BBC live-text sad lads & watching football in the boozer, with Jimmy "Dead Pubs" McIntosh

12:04Charlie Eccleshare:He's supposed to look knackered. but honestly he he Charlie doesn't quite fit the clean cut vibe of Sky Sports the whole quarter zip

12:11Jimmy McIntosh:vibe doesn't quite meet Jamie O 'Hara's persona I don't think there will be a time when he's so knackered he kind of confuses which persona needs to have and uh I mean obviously the more entertaining will be when talk sport creeps too much into Sky that I'll be here for that

12:26Charlie Eccleshare:David Garrido in an Ange Pastor Coglu mark

12:31Adam Hurrey:Can we talk on those two? They are very much the big winners of this current Spurs crisis. And I'm just, I'm a bit worried for the pair of them in that, I mean, maybe they are timing it right. Because I think, as we discussed the other day between us, like I think actually Spurs will stay up. Like at some point in the next few weeks, they'll win a game and it will just be, it will all be okay. But if they do go down, how much more can O 'Hara and Kundy do? Like, where's left for them to go here?

13:00Charlie Eccleshare:Yeah, they've run out of incredulity, basically. Yeah, yeah, absolutely right.

13:04Jimmy McIntosh:Especially if they do go down, there is every chance that once there, they have crazy moments as well. Like, there could be so much more for them to have.

13:15Charlie Eccleshare:I want to stick with talk sport now. We've all enjoyed Andy Townsend talking about his love for the Foo Fighters in the past. But this came from Barry Griffin. Here is Alan Brazil and Dean Saunders on Nirvana.

13:33Jimmy McIntosh:Now a bit of Nirvana there. You into Nirvana, do you know, were you?

13:37Adam Hurrey:No. He passed away really young, didn't he? What was his name again, the singer? Kurt. Was it Kurt? Kaban, yeah. Yeah, it's a shame, but yeah, it's a good group.

13:50Jimmy McIntosh:Smells like teen spirit, as Eddie Howe has called for his...

13:53Charlie Eccleshare:A good group. A good group. That's how they've always been described, Charlie. A good solid group.

14:00Jimmy McIntosh:Did they finally like on Kurt Kilban?

14:04Charlie Eccleshare:Jimmy, I love the idea. It just footballized his name. I absolutely love the idea of Kurt Kilban. Sort of, I don't know, got four caps. Queen of the South winger. Yeah. So sadly passed away at the age of, but yeah, everyone loved his work. Yeah, everything about that is just superb. But Dave, I mean, obviously you can't see it on the podcast, but both of them sort of peering beyond the camera for help from a producer. to clarify who the hell Kurt Cobain is.

14:31Adam Hurrey:And seemingly all so, it was all just a sort of punny segue into something about it that Eddie Howard said as well. Yeah, not worth it. Both of them sat in a box at Cheltenham at like eight in the morning where there's no one else there. How many Nirvana songs can Dean Saunders name, Jimmy? None. No, clearly not. You could do a good mock-up of the album with Alan Brazil though, couldn't you? Yeah, Alan Brazil on the baby's head in the pools. Someone should do that, probably.

14:59Charlie Eccleshare:That will look beautiful. Charlie, the Wrexham goal frame backlash continues. It does genuinely feel now like something the Premier League might not allow if they get promoted deep in its rule book. You know, like 4G pitches are not allowed in the EFL because we had Garnaccio's goal for Chelsea in the FA Cup on Saturday night and then again for Hull in the Championship on Tuesday night. This ball just bouncing back off what can only be described as a lower crossbar. Is there a name for it? Do we need one?

15:26Jimmy McIntosh:Yeah, it is really annoying. like there's no getting away from that aesthetically it looks terrible there's also been a real growth of in the premier league of goals and and they just don't look very good where it's quite hard to describe but it goes in but then hits another bit of the net quite soon after and kind of bounces that it looks really unsatisfying and it's happening more and more and the whole montage

15:44Charlie Eccleshare:of them yesterday and i yeah i found it massively unsatisfying but um yeah i mean it it's leading one way dave and that's rex making a really quirky funny video about them having to sort of get some new goals to fit with premier league life because they've been promoted and they're with the big

15:58Adam Hurrey:boys now yeah i was just chatting to someone about this earlier on like wrexham it's half of me that as someone who is consigned to being in the championship next season again half of me that wants them gone so i don't have to be part of the circus but then also like fucking hell can you imagine what's going to be like when if and when they get promoted yeah i don't say unbearable but

16:18Charlie Eccleshare:it is a circus and it will be a circus um yeah not quite ready for them yeah um jimmy you're on football cliches now so you are going to be subjected to the um tombola of satisfaction that is footballers names in things this came from adam wilkinson b jobbo and quite a few others it's quite simply liverpool legends names in donald trump's iran strategy the situation was very quickly approaching the point of no return and the united states found it intolerable in my opinion based on what steve and jared and pete and others i love the idea jimmy of steve and Gerard being behind Donald Trump's Iran strategy.

16:54Adam Hurrey:You know, what you gotta do, you gotta just go and bomb the Ayatollah, it should be all fine.

16:58Charlie Eccleshare:We go, Terran. This doesn't stick. Oh, dear. Yeah, yeah, passers, the footballer's names in test. Everyone's happy. Right, this last one came from chemical buyer 9117. He says, like any normal 30-year-old man, I've been listening to the full cast editions of Harry Potter. And at the point, Gryffindor win the Quidditch Cup. There's absolute scenes, but the songs in the background didn't settle with me, I felt the intonation of this was all off. Hit them, then Angelina, Alicia and Katie's voices. We won the war! We won the war!

17:32Adam Hurrey:Tangled together in a many-armed huck, the Gryffindor team sank, yelling hoarsely back to her. Wave upon wave of crimson supporters was hauling over the barriers onto the pitch. Hands were raining down.

17:44Charlie Eccleshare:There was a hint of just don't think you'd understand tune about that, but I think it was just pure accident there, Charlie. So what kind of score are we awarding this?

17:53Jimmy McIntosh:It was all a mess. But to be honest, like, and this is time actually, there was a great post on Twitter by someone, a really long post in like the tone of an earnest football pundit or like informed fan talking about how overrated Harry is as a Quidditch player. It's absolutely superb. But I mean, a lot about Quidditch in the book is just so flawed anyway. So this is very much in keeping with it. I mean, it's a, I can't believe it was sort of signed off as a sport. It's basically, you just get.

18:22Charlie Eccleshare:I wasn't expecting this rant, but fine.

18:25Jimmy McIntosh:Again, it's sort of like what we've talked about before, though, having like, you know, someone who understands a fictional sport. You basically just get, I think it's 100 or 150 points for catching the snitch, which just renders everything else basically completely pointless. I knew it would come down to the scoring system. That's all you care about. It's like if you were playing football, though, and you could be 6-1 up, but then there's this thing where if you do like a mad skill you get 10 points and win the game so that's not next goal wins kind of vibe so yeah this doesn't surprise me from rolling

18:54Adam Hurrey:isn't it also a bit like F1 where whoever has the most expensive Quidditch equipment is the winner I'm sure I've read a tweet

19:00Jimmy McIntosh:about that recently so that was part of of this tweet and there is something in that I don't think it's quite as stark but yeah it definitely helped Harry

19:08Charlie Eccleshare:what a tangent that was by the way anyway this episode is brought to you in association with NordVPN for those who don't know OVPN stands for Virtual Private Network. It secures your connection, protecting your personal information and online activity, especially on public Wi-Fi. A VPN can also make your phone or laptop appearance if it's in another country, which is great for accessing content while travelling. Indeed, over to Istanbul we go now. The early exchanges between Galatasaray and Liverpool on Tuesday night, amid the famously hellish atmosphere. And just as I was wondering how off-putting some whistling would actually be for an away team, Dominic Saboslay receives the ball, gives it away in the space of 0.8 seconds, and I was suddenly massively impressed by the cardiovascular agility of the Rams Park faithful.

19:54Jimmy McIntosh:Given away by Gravenberg. Noah Lang. Galatasaray have the ball again. You can always tell by Galatasaray have got the ball because the whistle's stopped. I think it just hit Gravenberg a little bit sometimes. Just an extra second you've got.

20:08Charlie Eccleshare:You're not going to be harried and hustled that much. must keep control of the ball. Dave, the ability to turn the whistling on and off that quickly.

20:16Adam Hurrey:I don't think I could do it. Yeah, so synchronised as well. You'd expect there to be, yeah, a bit of a bleed, maybe one stand a bit slower than the others or whatever. But, I mean, look, I suppose they are the best in the business when it comes to this sort of intimidating behaviour.

20:30Charlie Eccleshare:Jimmy, obviously, now I've got over my astonishment at their ability to turn off their whistling. Do you not think that even as a Turkish collective, as passionate as they must be, Do you not think there are some spells of possession that just don't need to be addressed in this way? I think we can allow a ricochet off Shabozlai's shins.

20:46Adam Hurrey:I mean, I quite like it. It's, you know, some of the best atmospheres I've been in have just been kind of non-stop whistling. But it does go on.

20:54Charlie Eccleshare:Yeah, we've talked about this before, Charlie. Just this relentless, continental kind of drone. I don't think actually it would be that off-putting. Imagine getting, if you were the classic sort of English, way like when you sort of a ball rolls under your foot. That would kill me way more than a whistle, Turkish or otherwise.

21:09Jimmy McIntosh:Yeah, I don't know though, because they're not used to it. I don't know if it's different for Turkish teams, but if you're just thrown into it, I don't know, I imagine it probably is quite a challenge having that every time.

21:20Charlie Eccleshare:If you want to try NordVPN for yourself, go to nordvpn.com slash cliches, and our link will also give you four extra months on the two-year plan. It's the best discount available. There's no risk with Nord's 30-day money-back guarantee, and the link is also in our podcast description if you need it. We'll be back very shortly with Jimmy Deadpubs McIntosh's Mezzat Harland Dicks.

21:55Charlie Eccleshare:Welcome back to Football Clichés. This is Mezzat Harland Dicks with Jimmy Deadpubs McIntosh. You can sign up for his compelling Deadpubs content at Patreon, dot com slash dead pubs it's worth it alone just to access the incredible bespoke background music as well but jimmy time for your first fascination of football please so i think we'll get the kind

22:18Adam Hurrey:of controversial one out the way right i am of the belief that you can only truly understand a game of football if you're watching it on tv brackets in a pub and i know a lot of the kind of we go the game every week purists will not agree with that but i just think i was i was at the Liverpool game against Man City at Anfield the other month and I had no idea that Sir Bozzolai pulled Haaland back and so I was fuming that he got sent off so it was only really when I got to the pub after the game that I realised oh I was wrong in the pub you get replays you get a sense of the kind of pomp and circumstance as well of the the sky spectacle the pageantry you know the kind of the half-time music you know it used to be Celeste now it's Kasabian for my money worse Yes, agreed.

23:04Adam Hurrey:But it's something you don't quite get. You do get a different experience at the football. But I do think if you really want to know exactly what's going on and to truly kind of see people's positioning, you have to watch it on TV.

23:14Charlie Eccleshare:Dave, this is a very welcome and perhaps sort of overdue backlash towards the idea that going to the football is great because you never got Celeste at the live football, did you? And we all know that that was the most iconic sound in the modern game. Look, a man after your own heart.

23:28Adam Hurrey:You are the nation's foremost armchair supporter, aren't you? proudly so um but i i agree i mean i sort of agree i mean i think it's it's sort of horses for courses but like that game in particular that you referenced the liverpool man city i was watching it in a pub after we'd played sunday league and that moment in particular as well was like a weirdly sort of communal experience not just with the people i was sat with but all the other people who were sat around us like we were compelled to sort of look at each other and kind of like you know express our incredulity and amazement about what had just happened in a way that you wouldn't get that out of ground would you because you'd be in your own sort of tribal bubble you'd either be pissed off or celebrating or whatever but like i think it is different if you don't have skin in the game maybe if you're neutral it's a bit different so if you're if you're

24:17Jimmy McIntosh:a hardcore liverpool city fan or whatever it might be yeah i do think that's an important distinction to make like i think watching a game where you don't have skin in the game that that to me is way more appealing at a pub because then it becomes because then you get you kind of get swept up in it whereas if it's your team you don't need the sweeping up i i kind of disagree

24:36Adam Hurrey:on that i i actually think i used to go to harringay borough a lot and i used to love going to the actual game because i just didn't really care so it was quite a good day out on the piss

24:47Charlie Eccleshare:and you drink in the stands yeah i don't think they show those games in the pub harringay borough but i'm surprisingly no i i'm interested jimmy that you think that watching a game in the pub makes you more attached to what's going on because for me if anything the slight sense of detachment characterizes pub football because you can't really hear the crowd noise the commentary and the punditry kind of pops in and out of whatever hubbub you're surrounded by now obviously the dream is to watch it in a you know a pub with two other people in it and nothing else happening the sunshine streaming through the windows but if it is a busy pub you do have that sense of detachment which often makes a game look feel a little bit more chaotic because you haven't got that grasp of it so i guess it kind of swings and roundabouts really for the for the you know

25:27Adam Hurrey:whatever environment you're in yeah i mean i live in i'm not an arsenal fan but i live uh in north london and it was you know i went to the pub to watch i can't remember what arsenal game it was arsenal spurs i think and it was fantastic because the entire pub was was supporting arsenal but yeah maybe for a game in london like i don't know burnley wolves you're not going to get that level

25:46Charlie Eccleshare:of the passion let me get a grip of of what kind of football pub watcher you are um let's set the benchmark here and there's a there's not necessarily a right answer to these questions are you a clapper would you clap and if so what would you clap are you a substituted player clapper because i mean that is that is a loaded question i think there's a sliding scale right and it really

26:06Adam Hurrey:depends how many pints you have yes so i like to do two pints a half with a half time cigarette break that would be my kind of so normally by about pint number three especially if i'm watching liverpool i will get quite vocal clapping not necessarily a substitution but certainly a good

26:25Charlie Eccleshare:tackle um i think not crossfield pass maybe because that's too at the game isn't it oh you know what i

26:32Adam Hurrey:actually think i i'm louder and this is gonna sound terrible i'm louder in a pub than i am at the game and i don't know why i haven't actually ever reckoned with that myself i think maybe it's to do with the level of alcohol consumed yeah i'm assuming like the inhibitions go a little bit more because in a pub you can just keep drinking right i'm a big england clapper i mean it's sort of seldom do i end up watching watford games in the pub but you know it does when we were in the premier league especially it did happen now and again and that would be like a sunday 2 p.m there wouldn't be many other people in the pub so clapping would have felt weird if you can if you can hear your claps echoing off the pub walls i think you know you shouldn't be clapping if there's a bit like booing if you boo alone you sound ridiculous if you're booing amongst a collective it's much better yeah if it's a big england game in a world cup then i'm clapping i'm clapping every ball you don't hear booing in pubs often even for even for like big games i don't think you just hear a lot of like you know swearing but not necessarily booing like

27:30Charlie Eccleshare:you'd would at a ground yeah protesting swearing like directly at a figure either opposition player or a referee that feels okay because you can that can transmit itself through the airwaves charlie to the player who needs to receive it but apparently booing doesn't maybe it's the frequency it just doesn't get doesn't get through the tv if you go to a turkish pub they're all whistling

27:48Jimmy McIntosh:of course i guess as well you have few you have fewer inhibitions in a way above because what you're saying you know on you know they're not actually going to here and you really can And go for them if you were worried about maybe saying something that at a ground you might not want them to actually hear.

28:05Charlie Eccleshare:Jimmy, however, pub football watching does sort of encourage a little bit of kind of match going behaviour or sort of other curious behaviour that bleeds into the pub environment that perhaps doesn't belong there. You recently watched an Arsenal game of the Hercules in Holloway, is it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you witnessed someone doing the Jocheres mask celebration.

28:27Adam Hurrey:not just someone a few people and it was uh it was just powerfully lame i mean maybe even lamer at the ground i don't know i can't think of many celebrations charlie that would be worse

28:41Charlie Eccleshare:just out in the wild with completely no connection to a football pitch like just just to perform i

28:46Jimmy McIntosh:think this has been flagged i think when he signed there was quite a lot of this going around on kind of the streets of Islington. And yeah, obviously it was leapt upon by Arsenal's rivals.

28:58Charlie Eccleshare:Right, superbly on-brand first selection from you. Let's have your second fascination of football. Didn't see this coming at all. My second fascination is the man, the myth, Damian Kamali.

29:11Adam Hurrey:I genuinely believe, I mean, he's had a fascinating career. He's been at some really big clubs, And I genuinely believe he might have one of the best track records at signing players. So we've got Henri, Bale, Modric, Suarez, Henderson, Berbatov. I mean, there's a lot of Duff players in there as well. Yes. But, you know, it's not too bad considering how many players aren't good. The fact that he kind of unearthed so many gems is very impressive. But equally, he's kind of left every club he's ever been at on a really sour note. like I think um you know I think it was at Toulouse he got kind of fined for having a go at the referee and then kind of left shortly after Liverpool he left you know with very unceremoniously Burz as well fell out with Martin Yorl I think it was um so he's just a fascinating character and somehow he always lands up I think he's currently the general manager at Juventus or

30:06Charlie Eccleshare:something CEO now in fact CEO very recently sort of promoted to CEO and has recently been sort of fined for having a go at referees. So he's turned into a really aggy guy. He started off, Charlie, as this sort of French, sort of law degree, toting kind of thinker, strategiser, and he's turned into a really aggy CEO who turns up in the tunnels in Serie A.

30:30Jimmy McIntosh:Well, I think because he is very opinionated, and I was lucky, when covering Spurs... I was lucky enough to spend some time. I was lucky enough to spend some time with Damien. Wonderful man. No, but I talked to him quite a lot. You know, he'd be great because, you know, you do pieces like the transfers that never were or whatever, those sorts of things. And he'd have so many nuggets and he was so kind of happy to talk and spoke in a really interesting way, like very quotable. But he is. And that's why he was. He is one of those people who would be relevant for so many pieces and for so many different clubs, because he was like like Jimmy says, there was a period where he I mean, he was one of the first kind of.

31:10Jimmy McIntosh:in the premier league or anyway like transfer gurus wasn't he like he's like the Wuhan of this

31:15Charlie Eccleshare:sort of thing like everything stems from him this modern obsession with directors of football but particularly Dave the directors of football who who mastermind transfers above the manager's head without their permission like without their say without their say so so you you ultimately fall into one of two camps whether Damien Kamoli was a transfer genius or a guy who sort of just meddled unnecessarily in managers sort of legacies uh you know fairly or unfair but they're very expendable

31:42Adam Hurrey:characters which is why jimmy as you say he's sort of been dispensed with at various places unceremoniously but but also they're also a bit teflon in that they can just pop up at another place and and nothing about any perceived failure a previous club seems to really affect them in a way that it would if they were if they were the manager which is which is a strange thing um and You referenced Wuhan there, fittingly. When I saw this choice from Jimmy, I was reminded of the time when on, I think it was the final week of February 2020. So just when COVID stuff had started to be like a thing that we were all aware of and we were talking about, but we weren't quite sure if it was really, the shit was really going to hit the fan.

32:28Adam Hurrey:He came into the athletics offices back then to do an interview with David Ornstein, and I was there to record it. And he'd just been, he'd come straight from the airport. He'd been somewhere, I think he'd come from Switzerland. And he didn't shake anyone's hand because he was saying, I don't think we should shake hands because of this COVID thing. He's an operator. He was, yeah.

32:51Jimmy McIntosh:He always had the curve. You're right, Dave, as well, though, with the kind of Teflon element, because like Jimmy says, yes, he has some great names that he can point to. But whenever you talk to kind of scouts like he was at Arsenal or anyone in these roles, they will tell you, they will reel off names of players that they spotted as well and that they said, oh, we should sign him and whatever. but they will also be so many duds and kind of or you know you can it's it's kind of it's quite easy to say well i did suggest we sign you know a 16 year old kilian mbappe i did say that and you know they didn't listen to old me so yeah it is quite a strange role that they have jimmy i

33:32Charlie Eccleshare:don't really want to clamber back upon my soapbox about sporting directors too forcefully but he seems to be one of the first journeyman sporting directors monaco arsenal san etienne tottenham sanetti and again liverpool fenerbahce to lose juventus what a career that is but he's also got a 1854 word wikipedia page this shouldn't happen for these people they're supposed to go under the radar they're supposed to do their work quietly with a little bit of congratulation if you win

33:58Adam Hurrey:a trophy that's it i mean they the very good ones have a kind of mythical status that kind of and actually i i wasn't aware that he did so many interviews because i i certainly don't remember him doing that many when he was at Liverpool but they're kind of these sporting directors kind of come into a club and they for fans they certainly seem to be like the answer to a lot of problems like I remember a couple of my Arsenal mates um you know I think it was Edu that was there and then they got rid of him for someone else whose name I can't remember Andrea Berta yeah they were talking about that like it was like you just signed yeah Mbappe or someone it's like

34:32Charlie Eccleshare:it's really worrying like it's really worrying obviously it's an Arsenal thing of course they care about Andrea Berta more than anybody cares about their sort of technical director if they've got one but but Dave ultimately Damien Camoli is a Frenchman a multilingual law graduate with glasses this man should be stalking the corridors of power UEFA and then subsequently FIFA and then get sacked in mild disgrace that he shouldn't be doing what he does although he is incredibly Juventus you take a look at his face he oozes Juventus yeah but you wouldn't completely rule

35:04Adam Hurrey:out a Premier League return at some stage, would you? I don't care about

35:08Charlie Eccleshare:the unfinished business of Damien Kamoli.

35:11Adam Hurrey:He'll be back at Spurs if they stay up.

35:13Charlie Eccleshare:Yeah. You could see it.

35:15Adam Hurrey:Or get him in a forest. And all the fans will think, we could do worse than Damien Kamoli. Get that Kamoli in.

35:21Charlie Eccleshare:I don't want to hear the words we could do worse than insert neighbour's sporting director. I don't want to talk about them anymore. Tell us about your third and final fascination of football, please, Jimmy.

35:29Adam Hurrey:It's football and nicknames. You know, your kind of, your round deuters, your ill pistoleros and the fact that england don't really do it and correct me if i'm wrong i think the current the only current one is slab head for harry mcguire which you know isn't the most flattering you know it's not like the pistol or you know the sheriff it's you have a head that's massive um i just think they're really beautiful and i think it would be amazing if england started

35:57Charlie Eccleshare:doing it charlie i mean then there must be a broad cultural explanation for why english football doesn't embrace its players and to a certain extent teams in this way as we've established already the english football nicknames are basically affectionate slash mildly mocking so slabhead is right in the epicenter of this you've got and then razor rudder can jason trigger macketeer things like that that which which aren't football related yeah well chopper yeah again it was at least that was an almost a sort of step towards the south american way of doing things which actually illustrated the style of play that he has but why hasn't english football done this sort of thing yeah i don't know like mate we're not poetic enough are we well yeah maybe that

36:38Jimmy McIntosh:we're not creative enough we'll go on doing bad nicknames um i i don't know do we like sort of order and i mean i know i do uh you know and things being done in a certain way and it just feels a bit flippant to do this with our footballers in a way that other languages certainly like brazilian names are more they're more fluid they are and there's more romance to them i suppose

37:03Adam Hurrey:from our perspective but maybe people in brazil or in germany look at razor rudder or whatever and say why don't we do it that way because because our nick our nicknames are like razor would have been known as razor to his teammates in the in the changing room no one in the germany dressing room is calling thomas muller ramdeuter it's it's it's a different thing isn't it really it's like It gets bestowed upon you by journalists, maybe, as opposed to being given to you by your teammates.

37:32Charlie Eccleshare:Maybe we are closer, Jimmy, to that culture than we think. All you really need in the front of some of these nicknames for English football is a determiner. So if we called Harry Maguire The Slabhead, L Slabhead, it would suddenly take on a gravitas that it didn't have before. Now, admittedly, it's not the ideal word to stick an L before, but still, that's all it needs. So maybe we aren't miles away. maybe we do have that same connection we just don't have the kind of sort of linguistic flair

38:00Adam Hurrey:i think that i think that's probably fair to say yeah i think there's an element that english fans don't actually like the players a lot or that they have less maybe like grace than maybe other teams do mythical status could be yeah i could be completely wrong with that but like i think you know there's a lot of because they all play in the premier league there's a sense of like i don't like harry mcguire because he plays for united and i'm a liverpool fan so why would i

38:23Charlie Eccleshare:give him an affectionate nickname yeah maybe maybe it doesn't i mean where it's behind it

38:28Jimmy McIntosh:yeah yeah but then i don't know if other nations are less tribal in that way i don't know if they're like if doing something for the national team kind of helps elevate you but it definitely does like it does make a big difference like i think for someone like james horncastle when he's riffing about an italian player when he can just drop in their nickname it adds so much to that story like it just gives it an instant element of cool and intrigue that this player was called

38:55Charlie Eccleshare:whatever he was called that there are so many nickname formats dave that some learn themselves slightly better to english football do you know who the lewisham balak is or was should i i don't think you would i don't think it caught on but he was allegedly dubbed amongst his fan base at the time as the Lewisham Ballack. No, who is it? Come on. It's Ruben Loftus-Cheek. Fucking hell. Exactly. So some of these have a grander sense that they really don't deserve. I mean, but a classic, one of my favourites, Jimmy, Walter Pandiani, once of Birmingham, nicknamed El Rifle, which is beautiful. It described his goal scoring ability really well.

39:35Charlie Eccleshare:So I think it ticked a lot of boxes. at the other end of the scale if you go over to golf the great vj sing allegedly his nickname is the big phygean which sounds like something alan smith would say on sky sports he's hitting well the big phygean isn't he well so yeah so it can be hit and miss across the globe is what i'm saying it's not necessarily uh something that anybody has particularly nailed

39:58Adam Hurrey:i feel like jude bellingham should have one i feel like of the current england players he is the most sort of i can just picture him like he's he's if he's in the team he's kind of the main guy in terms of just in the heart of everything he feels a bit like you know captain marvel sort of brian robson-esque our main character yeah according to google ai um yes obviously wrong gude bellingham has been referred to as luca by real madrid fans because he plays like

40:26Charlie Eccleshare:luca modric apparently that's insane absolutely insane um some of these things just don't work I'm going to reel off sensational examples of nicknames from across the decades. There was a Panamanian striker called Rommel Fernandes. His name derived directly from the Nazi Supremo. He played in La Liga in the late 80s, early 90s. And his nickname was indeed El Panzer, after the Panzer division. So that's a little bit much. The World Cup top scorer in the 1930 tournament, Guillermo Stabile, was nicknamed the Infiltrator, Jimmy, which is absolute class. Wow. That is amazing. That is amazing. It suggests a certain type of goal scoring, sort of Lineker-esque, sort of stealing in, toe-poking it beyond the goalkeeper.

41:13Charlie Eccleshare:Elsewhere, Charlie, a South Korean called Park Kyung-hoon, who played for South Korea at the 1986 World Cup and then later for Yeding in 1993-94. Spurs set up the transfer because his wife or girlfriend was studying in London. So they got him a club and Yeding proved to be it. He was nicknamed, I swear to God, According to Wikipedia, he was nicknamed the progenitor of overlapping.

41:39Adam Hurrey:That's got to be a translation thing, right? I hope so. Yeah.

41:43Jimmy McIntosh:And surely that's also more described rather than nicknamed.

41:47Adam Hurrey:Yeah. Described in that way. Progenitor of overlapping is surely the result of somebody coming up with 51 different ways to describe a fallback.

41:57Charlie Eccleshare:It's absolutely perfect. The scuttler. The progenitor of overlapping. I don't know why I did it in the Keezy voice. It kind of worked. So, yeah, I don't know. There's no particular reason why English football hasn't embraced this sort of thing. But I feel like we do need to pull our socks up. Maybe we just need to let our hair down a bit. Just loosen up and embrace the poetic side of football. Anyway, that's Jimmy McIntosh's fascinations of football taken care of. We'll be back very shortly with his irritations.

42:30oh look at that that is wonderful

42:38Charlie Eccleshare:welcome back to football cliches we've heard jimmy mackintosh's football fascinations now time for his irritations kick things off please jimmy so it's sort of related to the first

42:48Adam Hurrey:fascination, but it's watching football in a pub with the sound off. There's nothing more buzzkill than that. It's certainly for the early kickoffs, you know, the smell of bleach permeating your nose, you know, a few old boys in the corner and heart radio is blaring and you're trying to watch Wolves Man City and it's just, you can't follow. Well, maybe I can't because I've got a terrible brain, but I hate it. Football has to be played with the sound on.

43:16Charlie Eccleshare:Before we get stuck into it then Jimmy what the technicality of it being the early kickoff do you think that do you think that is the the game you least want the sound off for because it's going to set the tone for the rest

43:25Adam Hurrey:of the day yeah if you've plonked yourself down for you know a whole Sunday or a whole Saturday's worth of football watching yeah you want to get you want to get involved you want to feel it um

43:35Charlie Eccleshare:Dave as a as a confirmed pubsman slash footballman what percentage of the spectacle is taken away by the sound being off do you think because I mean this is a common spectacle pubs thinking they can half they can sort of meet all demands by having the football on with the sound off but what are they taking away from us well you're sort of pleasing no one in that scenario because the

43:56Adam Hurrey:football especially if there are big screens the football's on its presence is still felt by people who aren't there to watch the football but then the people who are there to watch the football yeah you are you're taking away from their experience by not having the commentary not having the atmosphere and it's one of those scenarios where particularly if it's in contrast asked what we were saying earlier on like i can maybe i can just about get along with it if i don't really care about the game that much if i'm just happen to be in the pub and the football's on i can keep an eye on it or whatever if i'm there to watch the match and it's my team or if it's england or whatever and the commentary's not on that will really irritate me and i will try and convince myself that i'm okay with it but it'll be to be gnawing away at me on the inside and i'll be like should i go and say something to the person behind the bar and this happened in in the summer i was actually i was in the um i was in philomena's covent garden which is a regular football pub haunt of mine generally they're bang on and they use they've got loads of screens and you're only fucked if it's irish sports day because then they'll that will take precedence but they had the women it was one of the women's euros games it was england i think it was england against the netherlands it was like a midweek sort of 5 p.m kickoff and we had to i had to enter in protracted negotiations with the bar staff a to put the game on and then b to put the commentary on and they wouldn't put the commentary on we had to compromise it we'll put it on but

45:17Jimmy McIntosh:you can't have the commentary on and it was annoying i've had many earnest arguments debates

45:22Charlie Eccleshare:discussions however you want to call it i can totally imagine you approaching the bar to begin negotiations for this it's again it's a bit like you complaining about happy hunting grounds point scoring systems i could i could just see you the tense negotiations beginning yeah similar energy

45:35Jimmy McIntosh:because I'm making the point that like this will be better for everyone because I'm like because I'm like everyone here is here to watch the game like that's why every like look around that's what everyone's here doing they're going to be enjoying themselves more they're going to buy more drinks you win we win like what what is the point of doing that it's like and I guess they must surely have some research or something that shows no it's better like they must surely that's why they do it they're not just doing it to be difficult like they must think either it turns people away or people are more likely to buy drinks when music's playing and i will say once i did once think i remember actually being at a game but it was later in the day and it was everyone was everyone was there everyone that was there was watching the football but it was fairly neutral but they did put on some quite like good vibey music and actually i remember thinking do you know what i reckon people more people are likely to buy drinks if it was this than if it was kind of alan smith commentating on this saturday not great 5 30 games i was like fair play on this one but generally yeah i'm i i it really annoys me this is incredible the idea of

46:41Charlie Eccleshare:just charlie eccleshare at a bar dave just chatting about macroeconomics and and how it might affect things about your bottom line while the stereophonics play over the top um but this is surprisingly visceral to me jimmy actually because um the frustration clearly we You'll share it when this phenomenon is inflicted on us. But the moment that someone somewhere, either behind the bar, figures out that this might be the way to go or someone persuades them, when you're sat there, resigned to the fate, and then suddenly the crowd sounds just appear out of nowhere. Everything stops and then the crowd sounds suddenly start.

47:17Charlie Eccleshare:What a release that is.

47:19Adam Hurrey:Because you settle into your chair at that moment, don't you? Yeah, it's fantastic. And I was going to say kind of an addendum to that is watching football with the sound off,

47:27Charlie Eccleshare:but the sound on from another game oh impossible i think only child's brain could handle it you

47:33Adam Hurrey:hear the ball hit the net and you go oh that's yeah it's very discombobulating really weird

47:38Charlie Eccleshare:really weird um also got me thinking that a well-established national favorite of weatherspoons now why don't they show football like what do you think is the kind of broad policy here is it is it an anti-football thing is it does it cost too much to show football would it annoy the broad sort of core clientele. I feel like Wetherspoon should show football routinely.

48:00Adam Hurrey:I think that comes down from Tim Martin himself, who I believe is a rugby man.

48:05Charlie Eccleshare:Oh, yes.

48:07Adam Hurrey:And I guess the whole point of the Wetherspoon's philosophy is it's based on George Orwell's perfect pub, The Moon Underwater. And in that essay, he said, yeah, no. I don't even think he said live sport because there probably wasn't live sport at that time.

48:24Charlie Eccleshare:but he said no no music so um george or with a faded sort of watch it on satanta in on the window oh 102 no super sunday please

48:38Adam Hurrey:but you do but you do occasionally get these sort of um you know it's like an eclipse or something every now and again it comes the planets align and you you end up having some sort of weird football watching experience in a Wetherspoons whether that be like a bit of a major tournament or I can even remember like back when we used to go to like Watford every Saturday night when I was like 18 and we would always be in the Wetherspoons for as long as possible to indeed to migrate towards the uh towards uh Destiny the club at the top of the high street sometimes Match of the Day would be on with the sound off because they have they have terrestrial like the basic sort of free view terrestrial just on BBC News channels normally just on isn't it

49:18Charlie Eccleshare:Sky Sports News just in the corner, which is a whole separate vibe. Your second irritation of football, please, Jimmy. It's the concept of limbs and certainly the policing of limbs on Twitter.

49:33Adam Hurrey:It's almost like you're not a proper fan unless you're kind of tumbling three rows below you. Be tossed asunder. I just think it's quite performative and I think people should be allowed to watch football how they bloody well like.

49:48Charlie Eccleshare:Dave, I don't think I've ever heard anyone say the word limbs in a football context out loud without that complete blanket of derision that Jimmy has just delivered. I've heard anyone say it sincerely, actually, out loud. It's ridiculous.

50:03Adam Hurrey:No one would ever say it genuinely or earnestly. But I'm with you here. And it's one of those moments where you sort of do reflect and you think, am I getting a bit old? am I being a bit of a spoil sport or whatever? And like, what's, if I don't want people to throw their plastic glass pint of beer up in the air, if I don't want people to go crazy in these moments, what do I want? What's the perfect sort of version of what I'm trying to say? What everyone's sat down sort of just nodding along? Like, that's not good. That's no good either. But I'm completely with you. Like, it's so fucking ridiculous.

50:37Adam Hurrey:And you see this, where you see it a lot now as well, it's like, not even in the stadium, because in the stadium to an extent you can i think you can excuse it a bit because there is genuine emotion there you know without getting into the whole var non-celebration thing again charlie but like in the efl at least like yeah if people are going mad there even if it is sort of subconsciously maybe a bit more exaggerated than it used to be it's still genuine emotion whereas you see it a lot now on these i don't know like online whether it be youtube or whatever or just sort of visual content around football watch-alongs and that sort of thing every single goal is is reacted to like it's the most amazing goal or the most desperate moment of all time like all like just this random sunday game you have people in the studio that show they're doing on talk sport now you're right and you know whoever is supporting spurs or united or arsenal whoever it might be whether it's good or bad they have to just go completely fucking nuts yes it's just so annoying

51:33Charlie Eccleshare:has propelled this forward, hasn't it? Yeah, it's basically democratised limbs. It means that everyone is now, not only feels that they are allowed to do limbs, but are compelled to do limbs. So, yeah, you're absolutely right. Yeah, so those cutaway shots of Studio Pundits celebrating their own team's goals. But I'm really unclear, Jimmy, about where the limbs phenomenon began. There was a Twitter account called Footy Limbs, which I thought must be the original and best. That was launched in 2019, suspended in 2022, potentially for some sectarian unpleasantness i'm not sure but i can't find any successor to it so i did find like a french language one which which sort of run out of steam about three years ago but that was called like member de football or something you don't want members do you really oh it's absolute members

52:19Adam Hurrey:i didn't realize footy limbs had been suspended because i think i'd had it muted for so long

52:24Charlie Eccleshare:yeah four years hence oh wow r.i.p yeah r.i.p to the big long years since footy limbs i mean but

52:30Jimmy McIntosh:Is your issue, because I think there is still something great about, you know, like a last minute winner, especially away from home and the away fans are going crazy. Like, I struggle to have an issue with that as a thing. Is your issue more with the kind of glorification or fans talking about we've got the best limbs kind of thing? Because obviously that is very tedious.

52:51Adam Hurrey:It's that. And then it's also for me, the defining image is like kind of every national tournament, every international tournament, England, you cut to like a box park. and then it's just the kind of the beers thrown in the air. People kind of clambering over each other. It's like, you don't need to do that. So it's those two. That's become a conscious thing, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

53:10Charlie Eccleshare:So it was the 2018 World Cup, Charlie, where Box Park really sort of emerged as the pint-throwing ground zero. And pint-throwing, when it became established as a phenomenon, was so good for news outlets because, one, they could talk about it as a phenomenon. So that's one, that's a column, guaranteed. And two, you could get at least two news stories that quantified this sort of thing in absurd terms. They worked out that during England versus Sweden in the quarterfinal of 2018, a combined total of 100 ,000 pints were thrown up in the air. And every time England scored a goal, 150 ,000 pounds worth of beer was thrown in the air at Box Park alone.

53:48Jimmy McIntosh:No, and like visually, it did look kind of cool. Like, you know, you see those shots of it and it's all flying up in the air. But like with anything, it very quickly ate itself and every national newspaper sent their correspondent down to like watch a game at Box Park and it just totally then took away the kind of authenticity and spontaneity. You weren't there the first time

54:06Adam Hurrey:so you can't do it again. That's it.

54:09Charlie Eccleshare:There was one televised bit of performative pint throwing, Jimmy, which was, it was a Hyde Park screening of one of the England games. We're talking thousands of people and they synchronised their pint throwing so much and it had become such a thing now that pints were basically being bought for that purpose. It was like the Bikini Atoll nuclear test. It was a horrendous sight. Like, it was actually quite terrifying. And then you just think, yeah, incredible example of herd mentality, like a craze, like one of the most pathetic crazes has caught on in the space of a summer. So, yeah, I feel like we should all sort of bemoan this.

54:43Charlie Eccleshare:Madness, utter madness. The BBC, we did a little, during this tournament, the BBC did a little sort of round the cities updates thing, Charlie. And they got to Leeds' Millennium Square and Rio Ferdinand was on the BBC he said there's no beer thrown about where's the beer? which I can just totally imagine him saying it

55:05Jimmy McIntosh:yeah I mean that is a shame yeah that does it count unless there's beer being chucked around

55:10Charlie Eccleshare:yeah that's the new authentic experience but yeah I'm so hesitant to use the word performative because it feels so sneery Jimmy but in these two cases it so clearly is enjoy goals as much as you like but let's not turn it into a contest

55:23Jimmy McIntosh:But that's why I don't think it is. I don't think scoring away last minute, that just is, to me, fans going crazy. I don't think that's performative.

55:33Charlie Eccleshare:You haven't really justified an away trip unless you've tumbled down at least three rows of a Premier League upper tier.

55:38Adam Hurrey:the thing with like again particularly with this beer throwing stuff but also just just with the general sort of scenes with england or with your nation in a tournament like in the final like when we scored when cole palmer scored the equalizer in the euro 2024 final like i was in a pub and i did go mad i didn't throw i didn't have a pint in my hand so i didn't throw any beer but if i had a pint in my hand would it have spilled probably i wouldn't have chucked it but like you know there would it would have been messy and i think that's fine because that's a final and that's like Like, it's, you know, the absolute zenith of England watching experience.

56:13Adam Hurrey:But group stage games, like dead rubbers, it's got to be a sliding scale. Like, the closer we get to Dory... There was never going to be a lower threshold for this.

56:21Charlie Eccleshare:It was always going to be a completely... You know, it was going to fill every crevice of football watching. Like, there was going to be, well, it's just a qualifier, actually. And we are expected to win this one. So, yeah, get a roof away. People throwing in their pipes at the sixth goal against Panama. oh just like over your shoulder all right the dregs um one news report put it jimmy and i think it was in a quite dead pubsy way they described it as clouds of fermented mist overly poetic way of talking about performative pint throwing um let's stay on the beer theme uh and why not for

56:55Adam Hurrey:your third and final irritation of football yes so it's kind of twofold this first of all all beer in all stadiums tastes exactly the same and that taste is shit and i don't know why they can't you know in in theory it's no different to a pub why the tap's so bad and then secondly is the halftime conundrum and it's if you get a pint you've got to kind of down it very quickly and then queue for the toilet you're kind of gonna might probably will miss the first two or three minutes of the second half or do you queue you know do you go to the toilet first then go for a pint but then you're going to need it halfway in and or do you leave early do you leave with two minutes left but i think that's a bit of a cop-out so that's it's basically beer at halftime

57:39Charlie Eccleshare:in stadiums dave i'm going to come to you straight away with this question does does the taste of beer and where you are and the quality of the pipes may linger in your mind might might be a cloud that overshadows everything but does the taste of the beer not really mentally depend on the vessel that is being drunk from and specifically the material that that vessel is made from If you're drinking from a particularly collapsible plastic cup, it's going to be bad. But weirdly, if you drink it from a rigid plastic cup, like one you can give back for 10p or something like that, how is that worse than bendy plastic?

58:15Charlie Eccleshare:I don't know how it is, but I think it's because those cups are really battered, like they've been gnawed on by a Neanderthal.

58:21Adam Hurrey:And the head sort of clings to the plastic in a different way than the flimsy ones.

58:27Charlie Eccleshare:I completely agree. There's more, yeah, there's more texture to it. It clings on more.

58:32Adam Hurrey:It's definitely a thing.

58:33Charlie Eccleshare:It's awful.

58:34Adam Hurrey:Yeah. I mean, it's like, it's almost the inverse of what you were talking about at the top, Jimmy, with like two, if you're sitting in a pub, you can, you can meet it out two pints per half. But then if you do go above the run rate and you have three pints in the first half, do you have to have three pints in the second half to keep the symmetry? I don't know. But like at a football match, you know, you might have one or two before, then, you know, one at half time and afterwards is afterwards and that's fine. But I've never been a drinker at football matches. I'll have a couple, I'll have two or two, maybe depending on the time of day, maybe three before the game.

59:09Adam Hurrey:And then that's it. Then I'm in game mode. I'm not worried about having a pint in the stadium because I just, I completely agree with you. I just don't see how it can be pleasurable in any way.

59:19Jimmy McIntosh:No, it is weird, but I will always try and have a half-time pint. But it's such a weird thing because you're like, you know you don't have enough time. You know it's not the best. It's such a weird thing. You're like, I don't have enough time for this. It's ludicrously expensive. It's not great quality. And yet it's such a ritual.

59:36Charlie Eccleshare:It can't be in the top 50 pints that you could have at any given time. The half-time in a stadium pint in a plastic glass surrounded by people queuing up for ages. It must be one of the most unsatisfying drinkings of beer possible.

59:50Jimmy McIntosh:Very possibly. But also, like, what do you do? Half-time otherwise suddenly feels so long. For something that's only 15 minutes, it's like, what do you do? Just sort of, like, pace about? Like, I don't know. It's just pure routine. Scroll for your phone. But you do that all the rest of your life. It feels like, don't do that. It's just sacred. You're at a football match. Oh, yeah, yeah. It should feel special. it is incredible as well because you'll have these people and you're like how much you're paying to be at this game or whatever and then how much of it you'll make because people will people will start leaving the seat sometimes like 10 minutes before half time get back sort of five or ten minutes you're like you've missed a lot of the game for the sake of a really terrible pint like it's so weird that that's sort of and often it's done by the people who present as being like the most hardcore fans you know like we love the team but we also really love drinking so we're going to miss a fairly sizable chunk of this game that costs a lot of money it's kind of it's the

1:00:47Adam Hurrey:watching the football on the screen in the concourse watching the last five minutes and you just got kind of blokes double parked yeah just go to the pub then in that case because you'll be getting nicer beer and you know if you're not that asked about seeing live football just sack it off completely but you can see you can see that that is bleeding into it a lot more like it's you know i'm sure it never really used to be a thing but now pretty much every game you go to they will be a feed of the game on the screens on the concourse and you can definitely tell that like some of the old boys in particular are like very content to just stand and drink their beer and watch it on the screens in the knowledge that quiet it's sort of going on out there i'm still sort of here i can still maybe i can maybe if we do score i can just run out and engage in the limbs quickly and scuttle back in performative performative pretending not to think they know what's going on yeah oh what oh really yeah but that but that's also one of the worst anxieties

1:01:44Jimmy McIntosh:you can have as a football watcher and again linking this back to pubs is if there's any sort of discrepancy with sound and obviously and you have that obviously if you're if you're sitting having a drink in the concourse you you're going to hear a goal before you see it and i've been in pub situations as well where you're aware that fuck that screen over there is actually slightly ahead of the one i'm on and it completely kills it because you're like i'm gonna know before i

1:02:05Charlie Eccleshare:see it and i can't i can't be doing that there is a there is a moment during every pub trip especially if i'm sort of you know two or three pints deep jimmy where i will get to the bar and i will scan the pumps and i will consider making the nuclear decision to switch to cider for one pint just because you need you need the sugary hit you need you need to switch frequencies just in terms of your tongue and i think a football stadium at halftime might be the situation where i'm more likely to switch where i think i'm gonna need that that pep at half time to get me up for the second half and of course every football stadium will offer that other cider the thatcher's gold or whatever the complete nondescript cider is it's always the option is where do you stand on cider i feel like you're not a cider man i think the occasion it has to be a very particular

1:02:53Adam Hurrey:occasion for it and it's for me it's like a hot day at a pub that's kind of by a river or by a body of water and there's probably like there's too many wasps flying around yes and they're attracted to the cider yes um but that's and i'll do it once a year and then i'll be drinking it i'll be so annoyed by the wasps they'll be like ah that's why i don't drink cider um and you get a really weird taste in your mouth i find like after a few of them you regret it yeah yes and no cider for me guinness at a football stadium is also a bit of a weird one god yeah when the Exactly, the whole sort of pouring and letting it sit and all that.

1:03:31Adam Hurrey:Yeah, I'll come back at half-time and pick it up. Pre-ordered Guinness. They'll do it in Spurs up there. One of the Premier League clubs should sort of franchise their Guinness operations to the Devonshire because they've got it down to a fine art in there. There's always about 50 pints just sat waiting for someone to come along and do it. We talked about this before, Charlie, how annoyed you get at them not having the pints poured, ready and waiting for you at half-time. Have you ever tried to engage with them like you do with the football commentary?

1:04:02Jimmy McIntosh:No, but I will share a secret. And this is a real life hack. But I've never done it again because I was like, this is too... I could only do it... It happened once organically and maybe once a second time. But on the theme of like, you just don't have enough time. Once before a game, we met up. But the people we were meeting got there late. So there were like two leftover pints. I was like, fuck, the game's starting. I was like, but I don't want to throw these away. So I went to the people at the bar and I was like, I'm really sorry. these aren't these aren't gonna be drunk can i just pick these up at half time left luggage and they were like yeah they were like yeah that's totally fine so at half time coming no cues it was like a thing in the theater and ordering pints for the interval was it not incredibly flat at half time skipped the queue handed them over it was it was absolutely incredible and obviously they taste a little bit worse but we're talking marginals i mean it tastes crap anyway so um but i was like i could just lie and do this all the time i was like no that's not fair it happened once it happened organically enjoy it don't keep doing it did anyone clock you because i feel like

1:05:00Adam Hurrey:that's the sort of thing like if you breeze to the front of the queue got your two pints of the hand behind the counter somebody could see you and go what what bring in your own beer are we

1:05:08Jimmy McIntosh:yeah it was like it was weird it was one of those situations everyone just sort of like let it happen as a like i don't know it's just sort of like the whole thing but but they were like they were they're like yep yeah no that's that's fine yeah they handed them out thanks very much thanks holding those. See you next week.

1:05:24Charlie Eccleshare:That's extraordinary. I've learned a disproportionate amount about Charlie Eccleshare's psyche than I have about I guess which is astonishing behaviour. Jimmy that has been a wonderful selection of Pleasant Harlan Dicks picks and yeah a sufficiently beer soaked selection it was too. Yeah I thought it was only right. Yeah thank you so much for coming on Football Clichés. Thank you for having me really appreciate it. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thanks to you David Walker. Thank you. Thanks to you Charlie Eccleshare. Thank you. Thank you Jimmy. That was great. And thanks to everyone for listening.

1:05:52Charlie Eccleshare:We'll be back on Tuesday. See you then.