I can lay the blame for this article fairly and squarely at the feet of my MFW colleague Chris Sadler, who came up with a lovely piece of nostalgia last week featuring photos of Max Miller and Lenny Bruce, clever word play on footballers’ names and some pretty tasty anagrams to boot.
As somebody who grew up in the days of Kenneth Wolstenholme, David Colman and Peter Lorenzo, the young me would not believe the advances in technology we have experienced over the last 50 years.
We had Bill McLaren for the Rugby, Freddie Truman on the cricket, Murray Walker on F1 and Harry Carpenter for boxing. I loved the lot of them as they [kind of] brought what me and and my dad wanted to see. For those of a strange disposition there was also Eddie Waring mutilating the English language while simultaneously covering Rugby League.
Norwich City barely featured on the primitive incarnation of Match of the Day and I struggled to get reception from Anglia while living in Essex so I was largely stuck with the avuncular Brian Moore on LWT’s The Big Match.
But enough already. I’m really thinking about the change in the language of the game over this timespan.
It’s amazing how we have all, whatever our ages, effortlessly assimilated the buzzwords which seem to increase every day.
Even five years ago, had we honestly heard of:
◆ High press/low press/any type of press?
◆ DM CM No.10 AM or CB?
◆ It’s a thunderba$tard?*
◆ That lad is a baller?
◆ They’re moving it well between the thirds [not Sheff Utd obvs]?
◆ He needs minutes on the pitch/in his legs?
◆ VAR- featuring your armpit is offside?
◆ He’s great in the hole [ooh er missus]?
◆ It’s an uncontested drop ball?
◆ Homegrown?
◆ Project Restart?
◆ BCD?
◆ Midfield powerhouse?
Now there’s just a baker’s dozen for you but I’m sure I’ve omitted so many modern phrases, which have already become cliches. Nobody speaks of a left half or an inside right anymore. Or a lino. Or playing 2-3-5. Could you imagine that now!
Language and football have always evolved in parallel for sure but this spate of new terminology is quite effortless to keep up with thanks to the internet and the millennials who often love to introduce their own phraseology. And why shouldn’t they?
Although I’ve always enjoyed the dubious gift of schoolboy French I lived in Spain for a while and because I’m not the hear , speak and absorb type I learned the basics through the sports pages of the Mallorcan red top Ultima Hora. You can quite quickly discern the difference between a centrocampista and an afficionado when you’re in the market square with a Cruzcampo or two.
So if there any modern terms you love [mine’s thunderba$tard] or dislike [mine’s homegrown as it simply shouldn’t be a requirement IMO please let me know.
A very interesting article to start the week when the main objective is trying to avoid ‘overheating!!’
I liked your choice of ‘buzzwords’ and I would plump for VAR Very Ambiguous Ruling. We get a decision in rugby/cricket within a few seconds yet with VAR it can often take 2 minutes. If the numpty watching umpteen screens can’t reach a decision within 30 seconds, then the decision of the match officials stands.
Yes, I loved the description of ‘inside right’ etc and now we get ‘overlapping fullbacks (though ours are very good)!!’
It took me a while to decipher ‘BCD’, as in my younger days, it was a numerical term.
Looks as though Loserpool have given up on trying to sign Lewis and attention now focuses on Buendia, but IMO he may well stay and I now fear losing no more than 3 of our young stars.
What will be more interesting is who leaves out of Vrancic, Trybull, Leitner etc.
Hi Ed
This was a deliberately light-hearted piece as I don’t think I could stand much more transfer speculation at the moment – it’s only August 10 and I’ve had enough already!
I agree BCD sounds like something Caesar and his mates would have used all those years ago when discussing the ancient Juventus first XI but it also refers to what humans get up to in private of course.
Webber came out very well in the Jamal shoot-out with Edwards [?] I thought.
I see no reason for Mario to go but the other two you mention? Probably.
Thanks as always.
It is interesting to see how some terms have vanished. Do Midfield Generals still exist? The introduction of the transfer window has got me wondering about the date in March which used to be the deadline for transfers. Did we call it Transfer Deadline Day? I can’t remember but I’m sure we must have done. I’d actually considered overlapping full backs to be a term that had been lost. I remember the likes of John Ryan and Ian Davies being described as such in the 70s when it was common to be an overlapping full back in the Terry Cooper style. However, sometime in the 90s they became wing backs. Are we back to overlapping full backs now? I remember coaching a team in the 90s and trying to persuade my centre forward that he would serve us better in midfield. Describing the role as a number 10 playing in the hole would have made my task a lot easier, I think we called it deep lying centre forward, maybe a nod to the Revie Plan from the days when Revie played
Hi John.
That’s a very good take on the whole thing.
Midfield general would now be Archant’s Paddy D’s midfield powerhouse – the first time I saw the phrase was in one of his columns anyway.
Modern no. 10s are nothing like Geoff Hurst of course. Anything but.
I’d imagine wing back is largely still extant depending on the style any particular team sets up in of course. Right/Left Back are obviously still en vogue for those teams who play a flat back four.
Now “deep-lying centre forward” isn’t one I remember!
Thanks – good comment.
Good article, Martin.
We now have a whole new generation of football fans throwing around terms such as;
Ramdeuter, trequartista, enganche
And
Libero
If – like most of us who don’t spend months glued to football manager 2020, you have zero idea what these mean, then this handy link will explain.
https://www.guidetofm.com/tactics/roles-duties/2/
My favourite ‘old school’ term….
‘Stopper’
A good read
Hi Martin
I’ve known Libero from Italian football for ages as “the man with freedom” – Beckenbauer and most of the 1974 Dutch side immediately come to mind.
I know two of your three but quite what a ramdeuter is/does I dunno. Sounds a bit painful to me if I’m honest.
Duncan Forbes was the archetypal stopper.
Cheers
Pshaw, I’m blushing! Great article, Martin.
Why thank you.
About once a season, after playing about 82 games in 3 weeks, the sports pages would be headlined by a story of a star player being ‘rested.’ Now we have ‘squad rotation’ because players are in the ‘red zone’ after getting lots of ‘minutes’ of ‘game time.’
Managers have become Head Coaches who answer to their Sporting Director. The Chairman, who could previously be found spending his weekdays running his butcher of fur coat shop, has been replaced by a CEO based on a different continent running a country or a monarchy.
But, once players leave the ‘locker’ room (I wonder if they do actually have lockers or whether it’s still really a changing room) the aim of the game hasn’t changed. The still have to get the ball in the onion bag more times than the other lot.
Hi Don
You’ve got some good ones in there.
I didn’t really think of the off-pitch side of things but I like your take on matters concerning the hierarchy. As for locker room I think it’s an American term from Baseball that us Limeys adopted yonks ago.
Cheers
Hi Martin. Enjoyed that!
“Wing backs” is one you missed out. In my day, you were a full back or a winger, and one had the job of stopping the other. Couldn’t ever see Brian Thurlow venturing far for forward, but he did his job. Many a winger found themselves crashing into the South Stand railings!
Another thing that for me hasn’t changed – they’re still the Barclay, the River End, the South Stand, and the Main Stand, and i don’t think I’ll ever change.
I thought BCD was a mind-blowing drug from the 60s, or was that something else. I can’t remember, so I must have been there!
Hi Jim
Great point about the Stands. For me it will always be the River End, Barclay, City Stand and South Stand too, although one of these is still referred to as the Jarrold by quite a few of us of course.
N&P? Regency Security? Nah – the River End. After all the Wensum itself hasn’t changed its name to attract a sponsor. Not to my knowledge anyway.
Thanks a lot.
Sorry Martin, City Stand is too modern for me! It’s been the Main Stand from the days where it was made of wood, and the only place in the ground where you could sit down. Used to have a standing enclosure in front of it, too.
I do remember the stand exactly as you describe it but to reverse the terminology your nomenclature is an old one on me!
I’ve only been in there once in my life and that was during the Chase Out days when it was all seating. But that’s another tale for another time 🙂
Really nostalgic article Martin.
I loved all those catchphrases of old, I remember Gerry Harrison that famous Ipswich supporter took it too far at times like MacDougall ” rises like a salmon” etc
David Coleman’s 1-0 spoken so emphatically. Jimmy Hill pontificating like only Jimmy could. I loved it when they did the exploding Jimmy skit. As for Eddie Waring, I just couldn’t understand a word he said other than Wigaaaan !
Then there was the brilliant Brian Moore on ITV, whose enthusiasm was infectious. Though I do remember one City v Man Utd game where every time Bryan Robson got the ball his noise decibels got higher and higher whereas it was definitely muted for the boys in green and yella.
I hated Farming Bloody Diary waiting for Anglia TV’s Match of the Week to come on after, especially if we were on.
ITV’s Saturday afternoon Wrestling show was hilarious, I remember asking Dad why you couldn’t bet on it, because it was fixed was his laughing reply. But it was the quickest way to keep up to date with the football scores as the came up along the bottom of the screen. I felt a mixture of excitement and dread waiting for our scores to come through.
There was no Radio Norfolk commentary in those days nor “It’s unbelievable Jeff” from Sky’s Soccer Saturday.
As you say Martin in those days there only were 2 main reporters for each sport, coverage is light years away from that now.
I know I am now 62 and basically an Old Git, but I do love remembering those days.
Hi Tim
You’re exactly the same age as myself so no wonder we have the same memories.
In the late 80s when I occasionally worked in Hadleigh my Ipswich mate always referred to Gerry “Norwich” Harrison which we both found quite amusing.
I completely forgot about the wrestling – Grandma always had it on at Saturday dinner time before World of Sport and she thought it was real. Real enough for her to hate Jackie Pallo and Mick McManus anyway. I think the host was Kent Walton – possibly not his real name?
I’ve nothing against millennials – all four of our collective grown-up offspring are in that category but sometimes they think our generation lived in caves.
Compared to them, we probably did.
Thanks as ever.
Marty, for me the halcyon days of football comments was back in the 50’s. Apart from the posh people, we stood and swayed to watch the game, home and away supporters mixed together. So no rival chanting but a few very loud mouthed and well known characters who gave advice to the ref and players. The comments would be priceless and the embarrassed players would wave in acknowledgement. If an attacker was getting some close attention from a defender the advice would be ‘watch out Billy he’s getting amorous.’
Hi Cutty
I don’t remember the 50s for obvious reasons but I do remember being at Upton Park with my two uncles around 1965.
One of the priceless characters in the crowd was a guy called Ginger who wore a flasher’s mac and had an orange beard that would put the hippest of hipsters to shame.
Harry Redknapp went down injured and needed treatment, the crowd went silent and Ginger yelled “Oi Redknapp you dirty w*****. Git yer trarziz up and git on wiv the game”.
Everyone heard him from the North Bank to the Chicken Run.
That must have been 55 years ago and I can still remember it now.
Cheers
PS. Have fond memories of Eddie ‘it’s an oop an’ oonder’ Waring as he’s the only one of the six pictured who ever mentioned my great uncle Ted during commentary!
C’mon Chris you have to expand on that!
Did great uncle Ted ever go for an oooorly bath or summit?
Ted was my grandad’s brother. He played for England in both Rugby Union and League. My grandad last met him on a troop ship in about 1944 where Ted borrowed a white fiver off him. Ted went missing after the war, they never met again, and grandad never got his fiver back. A rueful and frequently mentioned memory.
Eddie Waring once mentioned Ted in commentary with a comment along the lines of ‘That rolling maul reminds me of Ted Sadler.’
It’s not much of an anecdote, but it’s all I’ve got, Martin.
Bl00dy good anecdote that I enjoyed.
I suspect our colleague Martin MacB will enjoy it too.
How times have changed since Alf Ramsey invented his wingless wonders. That was when goals were goals straight away. When you didn’t have wait for VAR. The talking point was the decision not the technology.
I used to watch non league football at Boston United. We stood behind the goal Boston was attacking for the first half and walked round to the other goal to do the same in the second half.
It was when you could take wooden “rattles” to the game. How technology has regressed from those to those card things they dish out these days.
It was when teams outside the First Division got a decent write up in the national papers.
It was when my dad turned down a trial for Notts County because the money on offer was only marginally more than he could earn working on the railways.
Of course, all was not good in those long gone days as it was the start of football holiganism. I witnessed my first holiganism at the last game of the season when I went to watch Fulham play Forest, I think in 1968. Forest came second that season to Man Utd. Crowds were not segregated and the Fulham fans were throwing cans at the Forest fans.
We might have lots more buzz words these days but the game overall and the match day experience overall are better.
Hi Colin
Yes that’s an interesting perspective. I tend not to refer to the hooligan aspect in writing if I can help it but most of us have lived through it when it was in extremis and although things are a LOT better now as you say there’s always the occasional group of eejits who think it’s cool to have a go.
I’m not naming the clubs – I don’t need to. We all know who they are.
Your tale about your dad resonates with me. A guy who worked with his manager brother as a coach at Blofield United was apparently offered a trial by Wolves but simply didn’t want to leave Norfolk so his mother declined on his behalf. For that reason alone.
I remember the old cogged rattles painted in club colours – stuff your luck if you stood in very close range of one of those. They looked so innocent but were bleedin’ deafening.
Thanks a lot.
They were also bleedin’ lethal, if swung too enthusiastically. I know, I had one!
🙂
I had an uncle who played for Wolves’ second team. The interesting points was he was an amateur.
That is interesting.
My uncle Pete played for Old Plastovians [his East London alumni team] at a reasonably high level but perhaps also half a dozen times for Corinthian Casuals in the Isthmian League. Late 60s I’d guess.
I believe CC were the last truly amateur team to play at that level.
Hi Martin
And a good morning to you in a 24c Blackpool.
You missed Saints and Greaves there were the forerunners of all the pundits and made you laugh as well.
Now Hawkeye for cricket has stopped checking the bowlers for faults as it wasted time, so the 3rd umpire is doing a continuous check during play and then notifying the onfield umpire. They really are showing up VAR.
1 strange rumour from yesterday via the Sun and Pinkun, is that City would loan out Cantwell, Aaron, Lewis, and possibly others to Premiership clubs for a season with the provision of an agreed purchase at the end of the season due to clubs having a shortfall in this financial climate – personally I can’t see it.
I am with you on abbreviations and new terms but the time you get used to 1, a new 1 replaces it. The pundits are trying to outdo each other. Just get rid of Redcrapp, Spitter Carra, and most other biased LIVARPOOL pundits and we will be ok.
Onwards and upwards
OTBC
Stay safe and stay healthy
Hi Alex
We’ve got 28 indoors so Jeez knows what it is outside.
I once had the Saint & Greavsie book “football is a funny old game” and it was a much better read than I’d expected.
I cannot see this loan-out thing having any legs in it. Anything can go wrong over the course of a season and it only needs a thumbs down on final purchase to completely dispirit [and devalue] a player. Sell with loan-back? Yes if we have to but I’d really rather stick to cash sales only. It would be good if Webber could come out and rubbish this particular rumour asap.
Cheers mate
Good Afternoon
Martin Peters ghosting in at the back long before he arrived at Carrow Road.
Nostalgia not always the way ahead -mention of Fred Truman brings a chill “things wernt like that in my day”
Also Anglia’s camera position off centre behind the goal at the River End – not the best
Cheers
Hi Gerry
Yes in retrospect you’re right about the Anglia camera siting – I don’t think I realised it at the time if I’m honest.
Truman went on to present an afternoon TV show called Indoor League, complete with pint and fully-functional pipe. I think it featured shove halfpenny and bar billiards and if anyone could make a viable TV show out of that [especially as I think it was in B&W] I’d love to know how they managed it!
Thank you.
Fred son married Rachel Welsh’s daughter and both did an interview on Yorkshire TV and he also did some bowling with a bread roll to Boycott as he bragged he could bowl him out with a BAP
Well one of them would have been stone cold sober anyway!
That’s my pick for anecdote of the article amongst stiff competition 🙂
Sorry got that wrong it was Rachel Welsh’s son to Fred’s daughter
I’d like to add the word fiasco to the words that deserve to be rehabilitated for modern footballing parlance. I’d like to describe Norwich’s attempt to stay up in such a way but the effort was so lacklustre that it doesn’t deserve such a description. Maybe resigned acceptance is a better description.
Hi Tony
It won’t surprise you to know that I agree with you.
Cheers
Reserves.
They were the 11 blokes who played every Saturday secretly hoping their counterpart in the first team got injured and they didn’t. If the first team was at Carrow Road they were away, and vice versa. The manager rarely saw them play.
Nowadays 7 of them are called substitutes and the other 4 are expected to be “model professionals” even though they are not involved.
Hi Keith
Good pick. The demise of the “reserve leagues” wasn’t necessarily a good thing imo.
I guess the closest thing we have now is the under-23s but at least we know that Farke has somebody [if not two somebodies] monitoring every game they play.
An excellent example of yet another way in which the game has changed.
Cheers
‘False 9’, which I think Barca invented and then the Spanish national team copied. Still don’t know what it means.
‘Good with his feet’ – now used about goalkeepers, but surely any footballer should be quite good with his feet?
I used to sell sweets at the ground and apart from the occasional problem with away fans (always Man Utd) I remember chucking Wrigleys (always the best seller) Mars Bars and Toffee Crisps to people 20 yards away and trying to catch the two bob bit they’d throw back to pay for them. You’d always get a tip from the old gents in the Main Stand and a smile from their grandaughters. which almost made the sore shoulders worthwhile.
Cushions being chucked at the referee?
The half-time scoreboard being updated about 70 minutes in.
Getting in for free after half-time.
How about the W-M formation from the days when Walter Winterbottom was the England manager. I guess it translates to a more modern 4-2-2-4 formation, a centre back, two full backs, two defensive midfielders (half-backs, we’d have called them), two attacking midfielders (inside forwards), a centre forward and two wingers. Just shows, there’s really nothing new under the sun.
What about the halfback line you never hear of that position these day
Hi Stephen
Yes I relate false 9 to Barca too – and the inimitable phrase tiki-taka of course, both of which los Rojos did indeed use when they were going through their world domination stage.
Your sweet selling stint rang bells too. I was “over the Spurs” with a couple of little mates when we were in the line to pass either two bob or a shilling to the peanut vendor. Said vendor got his coin and slung the bag of monkey nuts into the crowd. The bag hit my mate on the head, burst open and the geezer behind us was not pleased. Not at all in fact. And he made his feelings clear, believe me.
Nice recollections – thank you.
It was the mention of the River End that caused the following , well before the town planners got busy there used to be a walk along the wensum which on a match day was oft confounded by cars being free parked by attendees at the local soccer stadium. Sometimes around five o’clock on a Saturday the phrase I’m sure I parked here could be heard All that could be seen were a few bubbles reaching the surface of the wensum. Ah the river end.
Hi Bernie
In those days I would park on Martineau Lane itself as I had to A/M11 it back to darkest Essex. Not too long a walk and an easy escape outlet after the game.
When I finally moved backhere for good around 88 my mate knew the door security guys at the Clarence Harbour and a pint and a couple of dog biscuits for Carl or Sean secured our matchday parking. The bonios were for the Alsatian, not C&S.
Don’t remember seeing any drowning Datsuns but I might’ve missed ’em.
Cheers.
Good stuff, Martin – plenty of memories conjured up for me.
Apart from broadcasting gems of the past (“We now take you to the boxing. And your carpenter is Harry Commentator”), a lot of today’s summarisers make me nostalgic for their predecessors. If only Glenn Hoddle could follow Richie Benaud’s advice:
“If you can’t add anything to what the viewers are seeing, keep your mouth shut”.
Hi Stewart
Richie Benaud was among the very, very best.
My favourite gem was “The batsman’s Holding… the bowler’s Willey”. I can’t remember who said it but I doubt it was Benaud.
Cheers
Jim Laker?
I was forced to google it – it was dear old Brian Johnston who actually said “the bowler’s Holding the bastman’s Willey 🙂
Nice one … bless him. What a voice.
The Test Match Special team was without doubt the best ever commentators including Norfolk’s own Blowers.