Absolute dreamland: The Best of Football Clichés in 2025

29:05You can't believe we see it. Even before that, there was an element of all people, Nicholas Falkridge, about his tone of voice. And then he just went, wrapped it up in character. You weren't prepared for where it was going. No. But the inclusion of the football as an incredulous aspect of this, Dave, is so good. It's a football? It's a football. Imagine such a thing. With his head, no less. Andrew Self, I love your commentary. Do more of this. I want to hear more of your voice on football. Get him on Super Sunday in St. Drew. How would he describe a bicycle kick? Topper tests of weight, though.

29:39I want to see him do a nil-nil draw. There's been no goals in a football game. 22 men are trying and they've all failed. He's put it between all three posts. Also in April, a gift from the Be In Sports gods as a two-hour Super Saturday live stream saw Richard Keyes and the boys let their hair down. This is immense, and it was manna from heaven. I mean, you know, it's been sparse times for Keyes and Grey Corner recently, Dave. We haven't always been able to guarantee the delivery of one, have we? No, no. I think for various reasons, but there's been a lot less clips to work with, haven't there?

30:17Yeah. So for some reason, they did a live stream on YouTube and Twitter for the Middle East only of the whole show with them just sat around and it was really unplugged. It was Keyes, Grey and of course, Jason McIntyre, who's now, they're a trio now, by the way. Like we have to start considering them as such. But it was a two hour live stream of them just chewing the fat about football with an occasional scoreline thrown in. And it was gold. And I'm so happy that we can delve into this. Are you looking forward to it? I mean, this feels like sort of payback for the fact that it has been a lot slimmer pickings this season.

30:50It feels like the gods saying, you know what? We've been hard on you, but you've earned this. Go on, just gorge yourselves on this. I'm so looking forward to it. It was like the podcast returned. The long lost, much loved Keys and Grey podcast. It was back. The boys are back in town. Right. I fired up NordVPN on a sunny Saturday afternoon. And here are my highlights. it got off to a smooth start. We'll know when we're on. No, we're on. I guess it'll come up here. We're on. Are we? Yes. We're live. We're live. Okay. To who? Everybody who's watching. The world. Um, yeah, I think it's probably...

31:34Well, that's what the internet... Is that what the internet gives you, the world? If there's anybody there. Yeah. I mean, Dave, in their defence, This is the sort of kind of lax kind of approach you can get away with with a YouTube live stream. You're allowed a little soft opening. It's like the Libero podcast, isn't it? It's just, yeah, just chill out. It's fine. Yeah. I mean, yeah. If he's going to be relaxed, be relaxed. I think the tone has well and truly been set there. I think I'd also, I can't stress how sort of horizontal Keezy is. He is so casual. His posture on the chair is sitting on it.

32:06It's unbelievable. He is just owning the space. Yeah, no jackets, no ties. We'll get onto the dress code in a minute. But yeah, love that Andy Gray getting his head around the function of the internet, which is just fantastic. But Andy was under the illusion this might be going out to the entire world. They might have to be careful what they say. Keezy, Keezy put him right. Here we are. We'll show you goals as and when they're scored.

32:31In our part of the world. And so no, the answer to your question, no, it doesn't go everywhere. Because it's geo-blocked. Okay. so it's for viewers in the Middle East and North Africa. Excellent. Until we go live. Not if you've got NordVPN, son. This reminds me as well, Andy Gray's having technological difficulties. Do you remember when there was like a social media blackout a few years ago and he was just sort of earnestly asking Keezy if you could still message your loved ones? Really worried about it, wasn't he? And Keezy had to be like, yes, yes, no, absolutely, you still can. It's this grey area, WhatsApp.

33:04Is that a social media? I didn't make clear. So their usual show is called Super Saturday, Dave. Yeah. But for this kind of unplugged, kind of hair down situation, for some reason, for no explanation offered, it was called Super Saturday XG. Why? I don't know. I don't know. That's great. Right. So the format of it, because it was broadcast, streamed live on YouTube, so people could send in comments and questions and they would read out a few. so Keezy was getting his head around this aspect of it. Scouse Dave, there's a reason why we call him Scouse Dave. Scouse Dave. All right, son. That's not working.

33:47So the reason I'd like that to work is because if you've got anything to say to us, I'd like, if it's going to be sensible, if it's the usual guff, not interesting, but if you've got something to say to us as we go forward, please do and we'll try and respond as we go. No, so just on dress, I would argue this. I don't think that old men wearing skinny jeans and white trainers has put on one viewer for the host broadcaster in the UK. Okay. Not one. Okay. First dig at Sky. Brilliant, dudes. Yeah. He claimed he was a real traditionalist about how you should dress as a pundit, Charlie. and if he's like, you should dress for the occasion appropriately in a jacket and tie when you're properly on air.

34:37God, I can just imagine how many staff he's sort of dug out for what they're wearing and that sort of thing. I'm thinking he's in control of that. But Keezy has, with the more casual vibe of this broadcast, Keezy has abandoned the suit, jacket and tie that he would normally go with. And he's just got his shirt on. He's got the sleeves rolled up. He looks like a politician visiting a hospital. Absolutely spot on. how do i look relaxed i'll roll my sleeves up yeah so yeah not a lot of usable comments i mean maybe not enough people listening i think the peak number of people watching on youtube while i was watching was about 130 so i don't know what the audience really was but the main problem when it came to the comments was this all the all the comments are in arabic

35:25yes speak in arabic my arabic no shui shui i'm afraid Matthew, Matthew Arabiya very good this is our show, not yours, go on thank you so much Dave by the way all my comments are in Arabic yes yes Google Translate there is one very persistent one who keeps saying speak in Arabic Habibi I'd like to we've got a broader English audience so I think we should use the English tongue today. No, I was sitting at home this morning. Oh my God. There's a producer who's wandered in shot, obviously not expecting to be on camera, I don't think, just wandered in. And he's trying to sort of look at the iPad and see if there's anything he can do.

36:15And that sort of withering put down from MacAteer there. Yeah, I know. This is our show, not yours. I mean, these are long-serving producers. I know how he feels. The first ever show I produced for TalkSport was when I stood in for the breakfast producer when he was off one day and I produced breakfast and it was Anna Brazil and we had, I can't remember what the story was, it was something to do with Jack Wilshere, there was some, Jack Wilshere was in the news for some reason and we had Liam Brady on the show and Alan was going on about Arsenal or just going around the houses as he usually does and he wasn't asking him about Jack Wilshere and I kept on in his ear saying, Alan, can we get one on Jack Wilshere please?

36:52I asked about two or three times and in the end he did do it but I was inexperienced. I was probably a little bit too trigger happy on the talkback but then he called me in in the break and he went, it's the Alan Brazil Sports Breakfast Show by the way. Little did he know what you would go on to become. Well, I mean, Keezy likes to be Lord of the Manor in this sort of thing even in this informal scenario so the conversation is always going to turn back to what he wants to talk about. I interrupted you. Sorry, you've forgotten what you were saying. Well, you just keep going off on tangents. Well, that's the idea.

37:28It's a chat room. So I'm going to sit here and chat like I would if I was at the golf club. But you never finish going where you're going. Yes, I did. No, you don't. Oh, my God. It's amazing. Do you know what, Charlie? I reckon two hours of keys and grey at Doha Golf Club, I don't think it would actually be that bad. I think we'd get on to some decent footballing topics. I think we'd be able to have a frank exchange of views about the state of English football. That's a big moment, though. that felt like the sort of in the office, the Brent saying to Finchie Chris, why don't you fuck off? McAteer finally challenging Keezy on this.

38:01He definitely gives as good as he gets throughout all of this, which is why I think, Dave, he's cemented as part of the three now. Like, he's really found his role in that trio, I think. It is interesting seeing how he perceives being relaxed and a bit more off the cuff is slightly different to the way Keezy is treating it. Right, last bit of gold, really. just an incredible conversational dynamic here. You really could not recreate it anywhere else. Not on CBS, not on Sky Sports, not even on Monday Night Football, nothing. Nothing comes close to this. Chemistry. They don't get a chance, in my view.

38:35Eddie, how? Don't get a chance. One. I agree with you, they don't get a chance. They don't get a chance. I'll tell you where there's a very good coach operating in the Championship. Still? I think he's still in France. Is he in France? He's enormously underrated and he's done a fantastic job. Will Still. Your old coach? Frank. Frank Lampard? Yeah. Will Still. Is it Will Still? I do think that. I think he's done a fantastic job. There's Will Still in France.

39:05Might as well not be in the room. You're just having two complete separate conversations. I mean, I think he's Still was good enough. Like, who in the world doesn't know Will Still's first name? this is like when i watched my four-year-old son and he has a friend around and they're just having completely like one saying one thing the other is just having concurrent conversations they're in the same room but they might as well not be i mean he's just completely ignoring him it's incredible there were at least two more mentions of will still than should have happened there dave and richard keys has a filter and he won't he won't close that filter until he's ready and um yeah hopefully this isn't a one-off experiment but um but yeah the lads it feels like they'd enjoyed it and thought it was a success come what may and it was all about this man a 28 year old from essex called rudy vola right specky matt gets in touch next um he links me to a bbc article about the power outages across spain and portugal now as always with the bbc there's a piece speaking to an affected Britain, either an expat or a tourist, because that's the only way a British audience can possibly get their heads around international news.

40:18So here it is. A British expat has described the confusing, thrilling and bizarre experience of living through a major power blackout in Spain. Experts have been trying to determine what caused the sweeping outage on Monday afternoon, which saw people stuck on trains and traffic lights failing. Rudy Voller, who moved to Madrid from Essex in 2020, said the city centre was swarmed by the sound of police sirens and helicopters. What? You can't just throw that in. I can't. Rudy Voller from Essex. Spelled exactly the same as Rudy Voller. Is that just a joke that they've had, that this person's had, do we think?

40:54There's a quote from him saying, not knowing whether it would be hours or days was a strange sinking feeling, the 28-year-old told the BBC. Mr. Voller from Wickford. No! So wait, so this guy would have been born in what, what, 97? Something like that? Yeah. So Rudy Voller, you know, was well established. His career must have been pretty much done by that point. I mean, it's a great name. Like, you know, footballer aside, it's a brilliant name, but why is he called Rudy Voller? Is it a pseudonym? I wonder if it's a pseudonym and they've almost done it as a joke. I just, the person who's written the article may be not aware of the original Rudy Voller, Dave, and you can excuse that.

41:30It's perfectly possible. He might, you know, maybe the article hasn't gone into enough depth. Maybe his parents are German and they moved to Essex. Maybe it's one of these things we had the other week. Maybe your parents are just really big fans of Rudy Voller. Just thought, I'm going to give my son the name of this German forward. That's who I want him to be. Bullied at school by Frank Reichardt. But they are the Voller family from Essex. He's not been called Rudy Voller Jones. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, just imagine, Dave, I don't know, ringing up, booking a restaurant saying, what's the name?

42:01Rudy Voller, actually. What? No. Jürgen Klinsmann, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge. It's not going to work. Let's get a real range of responses, because a lot of people it would mean nothing to, and for some you're getting quite a lot. It's an objectively great name in isolation. It's just a really nice name, so fair play to him. Do you think it might break even the sternest immigration official at a German airport? Oh, yeah. I'm so jealous. I'm jealous of Rudi Voller. That's why he's gone travelling. That's why he's done it. It was our absolute duty then to get the man himself on the pod. And what a man he was.

42:38Now, listeners will recall last week's superb footballers' names in things when a BBC news story about the power outages in Spain quoted a British expat by the name of Rudy Voller. We got loads of correspondence about this, Dave. Joseph said, I'm good pals with Rudy Voller of Essex, and I can confirm that is his real name. That's good news, isn't it? Some corroboration of the situation. Yeah, yeah, it does seem like a lot of listeners are familiar with this guy. Yeah, James Law also wrote in, Charlie, and says, I can confirm that Rudy Voller was and is the Essex guy's real name. I went to uni with him.

43:09Unfortunately, I've got nothing more on why that happened. My apologies. Well, cheers, James. But yes, people did go to university with this guy. What a hit he must have been. It's the sort of name that you don't forget, even if you're not mates with him. Oh, yeah, that guy was in. That was that Rudy Voller. He's in our year. You'd have seen his name written down somewhere and you'd have been so curious. What's this guy's story? What does he look like? Has he changed his name? What's going on here? Dom Eddy said, I couldn't believe I heard Rudy Voller's name on the last MHD. He was at university with me in Birmingham.

43:38His family are big football fans. So I assume that was the motivation to call him Rudy. So we're getting closer. It has to be football related, right? It has to be, it has to have been, I don't know, German immigrants or I don't know, like just, I don't know, big Roma fans in the 80s. I don't know. Definitely an awareness at least anyway from his parents. Anyway, it's probably best to speak to the man himself. So joining us on the Clichés pod, words I simply could never have comprehended ever saying, is Rudy Voller. Hi, Rudy. Hello. Thank you for the big intro. That's all right. How are you doing?

44:11I'm very well, thank you. How are you guys? I'm really good. Let's get straight to it. I really only have one question here. Why are you called Rudy Voller? First of all, I want to state that that is my actual name on my birth certificate. Rudy Voller, nothing else, not even a middle name. It is Rudy Voller. Pure Rudy Vollert. Spoke exactly the same as you saw it on that article. It wasn't a pseudonym. It wasn't made up. That is my name. Why am I called Rudy Vollert? I'm glad that someone finally asked because I've been asking that same question my whole life. I wish I had a better story, genuinely.

44:44But the best I can give you is that my mum at the time in 96 thought she was going to have a girl and wanted the name Ruby. Liked the name Ruby a lot. It turned out I was a boy. You didn't know the gender back then before. So my dad said, let's go with Rudy instead of Ruby because it sounds similar. It sounds cool. My mom had fought for Ruben, but my dad didn't like it. So he was like, let's go with Rudy Voller. For context, my dad is a massive football fan. Right. Thank God. He knew exactly who Rudy Voller was. My mom was none the wiser. She just liked the sound of the name. And yeah, my dad went with it because he thought it was a cool name.

45:20And to give you a bit more context on my dad, he's a very chilled out guy. He kind of likes, is a bit of a wind up as well. And to give you a bit of context over him choosing names, my younger brother was going to be called Toronto before he was called Oscar. So this is a man that kind of likes giving a bit of a different name. Wow. So, yeah, it turns out that Rudy Voller was born son of Rachel and Derek Voller from Baselburne and Hamel in Essex and East London. That's it. Derek Voller is the best thing that's ever happened to this podcast, ever. That's it. That's the story. That's where the name came from.

45:55There's no German relations to the family. as far as we go back from a bit of research. Voller comes from Fuller up north, which was something to do with beer or brewing. And as it made it way further down south, it became Fuller to Voller. Extraordinary. Did you get a lot of grief at school? I think growing up, I hated the name because I never met anyone else with my name. No one knew it. You just wanted to be called Jack, Tom or Harry and be like everyone else. And I would say to people, my name's Rudy and people would be like, what? Rudy? Rooney? Rudy? So I didn't like it back then growing up i've learned to appreciate it a bit more and i have had some situations where it's been quite cool and helped me and people have as you said on the pod i was listening to it which i got sent so many times by the way it has had different reactions over the years some people just think nothing of it and other people are like no way that's not your name that is absolutely not your name because yeah rudy another um of your pals uh alan feely i think that's how it's pronounced apologies apologies but yeah he messaged me saying yeah i i know i'm mates with rudy vola we were in madrid at the same time and it's his real name and my first question to him was kind of like how quickly did you go in with the name stuff like would some people be quite reluctant because they'd be like oh he probably gets us all the time or would people just jump straight in and be like what's the deal there no it varies some people that know of the football fans are like surely that that's not your actual name what's your real name that's always the amount of times in my life i've done that's actually my real name and i always have to have my id handy to show someone and like when you live in spain you get a d like an id card so it's easy to whip out me that's my name beforehand it would have been my driving license because people often ask for proof they don't believe that it's my actual name if they're a football fan and know who the who rudy voler is have you been to germany uh yeah i have um i've been a few times i went to watch west ham in a pre-season game against verde bremen and uh took a scarf that said es gibt no i am rudy fuller which means there's only one rudy voler and uh got asked for numerous photos from local german fans i also lived when i used to live in valentia before living in madrid and lived uh below two german brothers and they came down to introduce themselves and said oh what's your name oh my god and i said rudy and he went i like rudy fuller and i was like actually is rudy so he said to me obviously not and i was like no it's actually my name so he was like show me your id so i showed my id and he sprinted upstairs no joke to his brother i mean come down right now you have to see this this kid's actual name Rudy Voller's here oh my goodness this is this has worked out exactly as I would have hoped this conversation quite frankly as Arsenal's Champions League dreams ended at the hands of Paris Saint-Germain the pod got stuck into the big talking point of the evening as Gianluigi Donnarumma palmed away a fierce drive for Martin Erdegaard at the Emirates early doors Charlie Stan Collymore tweeted pound for pound one of the best saves ever can you pound for pound a save I'm not against it because I enjoy a pound for pounding.

48:46I think it makes you look clever. It makes you think you've placed it in its relative place in things. But how does that work here? I mean, I love pound for pound because it's most of the time completely meaningless and just said as a way of kind of adding weight to something. I mean, it's a boxing thing, isn't it? And you're talking about Mayweather was pound for pound the best boxer because obviously he wasn't the biggest, so he would have been beaten by heavyweights. but his stats and everything, he is the best. So it's always a bit of a weird one in football because you are rated by being, you know, like a League Two save isn't really pound for pound an amazing, because it's kind of like, well, it's by definition at a lower level.

49:26I mean, I guess in this instance, he means what was at stake. Like, you know, it's Champions League semi-final. Oh, so that weights it against the actual quality of the save in isolation, you mean? I think so. I mean, I think that's what he's getting at. Just a really good save. What else sort of could it mean? Because you're not talking, this isn't like a Sunday league goalkeeper who you're saying, now I know it's not the highest standard, but I mean, like this is the highest standard. So Dave, even if you did factor in the stage in which the save take place, why? Why does it have to be a relative thing?

50:01Why can't it just be, I don't know, that was just a really good save. Why does it have to suddenly become one of the best saves ever, pound for pound? Well, I think it, yeah, he, you're right, Charlie. he is sort of saying all things considered there may have been more spectacular instances of a goalkeeper saving a ball but that was a really good save and it's also in a crucial point in a in a massive match you know because it it was a really good save like great reactions like got down really quickly incredible yeah but I suppose in the moment as well you might also just want to cover yourself and just think oh god like where where does it actually sit in the in the top five days of all time yeah i suppose there is a pound that'll cover me exactly it's just a blind caveat it's excellent

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52:25Oh, look at that! That is wonderful!

52:34May's crowning moment, though, was the absolute saga that was eBay, emails and Ethiopia. A search for the original Gazetta Football Italia commentary sample. Right, next up. This could be our new Finding the Three Lions punditry samples for the new era. This came from CJD. We need everybody's help with this, if possible. He sent me an unlisted YouTube video. Always the best types of YouTube video. This is of Clyde beating East Stirlingshire 7-1 in the Scottish third division back on the 15th of October 2011. Now, it's not the time or place you'd expect to hear goal music over the PA system. But after the seventh goal goes in, they play this.

53:54So this is the original commentary for the Gazetta Football Italia. Football Italia, yeah. From what I can see on the internet day, there is no record of where that commentary sample has come from. No one's ever known where it's come from. This is the closest we're ever going to get. Someone in 2011 in the Clyde press box has found the commentary clip by José Altofini. And they definitely weren't just playing, because they weren't playing the theme tune, were they? I couldn't hear any music underneath that. And crucially, obviously there's a lot of Brazilian Portuguese commentary before that. The goal goes in, in the audio.

54:31You hear that, Brazil! And they play that after every goal scored by Brazil in the 80s and 90s on TV. So I'm pretty sure it's a Brazilian international goal. So that's one clue. It's not Italian. It's not Italian because he was a Brazilian-born Italian. He played for Brazil and Italy. And he became a commentator and pundit on Italian TV later on. So it's Portuguese. I sent it to Jack Lang, who's my first port of call for this. He couldn't quite make out because the audio wasn't good enough. But what makes me think that it's definitely this, you know, one piece of original audio, Nick, is that when you get to the famous audio at the end, he says it twice.

55:09And the second one is the one that's used. So it seems organic to me. They haven't taken the audio from Gazeta and stuck it on the end of some other commentary. Why would they have done for a start? So we've got the original goal. We just need to find out what it is and when it was. This is huge. It's huge. Well, this is going to consume our lives for months then. A little bit. Nick, surely you can give AC Jimbo a call, can't you? See if he knows anything about the origins of this. Yeah. Past kind of evidence and listening to Jimbo talking about this kind of thing, I suspect he won't know, but I will definitely ask him.

55:45Don't worry. I've put some feelers out. I've already messaged on LinkedIn the composer of the theme tune, Steve Dubry. Okay. He hasn't got back to me yet. but yeah we're gonna get there i mean so i asked cjd who says he's been looking into this for 10 years his life's work i know i said to him why don't you just ask the bloke who played it at the game like surely you can get in touch with him he says no i know i knew him he was a friend of mine but he went off to australia and disappeared oh my god he's been working on it for 10 years the cia have done him over itv will make a drama about it you know his marriage broke down and he became estranged from his kids.

56:23He's like, I can't give this up. I've got to keep fighting till the end. We're going to do it. We're going to do this. Imagine finding the original goal for that. This is a whole separate episode, this, I think. This could be your serial. Yeah, exactly. This is cliches, that's true crime. The annoying thing is it's tantalisingly close to being able to discern some words in the commentary. But if a... Maybe I need a native Brazilian Portuguese speaker. Sorry, Jack, you're not good enough. Right. Give Natalie Juddra a shout. Yes. Why is the video unlisted on YouTube? What's going on? Where's the guy in Australia?

56:59Why is this? This is all mad. But we're going to do it. I will not rest until I have done this. Then, thanks to Haytor, a Brazilian diplomat living in Addis Ababa, we hit the jackpot. Everything that we could possibly have talked about today has been completely overshadowed by the last 48 hours of my life and several other people's, actually. This is a story that will be headlined, if it ever would be an athletic article with eBay emails in Ethiopia. A search for the original commentary from the Gazetta Football Italia theme tune. Right, so on Tuesday's pod, we had a message from listener CJD, who sent us this clip from an unlisted YouTube video of Clyde beating East Stirlingshire 7-1 in the Scottish 3rd Division in October 2011.

57:39After the seventh goal, they played this over the PA system.

58:08Now, as you both will recognise, that is the commentary that ended up being sampled in the title music for Gazzetta Football Italia. Have you ever wondered where it came from? Only every day of my life, yeah. Regularly, before bed. So glad you're here. Right. So yes, so here is the Gazzetta Football Italia for anybody who is not accustomed to this sort of thing.

58:32Go Lazio! An iconic piece of audio, Dave. You know, over the years, people have often pondered whether it's go Lazio, which is an absurd thing to ponder. Like, why was that ever encouraged? It's what I thought it was when I first heard it as a child. Same here. convinced. That's why I used to run around the garden saying Gol Lazio. I thought that was what I was doing. I know terrible stuff. That is a shame. Anyway, CJD said he'd been searching for the answer to this mystery for the last decade. His mate who had played the original audio in the stadium at Clyde that day moved to Australia and disappeared.

59:05This became some sort of CIA conspiracy. So I don't want to get all who do you think you are on BBC but we got some Brazilian Portuguese speakers on the case about this. Try and find it. Sky Sports' Natalie Igedra, thought she heard the name Muller, who played up front for Brazil in the late 80s and 90s. So I went to watch every single goal he scored for Brazil with the Brazilian commentary, and I couldn't find it. So it wasn't him. And all of his goals were really scrappy, so no galassos amongst them. So I didn't know where to turn. And then someone else pointed out that the same commentary was sampled two years before Gazeta was launched in a 1990 track called Goal by Depth Charge.

1:00:05so this took me to about um tuesday mid tuesday morning jake and you know for all the kind of information that was being kind of fired at me. I was still actually no closer to finding the origin, but it is good fun so far, right? May I just say, I've said it many times, men are class, by the way. The man that decided that was an appropriate sting to play in a 7-1 win between Clyde and Livingston, that man's class. The man who told you about his friend going missing on Australia, he's a class man as well. And by extension, you, someone who's watched every goal that someone called Muller has scored for Brazil.

1:00:42None of them good goals, by the way. None of them entertaining goals. Scrappy goals. Quite clear on that. All of them shite. Yes, men are class. That's all my interjection into the story so far. Excited to see where it ends. Yeah, I mean, it got to the point, Dave, where I thought, well, Muller only scored 12 goals for Brazil. But I thought, well, maybe the commentator's mentioning his name in passing. Do I have to look up his assists? Like, maybe set one up. It's killing me. I sort of drew a line under that. And then quite a few people also got in touch to say they'd heard the full commentary on an obscure football music compilation tape given away free with Total Football Magazine in 1996.

1:01:17This compilation was called The Best of Bendit, the last in a series of compilations released by Exotica Records. So I ended up ordering a copy of this cassette, audio cassette off eBay. It hasn't turned up yet, which is quite annoying. I emailed the owner of Exotica Records. Lives in Dulwich. Of course he does. All of them, all without being sure that this commentary was actually on there in full and being useful. Meanwhile, the friend of the podcast, Jack Lang, was still on the case. It turns out he had a number for José Altofini, the commentator himself, who's now 84 years old, still with us.

1:01:47So he messaged him on WhatsApp. No response. So then a Brazilian friend of Jack Lang messaged him with a new theory that it's not José Altofini at all. He thinks it's a guy called Osmar Santos who was kind of the big commentator in the 70s and 80s. It could be good because this guy's got a really interesting story. He lost his voice. He had like a brain hemorrhage, now can't speak and has turned into like an artist. He's very old now, obviously, still alive. What? How many more angles could this story have? This is incredible. Yeah. This is like one of those things from like an NPR podcast where they like spend like 45 minutes kind of fight.

1:02:24Yeah. Just do this for two hours. Yeah, I'm happy to. So here is the aforementioned Osmar Santos commentating on a goal for Brazil against Yugoslavia in a friendly in 1986.

1:02:44so jacob in many ways this was encouraging because it it sounds like the guy who's who uses this catchphrase quite a lot but it was also quite deflating because the widely accepted theory that it was jose altofini was now completely open to question it could be anybody so i had to widen the net so i don't i didn't know at this point whether to be encouraged or not this is unbelievable what are those like investigation podcasts called like the search for the lost crypto queen it's like that for bald men who used to play pro evolution soccer this is like cereal for men with mental health problems i only briefly played pro evo actually so take that back um so i didn't know where to go from here dave by this time i've been concentrating so hard on all of this throughout tuesday morning that i got a migraine and went half blind but i was still sitting in the dark listening to 12 minute compilations of osmar santos well we're on the case here like you've really got very close to finding it surely yeah i i thought i had a feeling i could get this under my own steam but i was basically my brain was genuinely running out of cpu power like i i felt my brain full up until i got a message from ator who's a brazilian listener who works as a diplomat in addis ababa ethiopia good lord He'd gone down a few rabbit holes with this, but he knew that Brazilian radio had started that Brazil sound effect after every goal, and they'd started that in 1968.

1:04:05So logically, he turned his mind to the 1970 World Cup. So here, on June the 3rd, my birthday, by the way. Can you say that if you haven't been born? My birth date. Birth date. I think birth date is possible, yep. So June the 3rd, 1970. The score is Brazil 3, Czechoslovakia 1, 83rd minute. Pelé picks up the ball on the halfway line and sweeps it out to Jairzinho on the right. Cue Radio Nacional commentator Jorge Curi.

1:05:11So there it fucking is. Wow. Congratulations. Thank you. Congratulations. That is a serious piece of work you've done there for almost no reason, but well done. June saw the pod enter a new era as we launched Dreamland, the subscriber-only offering that took the analysis of the language of football to a whole new level. If the Tuesday adjudication panels are the league, and the Thursday episodes, the guest MHDs, the quizzes, the 11s are the cup, well, this is Europe. They're in Dreamland here. They're in Dreamland here. Some sort of Dreamland here. They're in Dreamland. They can't believe it. They're in Dreamland.

1:05:53Absolute dreamland. Absolute dreamland. Absolute dreamland right now. And they are in dreamland. Well, they were in dreamland. Now it's more fraumland. Wonderful. They are in dreamland. They're in dreamland. They are in dreamland. They're in dreamland. It's not Winter Wonderland, but it's an Anfield dreamland, December dreamland. They're in dreamland in Deutschland. And they are in dreamland. They are in dreamland. They are in dreamland. They're just in Dreamland right now. How many times are we going to say it? Dreamland. And they're in Dreamland. Look, they're in Dreamland right now. They're in Dreamland.

1:06:29Just enjoy it. They are in absolute Dreamland. And fair play to them. Yes, in Dreamland. So this week, we have launched Dreamland. Our Football Clichés membership subscribers will get two episodes of our exclusive new show, Dreamland. Meanwhile, the podcast also enjoyed unexpected pundit Tom Cruise, the world's most furiously earnest man. try his damnedest to get to grips with PSG's demolition of Inter in the Champions League final. A rookie screen recording error from me the other night deprived this podcast of Paramount Plus pundit Tom Cruise's reaction to PSG going 1-0 up in the Champions League final.

1:07:08But thanks to the superbly named CJ Fogler, here it is. I'm looking forward to going to see it. I call them, I'm like pumped every time that they're pointing. What's happening there, guys? What's that? That's a flair. Yes. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. That's a flair. Wow. Great goal. That's a great. Clever goal. Wow. Clever goal. Now why do you say clever goal? Tell me. It's a clever goal because the guy that passed the ball across, he could have easily shot. And that's what I'm talking about. So you're looking at tennis taking the shots strategically. He's so intelligent. As opposed to saying, I'm going to get the point for myself.

1:07:55He passed it off to someone else. Now, it'd be so easy, Nick, to laugh at Tom Cruise not knowing anything about football. But do you know what? Apart from these five wows, which are just insane, and very Tom Cruise and very intense, I respect the fact he sort of grilled Beckham on what had happened in that goal. Yeah, I mean, we do have to kind of slightly gloss over the fact that he said you don't want to get the point as well. Annoying. Come on, let's be adult about this. Yeah, it is fair. I can identify with, I mean, there's a very rare occasion where I can identify with both Tom Cruise and David Beckham here.

1:08:28Because I can imagine sitting, watching something that I don't understand and just being polite by saying, okay, well, explain to me why that is good. And then I can also identify with Beckham slightly panicking there when he is asked to explain why it's clever because you just if you're sat there watching with someone who knows a little bit about football you say that's clever you kind of assume that they'll know and nothing more will be said about it but in this case he's in some trouble yeah no it's it's definitely some advanced or at least some advanced intermediate football knowledge here charlie but i'm the more i hear this clip the more i respect tom cruise's sort of intense curiosity yeah i mean there's a little bit cliche Z about what is a clever goal we should get him on what do you mean by that what's a clever pass Tom I'll start with you what do you imagine with a clever pass doing would his would his MHD be more or less niche than Keir Starmer's I think he I think he would be well prepped his people would get him sorted but yeah could go down some very strange tangents but yeah I'm so delighted but CJ Fogler found this clip for us.

1:09:38July saw the Lionesses clinch Euros glory in Switzerland and an outpouring of commentary emotion along the way. And it all climaxed at the moment of Michelle Adjimang's equaliser and 22Gensen09 has gone to the trouble of overlaying the commentary. I've never seen anyone do this before from BBC, Radio 5 Live and ITV for that moment. The Lionesses out of ideas here or do they have one kind of attacking them? It's bronze, out to the right hand side, Lauren Ender, the way to the left period, the way to the left is, the next champion, she's done it again! She's done it again! You've done it again! You can score straight!

1:10:23It's to us once again, Stacey! It is so brilliant!

1:10:37How deep do you need to dig? It shouldn't work. It should be a complete mess, Dave. But I love the fact that they all have their own pace at the start. They all have their different ways of going into it. Then it all just comes together. Tremendous. It's that. That's superb. So that's Seb Hutchinson, Jonathan Pearce and Vicky Sparks. all overlaid. That's brilliant. And I think there's, you know, I was watching the game in the pub last night so I couldn't really hear the commentary that well but then I was listening to the clips on the way home and Seb Hutchinson gave it full throttle for Adjumang's goal.

1:11:14It's astonishing. Extra syllables in there from Hutchinson. Yeah. But Robin Cowan did the similar for the Sweden game as well and I think Adjumang's name just perfectly suits just a real Adjumang! It's a great name to say. You can just really elongate that last vowel, can't you? Yeah, absolutely right. It's so perfectly proportioned. Adjumai! During the domestic summer break, clichés listeners found themselves resorting to pure footballing behaviour in their daily lives. Right, next up. A story from a policeman, no less, that justifies the last year or two of my life, at least. he says I'm a detective for a police force on the south coast and found myself having to watch two hours of CCTV from a local kebab house about five minutes into the footage a member of staff came out from behind the counter and turned the telly onto a football match obviously I immediately stopped concentrating on what I was supposed to be watching and started trying to work out what the game was it was fairly easy to work out the two teams Nigeria and Argentina I was also absolutely convinced it was an American stadium I settled on the group stage game at USA 94 but then I saw Kanu I was stumped Of course, I'd forgotten about the Atlanta Olympics.

1:12:26Cue a 96 Olympics rabbit hole whilst watching the full game and completely ignoring the potential interaction between my two suspects. I had a really hard time not talking about the football in the interview when the suspects were later arrested. What? This is incredible. Fair play. I know what I'm watching if I'm studying that CCTV footage, so I don't blame him at all. That's amazing, yeah. The Atlanta Olympics. They won it as well, didn't they? Nigeria, I think. Yeah. I mean, in a way, Charlie, it's dereliction of his duty as a detective for this police force on the south coast. He's fronting up here.

1:12:59Fair point. Yeah. But at the same time, if anything, it proves his credentials as a hotshot detective. That's eye for detail. That might come in useful. Yeah, good process. Just wasn't directly where he should. I mean, yeah, that was an amazing epic. That was my first time I ever saw Ronaldo. Yes. Who I think was called Ronaldinho at that time. Correct. He was on the back of his shirt, Ronaldinho, and all the graphics on the TV. Yeah, class. Yeah, which is... And I remember, and then being confused, I then saw him a year later or something, he's run out, I was like, is that that guy from the Olympics?

1:13:30Should be Ronald Dow now, shouldn't he, really? You were there in the kebab house, weren't you? You were watching Nigeria v Argentina from the Olympics, weren't you? Who are Argentina's overage players at the 1996 Olympics, mate? I don't think so. Right, finally, Joe Wood writes in, Dave, and says, my daughter finished year five last week and claims she is now a year six. Are we having that? When does this season become last season? Daring Milk replied with, for me, it's August bank holiday, a weekend when attention turns to next term. What, they announced the curriculum? The pre-season. Yeah.

1:14:06That's a great question. My own child asked me the same thing. She's finished year one. She says, I'm now year two. And I said, you're not. You're not year two yet. It doesn't start until the first day of the term. You're nothing. You're in limbo. Don't wish your days away. It's a short career. amid the fresh optimism of august the podcast got stuck into the most abused word in the language of football proof now charlie if it if if it were needed that the word amid is well out of control this came from mirror football mark gay his preference would be to join liverpool but he remains happy at crystal palace amidst their 40 million pound asking price that is one of the worst amidst I've ever seen.

1:14:47Such a strange amid. You can't just, don't just use amidst when you want to change slight direction in a sentence. Don't do it. I mean, amidst just such a fascinating device. Yeah. But yeah, that's a very strange one. Thanks to Jim McNulty for sending that one in. Next up, Dave, this is from a report of Tottenham's pre-season friendly against Bayern Munich. Bayern's two newly announced Ballon d 'Or nominees, Harry Kane and Michael Alisse, combined for the first half's only goal as Kane opened the scoring just 11 minutes in. Taking down a ball over the top from Alise and firing home inside the left-hand post amid suggestions that the England captain was a yard offside.

1:15:22Slightly more acceptable amid but still ludicrous at the same time. He was a yard offside. He was amid suggestions when he hit it. Did he know? The goalkeeper, no. Definitely amid suggestions. Ref, ref. I was amid. What's going on? I have no idea.

1:16:11Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

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1:17:56In September, the cultural influence of the Clichés pod grew even further, as one listener spotted a serious issue with one of the BBC's crown jewels. Right, but this is the headline of today's episode. Match of the Day has had a rocky few months, I would say. It probably thought it had ridden the storm, but no, there's going to be another storm, another controversy. Hedge should roll over this. Here's the intro section to the Match of the Day theme tune. Listen out to some of this commentary. What a freak! Oh, what a go! Oh, look at that! Absolutely the coming! Oh, pretty good! Rudy! Welcome to Match of the Day.

1:18:39James, any alarm bells there for you? I have a feeling you're going to tell me one of those bits of commentary is not from an English Premier League or First Division game. You're not far wrong, because David Humphreys has written in with this bombshell. He says, has anyone noticed in the new BBC Match of the Day titles, a snippet of Clive Tilsley's Wayne Rooney commentary for the Arsenal goal at Goodison is used? But that was on ITV in 2002. Here is that commentary. Fancy's chances. Oh, brilliant goal! It's astonishing. They've used commentary for ITV's The Premiership in the intro to match the day.

1:19:13How much of our TV licence money are they spending on this? How can that have been allowed to happen? The Premiership lives on. Maybe that is a little subtle nod to those years, to the wilderness years. Is that the BBC's property? I don't think it is. No. It's like... They wouldn't use Tyler's Aguero moment, would they? Would it be like ITV using the Ellis James goal noise in some of their titles? The BBC, whoever put this together, have they gone to ITV to get the rights or have they just done what we do? Ripped it off YouTube. Just absolutely mad. Definitely new for this season. I'm not sure.

1:19:53I have to say, I don't know if it was their last season. They haven't drastically changed much of it, so it could well have been their last season. They've had those snippets of country at the start of the intro for quite a while. So I don't know if that's always been there. Tilsley obviously has a bit of a match of the day pedigree. It was on it for years. So you wouldn't notice it, would you? Unless you were really eagle-eared. This is quite boring, but it's not a chance that all of that stuff is now owned by the Premier League, is there? That's my fear. That is my fear, that that's the mundane explanation for this.

1:20:24But even then, it's the match of the day body of work. They're going to have something in there. They're going to have their own stuff. But James, an insider at Match of the Day, says it's being looked into. Wow. Heads will roll. I'm telling you. Someone's getting sacked. I'm not proud of it. But standards have to be maintained. I'm a BBC. I'm a storage BBC backer. But I just want to see it flourish. You know, poor. I don't think the Premier League do own it, you know. Because I think the Premier League have their own, you know, world feed sort of Premier League productions commentary, which you hear in various places.

1:20:56But, I mean, maybe this sort of predates that. But I think, yeah, I think skullduggery is a first... Someone's trying to sabotage me. I think someone has just done this. I think someone's gone, oh, I wonder if anyone noticed. I'll just stick this one in. That's good. That's a good line, isn't it? Can we just get that one in? Someone's either getting sacked for this, James, or they're going to have to get Tilsey to re-record it. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that would be great. Perfect. Well, maybe it was part of Wayne Rooney's negotiation for his new podcast and new deal with the BBC. Can you just get a bit of my goal in, please, in a Match Today intro?

1:21:27It's ITV, I'm afraid, Wayne. Doesn't matter. Don't care. Just do it. It's a real deal breaker for me. Yeah, genuinely up there as a possible explanation. Meanwhile, another listener's superbly nerdy football brain brought us a story of a potentially massive miscarriage of British justice. This is superb. Stick with this. We were talking recently about football expertise being used in court cases and just how weird it is that you need football experts to explain various things. this came from Automatic Peace on Reddit. I was reminded of my own trip to a courtroom during my school days. When I was, what, 15, 16, 17, a group of us were invited by a teacher during activities afternoon on a Thursday to go and observe a court case from the public gallery at the local court.

1:22:10It was a case of possession with intent to supply, and the afternoon we were there, the prosecution were putting forward some evidence to the defence, which consisted of a piece of paper with some names and numbers written down. They included surnames and a two-digit number. I distinctly remember at the top of the list was Capaldi18, followed by a series of other surnames, all of which rang a bell for me. The prosecution asserted that the names referred to the defendant's customers and the numbers referred to the quantity of extracurriculars that the customer was asking for. As they were read out, I realised they were all Cardiff City footballers at the time.

1:22:43Sure enough, the defendant's argument was that the sheet was his record of Cardiff players' free kick-taking rating on Football Manager. The prosecution refuted the argument and called it absurd. But I was raging in the gallery, knowing that the defendant was bang right, and also knowing that having scraps of paper with those sorts of details is exactly the sort of thing I was also doing at the time. I left without being able to intervene, and feeling like the greatest miscarriage of justice was about to be done. I never found out the outcome of the case. It may be that the Cardiff player surnames were indeed sophisticated code for the defendant's customers, but my conscience has never been cleared that I could have stepped in and averted injustice with my football manager knowledge that day.

1:23:21Wow. Fucking hell. Surely Peter Whittingham should have been top of the list back then. He was a set-piece man, wasn't he? Definitely a set-piece man, yeah. I didn't know Capaldi had in his locker, to be honest, Charlie. Wow, that is amazing. That must have sat with him for years. Surely we can find out what happened. Need some names, need a case number or something. Tell us what happens with this guy. He's still fighting for justice all these years. Lovely. More of this sort of thing, please. Forget the unfolding Premier League title race. October's biggest clash was Jamie O 'Hara versus the Royal Air Force.

1:23:55OK, so that was semi-serious, that passage. Let's go into just sheer ludicrous territory now. Here is Jamie O 'Hara on Sky Sports News reacting to a story about Mikel Arteta planning to consult RAF fighter pilots on how better to communicate on the Arsenal training ground. Right, Jamie, your thoughts. Well, do RAF pilots know how to defend? Do they know how to deal with a set piece? Do they know how to come for a cross? Do they know how to, you know, tell your winger to tuck in? Do they know how to communicate? I mean, yeah, all right. But all footballers know how to communicate. Surely they're Premier League football players.

1:24:30You know, how hard is it to say, get in, tuck in, get tight, stop the cross, get back? I mean, keepers, away, clear it. I mean, these are phrases that have been around for 100 years. Don't tell me an RAF pilot's going to come in and rip it all up and say, although this is how you need to communicate. What are you talking about? RAF pilot is an incredible person who knows how to fly a plane. What about... He doesn't know how to defend a set piece. What part of that isn't utterly brilliant, Dave? That is actually so good. It's so good. I mean, there are many ways we could get into this, but I think RAF fighter pilots actually do know a thing or two about defending and set pieces and getting someone to tuck in next to them.

1:25:13Yeah, that opening night, do they know how to defend? Yeah, they defend this very nation. but it's so so telling i mean and and that's the first parallel with the o 'neill clip charlie's that he went straight in with what do they know what do they know as if he was like threatened in some way why does it have to be so threatening obviously it's ludicrous it's a ludicrous story it's a ludicrous reaction and it's semi-ludicrous from michael arteta all of those things are to certain extent ludicrous but in that sense it's a perfectly packaged segment for this sure for sky sports news to get into but my god jamie o 'hara is just the perfect person he is and and the difference between i think anyway here between o 'neill and o 'hara is o 'hara does know what he's doing here yes i mean o 'hara hosts the sports bar part of their whole shtick is to just sort of have a bit of a knowing glance and being wind-up merchants but not in a too po-faced way so he's fine with this and i and it sort of is it's funny it's entertaining there's there's no suggestion at any point that the raf are coming in to teach them how to be to do set pieces not clive woodward coming in from rugby to teach him how to do corners.

1:26:16Charlie, the moment he started listing various football shouts and just couldn't stop, it's just genius. It was like it took over him, wasn't it? He was possessed. So yeah, Dave's right. He absolutely knew what he was doing. And the reason I don't mind that is because it's a completely low-stakes story. There's nothing. There's nothing to worry about here for anybody. So well done, Sky Sports News. Actually, eight out of ten from me, I think. One thing we should point out, I think, they do have a football team, the RAF. Right. And their men's first team, senior first team, are unbeaten so far this season.

1:26:48They beat Padgett Rangers 7-1. They had a 2-0 draw with Noel FC. They beat Stafford Town 2-1. They beat Hampton FC 1-0. And I haven't been able to find the result for this yet, but this week they played Loughborough University. So they might have lost Loughborough University, but before that game they were unbeaten this season. And you never get like, it's all gone quiet boys shouts in their game. Their communication is elite. Have they got a nickname, Dave? I don't know. I can't find one. It's not a Wikipedia page for them, though. No, I'm on the Royal Air Force FA website. They're playing the fire service in a few weeks.

1:27:22Wow. Bloody hell. Clash of the Titans. November's standout footballing fascination from the clichés faithful was from a listener who claimed to have found a loophole in football's classic declaration of allegiance. Let's kick off the fascinations with Tom Adams. My footballing fascination is with the phrase, uh insert team name till i die i.e sundland till i die uh i've always thought it should be sundland forever or sundland until the end of time as um it gets me thinking on those rare occasions where people have been diagnosed as medically dead uh but then revived that's kind of a loophole where maybe they could support sundland until they die but then when they're revived they could support anyone else they wanted to really so if anything the the loyalty is not not actually as strong by being until you die rather it should be forever you know even into the afterlife if that's something that you believe in but yeah anyway something for you guys to discuss maybe charlie what's your favorite bit of that is it where he describes it as a loophole which is the most sensational use of language i've ever heard or him wondering whether we believe in the afterlife or not if you believe in it i love the idea yeah if you do if your heart stops beating whatever and then you you sort of come back to life you're like yes i can support someone else like and no one can question me i've i've done it or yeah when you get to heaven or ever and you're at the pearly gates you're like oh if you believe in it and yeah you'll be like oh i can support man city fuck it and it's now forever this is going to be amazing well i mean dave as we all know there's you know there's a widely held stigma about changing the team you support so imagine that backstory but also what made you change like why did you change can't change your team i died actually i was clinically dead i mean fair enough really i think you would re-evaluate your life in many ways if you did medically die what have i been doing all this time they make it so hard for themselves don't they i mean he does raise a good point that the till i die thing is is a slightly pointless thing of saying given that that is absolutely assumed because as you say adam like like it's far more remarkable to change your team like not changing your team is 100 % expected and anything else you are like scum in the eyes of football fans so to say till you die is like well yeah obviously what else are you gonna do dave if you were bound by the terms of this agreement and you found yourself with a second chance at things would you change do you think are any teams that you quite fancy having to go out instead for the remaining 30 40 years of your life yeah it's a good point i could refer to blackburn but that's not um i don't know i guess you'd have to it could go one of two ways really like it obviously depends who you support initially are you seeking glamour if you haven't had any before are you sort of fatigued by the glamour and you want to really go and be like a proper non-league man well that's more likely the scenario isn't it just go a little bit more earthy and see if you can you know develop a more kind of humble existence for yourself in in football supporting terms well it might but then you you know in a kind of midlife crisis way of like buying yourself a flash car it might be more to be like hey you know what i'm gonna support city i'm gonna support chelsea gonna be a real madrid fan from now i can i can afford it now i've earned a bit more money this is a very good point i think i think it's i mean it's basically like choosing a team and football manager isn't it really yeah you're sort of going through all those same sorts of questions do i want to yeah do i want someone with a big transfer budget do i want to take some norwegian minnows from the bottom all the way to the top what will people say if i if i tell them i support them in the office will they go oh not talking to you again i mean the thing is like it doesn't really exist but like in wouldn't the optimum of that be like pick a team that wins their league every like four or five years yeah that would be amazing because like i don't think you'd want it you wouldn't be like oh i'll pick city or something that's too boring so i guess now like liverpool would be the kind of maybe chelsea yeah yeah but then there are i guess there are sort of then there's all the baggage that comes with supporting like a team that successful but that that feels like sort of the sweet spot i want to dig into this prospect a little bit further charlie if you were under these circumstances or any other to switch your allegiance like where would you start with your new team like you've picked the team arbitrarily or otherwise how do you start your fandom are you going back to watch season review dvds from the last five years to get up to speed like there's surely quite a quite kind of clinical element to getting into that fandom I mean, I do know people who have done this and have kind of picked a team.

1:31:50Who've died. Who've died and then sort of come back to life with this new lease of life and thought, yeah, I'll do this. No, people who didn't get to the afterlife. People are just in their first life. And yeah, so I know some of the processes for how you pick. But then, yeah, I don't know. I mean, I guess, yeah, I think you would go back. I mean, I used to have this actually with Spurs. People would get in touch and be like, oh, you know, I'm an American and I've only got into soccer five or so years ago. and I picked Spurs and I've been going back and I've just read about this or that. So I think there is an element to which you do familiarise yourself.

1:32:22It's not asking what album to start with with a band, isn't it? Yeah, a little bit. Don't worry about the first one. It's not really that representative of the letter output. Yeah, exactly. Go to 94, 95. That's the most recent, really fun one. Start with that. See if you like it. Do them in order from there, yeah. Actually, I was having a look earlier with the Dua Lipa stuff. Well, no, sorry. I was looking at who Callum Turner, I googled like, who does Callum Turner support? Because I was trying to work that out. But what he gave me was a Daily Mail article about Dua Lipa. And there was a classic, like, they just got a few tweets and made an article out of it.

1:32:52But it was fans, after she was pictured wearing an Arsenal shirt or being at the Arsenal-Real Madrid game last season, it was fans going, hang on a minute, I thought she was a Liverpool fan. Because previously she'd had Liverpool shirts and she'd been right. I think Carragher gave her a shirt or something once. But maybe now that's the explanation. We know what's happened. She's kept it under the radar, but she's clinically died at some point. Come back and thought, no, I'm going to go and be an Arsenal fan instead. you're only allowed to do it once though surely has anyone ever died twice never hear about these people surely it's possible surely somebody's died twice yeah i'm sure must have done lucky them yeah all those clubs they get to support someone will do it for a youtube video i'll just go back actually i think i'll go back to the original one if that's okay could you just have a defibrillator ready i really need to change the team all right right getting a bit weird now a year of cliches drew to a close with this unexpected lament for the stuttering English production line of talent.

1:33:46Next up, this came from David Smith. Here is Ipswich Town Chairman Mark Ashton talking about a very unexpected conveyor belt of talent in Suffolk. And safety and security is of the utmost importance. And we're not perfect in that. There's challenges because I think, look, if you look at the stewards that are ITFC stewards, Neil McCluskey does a great job, runs the teams really well, and I get umpteen messages per game saying how good, how helpful they are, how they fit the culture. But we are in an area in Suffolk where there is one football club, which means there isn't a huge pool of homegrown stewards to recruit from.

1:34:22So at times we have to go out to other agencies. What an incredible way of putting it. Where are the next generation of homegrown stewards going to come from? This is amazing. I just want to say to David Smith and others how much I'm loving these types of videos are being sent, like the Sheffield Wednesday stuff. This is amazing. Yeah, this is exactly the sort of level we want to be pitching at. Dave, I suppose it is a problem. You do want your stewards to know the club, right? It is better if they know the club, you know, the exits. Yeah, I guess so. Certainly in that area, you don't want any stewards coming over the border from Norfolk, do you?

1:34:59That famed Celtic side of the 1960s when all the stewards were born within a few miles of Celtic Park. United haven't played a game without a homegrown steward. The jokes write themselves and it doesn't matter. Goldbridge is fuming. Stewards, not one homegrown steward. Chelsea in 1998 were the first Premier League club to have an entirely non-homegrown set of stewards on the perimeter of the pitch in the 89th minute. Glamorous cosmopolitan selection of stewards. The League of Nations. But the last word would go to the lesser celebrated member of our beloved pair, a golden slice of Andy Gray in his absolute pomp.

1:35:41This came from Rob Saunders. I genuinely don't know if we've had this before. It did ring a bell, but it is magical. He says, here is the ball, David Ginola and Chris Armstrong all saying something in this golden piece of Andy Gray commentary from Spurs 3, Manchester United 1 in the League Cup, December 1998. Ginola again, tempting greening into the tackle. Wrong foot in, great ball in. Oh, it's a magnificent goal again for Armstrong. Schindler, the provider supreme. This is what I meant. Get past the post. Don't stand there, let the keeper come out. Get in front of the goalkeeper. Attack the post.

1:36:21And all you need is a touch. The ball is sheer quality. It's saying, go on, put me in. Schindler says, I've done my bit. Who wants a goal? Armstrong says, I do. what a hat trick it's so so good perfect hat trick that is amazing which is your favorite of the three charlie you'd say i feel like the ball does less talking in andy gray's world so that that's like the less you know like for for players that would rarely score a perfect hat trick you're like yeah because he's not going to get a header is he yeah pointing his head when he scores yeah exactly for gray to get the ball talking as well i mean that's just superb armstrong says i do It's brilliant.

1:37:02It's brilliant. I've done my bit. I've done my bit. Go on. Oh, it's a great conversation, a great interaction between three protagonists in one goal. Brilliant stuff from Andy Gray. Can't believe we've never featured that before. That wraps up our annual highlights compilation. Thanks so much to everyone for listening, contributing, live show attending, Dreamland subscribing, pronunciation correcting, and just generally buying into our absurd but vital philosophy. We absolutely love making this podcast, so here's to another year of living rent-free in the heads of the entire UK football media.

1:37:36Richard Keyes, MHD in 2026. Be careful what you wish for.

1:38:00Thank you.

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1:39:24Thank you.