”My baby looks like Gary Megson", MOTD donking & in dreamland with Bodo/Glimt

0:00Charlie Eccleshare:Ugh. You said you were over him, but his hoodie is still in your rotation. It's time. Grab your phone, snap a few pics, and sell it on Depop, listed in minutes, with no selling fees. And just like that, a guy 500 miles away just paid full price for your closure. And right on cue. Hey, still got my hoodie? Nope. But I've got tonight's dinner paid for. Start selling on Depop, where taste recognizes taste. List now with no selling fees. Payment processing fees and boosting fees still apply. See website for details. I'm sorry, you can sit there and look and play with all your silly machines as much as you like.

0:35Is Gascoigne going to have a crack? He is, you know. Oh, he's there! Brilliant! The cheese! He's ran the goalkeeper, he's done it! Absolutely incredible! He launched himself six feet into the crowd and Kung Fu kicked a supporter who was, Without a shadow of a doubt giving him lip. Oh, I say. It's amazing. He does it time and time and time again. Crank up the music. Charge a glass. This nation is going to dance all night.

1:14Charlie Eccleshare:If fatherhood was a 90-minute football game, Peter Drury resorting to the L word at the Emirates, Max Dowman's clamour rating, match of the day donking, every time Harry Redknapp has been asked about taking the Spurs job in 2021, Jonathan Pearce's Robot Wars ejaculations, Bodo Glimpse Dreamland Residency, the International Cap Retirements Threshold, and a brand new way to waste your time in niche football trivia. Brought to your ears by Goalhanger Podcasts, this is Football Clichés.

1:49Charlie Eccleshare:Hello everyone and welcome to Football Clichés. I'm Adam Hurry, this is the Adjudication Panel. Joining me first of all, he's back from California, is Charlie Eccleshire. How are you doing? Very well, thank you. Alongside you, David Walker. How are things? And I mean that. Things are good, genuinely, yeah. I want to pick your brains about fatherhood so far because if steering your child safely to the age of 18 was a 90-minute football game, you are 18 seconds in as we currently speak. How's that 18 seconds been for you? I think it's been a strong start, actually. Early touch for the keeper. Yeah, yeah.

2:23Yeah, I think everything's, touch wood, everything's going relatively smoothly so far. No huge dramas. I mean, you know, the customary meltdown at 5am kind of thing on the baby's behalf. Right, I was going to say. But yeah, all fine. I mean, honestly, one of the main observations I've got so far is particularly apt for you guys and for this pod. So we've had a little girl. but you know regardless of gender all babies when they're really young they do kind of look like old men you know they look very much so thinning old men with thinning hair they're pulling all sorts of weird facial expressions so i've been looking at her think like trying to sort of every now and again i'll just sort of get her she'll make a certain face and she'll look like different kind of proper football men so we've had we've had a bit of we've had a bit of gary megson so far bit of Sammy Lee but the one that keeps similar height the one that I keep coming back to I keep spotting it every now and again is that Sutton goalkeeper rate the pie these are deep cuts this is great who got done for a betting scandal that one yeah well she's got a sort of fair hair like maybe sort of strawberry blonde hair it looks potentially so it's that you know those sort of guys but yeah and she you know she does especially when she's you know when she's like making a particular face.

3:43He doesn't like it when he was eating the pie in particular on the touchline.

3:47Charlie Eccleshare:Hey, whatever gets you through, to be honest. I'm in minute 38 myself, so I'm looking forward to half-time. I think, yeah, you could feel the game petering out. Yeah. It's 18 to 21, stoppage time. Yes, I would say so, because you're still worrying. You're still worrying. Yeah, yeah. Can I say, what's the tougher half of the two? I was thinking like, oh, you're nearly at half-time and you've done the harder half, but I don't know if that's true. I think in some ways in some ways it's sort of less profound worries in the first half. It's more of the same. Yeah, exactly. Just go out and do what you've been doing the first bit.

4:19I must be about just under the half hour. I must be late 20 minutes or something, I reckon.

4:23Charlie Eccleshare:So, yeah, you found your feet. But then got a younger one, so it doesn't count, does it? Yeah, I can do it for you because you've got two. You can't play two football games at once. The analogy falls apart. But speaking of big news, after months of development, mainly by our man Colin, we have launched our Happy Hunting Grounds daily quiz game. The concept is very simple. You have to guess who scored for a Premier League club at a Premier League stadium. There are five rungs of our HHG ladder on this game with a bonus sixth if you get that far. You get two lives along the way to keep things interesting as well.

4:55Charlie Eccleshare:And just to throw some more excitement into the mix, you get two daily ever or never questions to go with them as well. Just go to games.footballcliches.com and enjoy it in all its glory. Dave, it's a triumph. I mean, it's just a big step for us. You know, we've branched out. we've diversified this is great for us yeah we've sort of soft launched it already and we've leaked it out there a little bit and it seems like lots of people are playing and enjoying it but i am i'm interested to see what you two guys do what your approach is i'm a real like play two minutes after midnight guy are you are you waiting till the morning to wake up to your one yeah i mean i'm never ever up until i'm never up after midnight though when i was away just being california just now i was able to take advantage of that time difference and while you were all sleeping i i apart from dave i was uh yeah i was able to get a head start i've had to really train myself to just sit and think i because i'm a really impatient person generally so i i tend to just snatching at chances yeah yeah exactly exactly what it is you go for the first thing comes to the air but no think try and just gather together your football knowledge of recent seasons and past seasons you never know there's always a nook or a cranny that you can uh you can investigate um so yeah i hope everyone enjoys it um for dreamland subscribers if you sign in with the same email as you use for dreamland and then link your account in the settings page just by clicking your name at the top you will receive unlimited access to hhg premium which means you can play with your mates in the pub on the train at half time you can play by yourself if you like but you'll have full access to the database to create your own questions i'm really going to miss those 1am dms for a level five though just christmas eve won't be the same yeah just letting the HHG ship just set sail, aren't we?

6:38Well, now you can just reply with a link to Dreamland. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There you go, son. It's all there for you.

6:43Charlie Eccleshare:Yeah, we'd love your feedback on the game so far. There's a leaderboard going as well. Gabe. It's a rolling seven-day leaderboard, Charlie. Gabe at the top with 92 points, which seems implausible, but fair play to him. Yeah, the leaderboard thing, the seven-day thing, because if you do forget to do it one day, you've then got to wait another week before you feel like, oh, I'm back in it. And before, when it was just the three of us doing it, which we did as the soft launch. That was all right. You could sort of get away with it. But now with characters like Gabe around, you miss a day and you're absolutely screwed.

7:12Charlie Eccleshare:Yeah, you can't skip a day. Not at this level. Absolutely not. Fascinating scenes on Facebook, Dave. The Football Away Dave Facebook account, which is obviously usually full of complete trash. And it posted the other day, Morrisons in Cardiff Bay have a graphic of Bolton's 2-0 win over Sunderland back in 2006, hanging above their tills. absolutely incredible knowledge from this lad to figure it out. I was this lad! In fact, that's such an honour to be ladded by Football Away Days. I got it in about six minutes. I mean, once you identify the players, and then once you realise, Charlie, that Henrik Pedersen and Dean Whitehead only played against each other once in the Premier League, it all fell into place pretty quickly.

7:55I'm sure. I mean, did Football Away Days, do you think they don't know your work? They thought you were just a kind of random lad who loves his footy.

8:03Charlie Eccleshare:Exactly. They must just think I'm some complete raddom who just plucked this out of nowhere. But no, I'm a career operator, actually. You sent us this the other day. And like, you know, I don't quite have your deductive powers, I don't think. So I was looking at it and, you know, you've got the ball, which looks like the classic sort of mid-naughties Barclaysman ball with the sort of rings on it. But I was sort of trying to think, oh, where else do you go from here? I couldn't really recognise the players. but now you say one of them is Dean Whitehead, it becomes so obvious, actually. Dean Whitehead has got a very angular face.

8:36That is a chin. You really dig that out.

8:38Charlie Eccleshare:Absolute chin. But Pedersen was the one I got first. Just an incredibly stocky man with the shirt tucked in. He oozed Henrik Pedersen, so yeah, it was a relatively easy one for me. Right, adjudication panel time. Incredible scenes at the Emirates on Saturday. But I didn't quite expect this from Peter Drury. now those are scenes limbs Charlie did you ever imagine Peter Drew become a limbsman he's probably been heading that way as he's become more mainstream I guess yeah there was also a funny bit just before then I think it was his commentary he it's down the score something he's like sweet 16 teenage kicks and he's just sort of like splurging out everything vaguely related teenage kicks it's such a tap-in for this situation is it dave it's a photo caption kicker just yeah it's just the kids are all right yeah or sweet 16 either it just serves that purpose perfectly but sweet 16 is not specific enough because the whole thing has been around 16 years and 73 days old you need to be specific you need to narrow it down here because we've got other 16 year olds who've done it before exactly uh so yeah you did have to be very specific i i am on record Charlie for not enjoying the having to specify the days of someone age in football but the Premier League tweeted what were you doing when you were 16 years and 73 days old you can't do it that specifically turns out you can because I did look it up but still you did and you got a response from Southampton FC I believe yeah class class from them good to know that there are cliches literate second tier football clubs out there yeah that boosted my morale on a quiet Sunday I'll be honest I saw you do this so I thought I'll do this as well and but actually took me way longer than it probably should have done to work out what day was I 16 years and 73 days old.

10:30I use chat GPT to be honest. Right, okay. I manually counted on the calendar.

10:37Charlie Eccleshare:I suppose you've only got to be honest you've only got to go to your 16th birthday and had 73 days. Sorry, what a complete waste of your AI that was. I probably burned an entire farm down or something. It's still a time saver. Yeah, yeah. But I was just glad that there was a football game on that day. the Max Dowman clamour rating, Charlie, they couldn't, could they? Thomas Tuchel couldn't, could he? I mean, obviously, Theo Walcott went when he was a similar agent and had done nothing. This is a different kettle of fish, though, isn't it? I mean, what? Yeah, I mean, that was obviously so random and weird.

11:10Charlie Eccleshare:He's not going to get unleashed for the rest of the season, though, is he? Like, there'll be more cameos like this. Yeah, but if he does enough cameos, you know, if he does something like, I don't know, scores in the Carabao Cup final or in a big Champions League game or in a big league game, I think there definitely would be a clamour for him. In the sort of like, you need those bolters. You need like a gazzer at Italia 90 or someone who's just going to play off the cuff and you can chuck him on. Are the squads slightly bigger this time, Dave? Is there a bit more scope for that? 26, I think it'll be.

11:39So you might be like, he's just a bonus player. I think this is almost a real-life version of one of the hypothetical questions we get asked. What would a 16-year-old and 73 days old have to do for now and the end of the season to get into the World Cup squad. I think you're right, Charlie. Like if he scores, so he scored that goal, but it was an amazing moment, but it was, you know, a bit of a, it wasn't a winner. It was up the other end. Like the moment was better than the actual kind of goal itself. But if he continues to be given serious minutes and has game-changing impacts in big games, in finals or Premier League title clinching games, I think like, it's still a slim chance but there's you'd be tempted like as a as a wildcard because that you've got an England squad being announced this week so I'm sure Tuka will be asked on Friday whether he's in the squad or not I don't think he's going to be in the squad this time but I'm sure someone will ask him about him this week but then the final squad for the World Cup will be and there'll be like a training squad so there'll be like you know a group that gets whittled down he could be in that he probably should for experience right

12:51Charlie Eccleshare:Yeah, yeah. I mean, you can so imagine a scenario where, let's say he does something against Man City in the Carabao Cup final on the weekend. Then it'll be like, you know, he is doing this against world-class defenders. Why couldn't he do it in the World Cup? Wayne, you've been there. I mean, does it almost help when you're so young? And then, you know, Wayne was like, yes, yes, yes, it did. Wayne without fear. Exactly. You know, remember that game he played against Turkey when Sven chucked him in and he was amazing. I mean, I'm not one, Charlie, for, you know, bemoaning my advancing years. But when I saw him strolling through to tap into that empty net and just the sheer calm on his face, didn't look remotely overexcited by the whole thing.

13:27Charlie Eccleshare:Found that actually quite annoying, I'll be honest. Can't identify. Yeah. You're right. He did look very calm at the end and stuff. But the celebration was pleasingly unrehearsed. No, there wasn't a knee slide. There wasn't any. It was just he was sort of going a bit mad. Then he just booted the corner flag and then just jumped into the fans. Like that was good. Yeah. Yeah. Charlie, your hot take about Villa's title challenge, meanwhile. Yeah. You must be breathing a sigh of relief right now. On your face, averted. Yeah, it's a dopamine hit every time. Just as the point was starting to get weird about you banging on about Villa, they are indeed fading away.

14:06Charlie Eccleshare:Elsewhere at Stamford Bridge, this came from Will. Rhys James lines up a free kick as Chelsea try and salvage a draw. Chris Wise on Match of the Day commentary duties. It is Rhys James that has perhaps clipped the bottom of Ramsdale's post. Who was scrambling more than he's ever scrambled throughout the course of the 90 minutes tonight, Ramsdale. It's more than just clipped the post, it's properly donked it from Rhys James. Surely a debut, Charlie, for the word donked on Match of the Day. I don't mind it. Donked to post Yeah I don't know I mean what would be the go-to there It's not just What does he say initially Might have clipped the post Clipped He went from clipped to donked Which is definitely an advance Oh it's a huge advance Yeah I wonder what the go-to would be Like oh it's actually It's actually smacked the post Or like crashed into the post Or something I'm just trying to think What the go-to would be And why he goes for donked Maybe there isn't one Maybe that's why Definitely discussed The kind of spectrum Of woodwork hits before Dave Donked Donked I mean this free kick in particular it definitely didn't just clip the post.

15:16Charlie Eccleshare:It sort of hit the base of the post and then went almost 90 degrees, but went out for a goal kick. So I think donked is about right, but it's not clattered. So there's enough of purchase on woodwork to claim a donk, I think there. It's almost like the half-volley gedunk because it just bounced, didn't it, just before it hit the post. It didn't go flush straight onto the post as if it was going in top bins. So I think Donk is quite, there's just something that's not quite as full on as a higher up shot. I'm provisionally welcoming Donk into the family of Woodwork. It's a bit like when a team gets sort of confederacy membership, but not full FIFA.

15:57Charlie Eccleshare:That's the level that Donk has got to. An executive member. Yeah, exactly. Right, next up, I am trying desperately to pinpoint the exact tone of this current strand of content. Listen, I've got to ask you, because everyone else has been driving me now. All them Spurs fans are saying if Harry wins the Gold Cup, will he come and get Tottenham out? Yeah, I don't have that. Listen, if you win that Gold Cup, keep that phone on. Vinay might be on. Well, I'm here. They know where I am if they need me. Finally, Harry, there are all rumours about, are you going to be Tottenham manager on Monday morning?

16:28I'm not saying I wouldn't take it, Matt. I certainly would. Well, I'd love the opportunity. I'd go in and have a cracker. Yeah, it's a big challenge. Do I need the pressure at this stage of my life? you know yeah why not i'd give it a go and i'm you'd take it though wouldn't you genuinely of course i would absolutely i'll take it what about yourself yeah i'd do it for sure i mean i would definitely wouldn't say well i don't see myself getting it would you have taken the tottenham job if you could yeah oh for sure i would have done yeah yeah yeah i would definitely have had a go i would loved it yeah i would have loved it yeah i'd love to have gone in there give it a go but um of course you would you know you miss it then you love it really it's nothing like it is, you know, the buzz of it all.

17:06But listen, would I fancy it? Of course I would do it without any shadow of a doubt. You know, could I do the job? Yeah, of course I could do the job. It's... Of course I would. Definitely, to the end of the season. Yeah, I'd love it. But the big question is, Harry, is Sandra giving you your back and you take this job? Oh, don't, Ali. She's there. She said, the day I listened to her, she said it will be the first. So, yeah, if they ask me, I think I could go there and do the job for sure. Did you buy Cranchard's Day 3? I'm bringing Cranchard, Crouchy and Defoe, all coming back. For God's sake.

17:44Charlie Eccleshare:Dave, I think Redknapp is firmly in his John Barnes doing the world in motion rap phase of this discourse now. Fair play to Harry for just gamely answering each question as if it's the first time he's been asked. Yes, exactly. To be fair, Charlie, that's a skill in our modern media, being someone who's willing to make it sound like they're well up for this question every single time incredible skill and i've said before i think managers are really good at doing this but it is so weird because it's like this is not the quest the question of whether he would take it has been answered a million times it's sort of like that doesn't what are we i guess we're hoping if we can kind of manifest it into existence by it's yeah it's just like if we make it seem like there's a clamor then there then it's like close we're making it closer to happening like we know he wants it he said i mean he'd be really happy to do it that alone is not going to get him the job like there are a lot of people who'd love to manage spurs charlie's spot on here dave there there is this kind of undercurrent of sort of it's like almost like a four-way culpability like the media are culpable for not being able to resist asking him the question because oh it's harry you've got to ask him about spurs and then harry redknapp for continuing to entertain it despite how how game he's being spurs for being in such a state that it's even remotely plausible as a thing and then finally us for consuming it and then putting it back out on a podcast yeah exactly i am i don't know if this is going to happen actually but there is a chance that i might be working on a podcast this week with harry redknapp and it has already been mooted that we should ask him this question although i feel as we have just demonstrated we may well have missed the moment somewhat if anything is first to turn it round in the second leg yeah well that goal Oh, that Richarlison goal at Anfield really did sort of just kind of give Tudor a stay of execution.

19:30But it is quite, I was thinking about this last night. It is sort of mad that we've got to the stage that we've got to where there's almost universal agreement that Igor Tudor had to go after just four games or whatever it was. And I guess it's, is it the sort of Martin O 'Neill factor? So the fact that that sort of worked a bit has meant that people can actually entertain this notion of getting someone like Harry Redknapp in. Glenn Hoddle was asked recently, and he's up for it as well. It's like anyone who's in their dotage just coming out for like... Kesey's lobbying for Hoddle, of course. Maybe it's even like the fact that most of the people running the world are like 75-year-old plus blokes.

20:09That's true. These days.

20:11Charlie Eccleshare:Speaking of Spurs' plight, this came from Joe. Here is Merce on Soccer Saturday talking about the state of Tottenham Hotspur and pulling out surely the most inefficient piece of jargon of all time. Sooner or later, you've got to start looking at the players. Without a doubt, you know, they're hiding behind these managers that are getting the sack and getting slaughtered. He's having to come up. Don't get me wrong, he shot himself in the foot with a goalie. You know, I sat on here the night of the game. I just didn't see that. I just didn't see that was the right decision. And it was wrong. But at the same time, these players are getting away with absolute taggett.

20:46Honestly, with absolute taggett. And they need to be sorting this out.

20:49Charlie Eccleshare:They need to be getting sorted. Absolute taggett, Dave. How on earth have we got to this point? Like, how many degrees of separation are there from the actual word that should be used here? It relies a lot on people's cultural knowledge, doesn't it? God bless Merce. Yes. I mean, if it was anyone but Merce, you would think that is this some sort of like, oh, can you say this word? Can you, you know, some sort of prank that they've encouraged him to slip a wacky word in next time he's on. But it's banging in Mercy's wheelhouse, isn't it, really? This is murder, right? We're talking about Charlie, right?

21:23Charlie Eccleshare:This is the journey that that word has taken, right? It's bizarre. Is that the number one cultural reference to go to for a murder mystery? Surely it'd be like Agatha. He's got absolute Agatha. Agatha. I mean, I guess it's like we had Neil Warnock, didn't we doing like some absurdly kind of arcane reference so these things just sort of lodge in your brain don't they and they become your go-to absolute midsummer yeah that would be good that would be better it would roll off your mental tongue then and you'd see you'd make the connection but it'd just be absolutely baffling but yeah it's a measure of merce charlie that the rest of the panel don't bat an eyelid of his usage of that and it just all carries on as normal and rightly so there's been a lot by the way this one like sam atterface used it the other day like getting out of dodge i've heard that a lot right sort of football commentary recent like there's a i don't know if they've you know they've had a meeting and they're like right let's use get out of dodge but and again it's quite a old school colloquialism that popped up in some athletic copy a few months ago oh did it and the writer wasn't sure whether to capitalize dodge or not because obviously presumably it's dodge city but so i had to cap it up and it looked ridiculous so i just got rid of the whole thing completely um there you are just a little glimpse into the Daily Dilemmas at The Athletic.

22:35Charlie Eccleshare:Anyway, on that note, we'll be back very shortly.

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24:06Charlie Eccleshare:Welcome back to Football Clichés. A reminder that you can sign up for Dreamland for just£5.99 a month. You'll get ad-free listening of all of our episodes, plus two episodes a month of Dreamland, our exclusive show. Episode 19 is being recorded this week. We're looking forward to doing that. And, of course, you now get access to Happy Hunting Grounds Premium. Just follow the instructions at games.footballcliches.com. I suppose we should have called it Happy Hunting Grounds Plus, really, shouldn't we to keep in with the the modern sort of tradition yeah um yeah there's only so many ways you can describe bonus things uh don't mind a plus that's usually for streaming platforms isn't it premium i think we've over egged it with premium personally i don't know i don't know what name we should be calling it anyway thursday's episode this week is going to be the listeners mezzat harland dicks for march you can get in touch in all sorts of ways you can send me a voice note on Twitter, on Instagram, or you can just email it in to footballcliches at gmail.com, but please do send us a voice note of your ultimate footballing fascination or irritation for this month.