim Beglin. The Irishman talks a good game, but he does tend
to use the phrase "that was meat and drink for the goalkeeper"
whenever a cross ball is easily collected. I half expect Manchester City’s
goalkeeper Ederson to catch the ball, produce a napkin from his shorts and
start tucking into the match ball…
Prior to
their exclusion to Champions League coverage, ITV used to have former United
and West Bromwich Albion manager Ron Atkinson as a summariser until he courted
controversy with a racist comment. Atkinson is given the credit - or should
that be blame - for first coining the phrase ‘early doors’ as in ‘United will
look to keep things tight early doors.’ Many people use that term now and we
all know what it means but I do wonder how on earth Atkinson thought it made
any sense.
There are clichés in all walks of public life. How many politicians do you hear
saying ‘the fact of the matter is’? (usually when they’re trying desperately to
think of an answer to a probing question) However, they seem more prevalent in
football and it’s not just players and officials. Newspaper reporters will
often refer to a manager ‘losing the dressing room’ or the more successful ones
as ‘supremo' while the transfer window always 'slams shut' at the end of August
and January.
At the end of the day, cliches are part and parcel of football. It’s a big ask
for me not to write this article without resorting to cliché mode and, to be
fair, I set my stall out early doors. Although, I have to say, as I wrote
this whilst consuming copious amounts of brandy this there’s a fair
chance ‘I’ll be feeling that one in the morning…’
