Own-goal flavours, casual retirements & football clubs as sperm counts

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1:38I'm sorry, you can sit there and look and play with all your silly machines as much as you like. Is Gascoigne going to have a crack? He is, you know. Oh, I fell! Brilliant!

1:52He'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!

2:22Charlie Eccleshare:The calm after the glorious cliches live in London storm. Lee Dixon invents some welcome new goalkeepers not saving that hyperbole. Sean Dyche's podcasting career set to be interrupted by his actual job. What characterises the fine line between a comedy own goal and a bizarre one? Footballers who forget to retire. Terrible football speak in microwave adverts. Duncan Ferguson takes us deep into the mind of a goal scorer and Peterborough's slightly unnecessary passing shot for a player sent out on loan. Brought to your ears by Goalhanger Podcasts, this is Football Clichés. Hello everyone and welcome to Football Clichés.

3:00Charlie Eccleshare:I'm Adam Hurry and joining me on the adjudication panel today are two people who I hope are as weathered feeling as I am. It's Charlie Eccleshare and David Walker. Charlie, the Hackney Empire, we did it. Yeah, it really was an incredible night. Amazing venue, great crowd, great drinks after. Just ticked every box, really. Packed to the absolute pat rafters. Dave, it's a little bit surreal. I genuinely have run out of superlatives and platitudes for the post-show period. I actually, it's the most intense come down I've ever felt. It's really difficult to deal with. Yeah, it was quite a sight seeing, well, I reckon there are about 200 odd people that made the journey over the road from the Hackney Empire into the Wetherspoons in Hackney Central.

3:52And yeah, I think there were some bewildered locals who probably frequent that place on a Sunday evening because it's quiet and they can get a cheap pint. And then all of a sudden, hordes of football cliches listeners turned up. there was literally a queue out the door for the bar but it was great we spoke to so many good people had some really nice chats with everyone you did massive game of happy hunting grounds in one of the booths and people came from far and wide as well we spoke to a guy came from seattle all the way just for the show we had high tour who from ethiopia via brazil there was a couple who came from budapest there was a guy i spoke to who was from came over from brooklyn came over for a wedding but it was a happy coincidence that he listens to the pod so he was able to go to our show as well so yeah well whether you came from another continent or whether you came from down the road we were very happy to see everyone there um it was a great night and we yeah we thank

4:48Charlie Eccleshare:everyone for coming yeah nicely put yeah special mention to a tour a star of the show in many respects i had lunch with him the afternoon before the show i'm not going to do that for any lister that's a top tier dreamland he's paid a lot for that yeah just an absolutely flawless human being hate all you're a legend my dad came he hates football and he absolutely loved the show so what what better validation could there be so yeah all in just a tremendous evening but we don't stop here cliches live goes to Birmingham and Dublin this week Thursday and Friday night doors open at 6.30 show at 7.30 and we'll finish well maybe at 9.30 who knows how long the fun will continue and then we'll be straight to the pub afterwards for some lovely chat so go to tickets.footballcliches.com it's just an incredible show right adjudication panel time i want to take you back to england versus wales at wembley on itv lee dixon brings out a brand new way to describe a goalkeeper who can't save a shot the little torch just takes it a little bit further away from the defender he can't get his leg up to block it brooks and the keeper's absolutely no chance.

5:57Could have died last Thursday and he still would have

5:58Charlie Eccleshare:saved that. Charlie, I think this is brilliant. I think the whole two goalkeepers wouldn't have saved that. Thing was getting a bit knackered. This is great. Just turning the time-space continuum on its head. Yeah, I mean we hear about goalies diving too early but maybe not in this instance. I don't know. We've heard about goalies on a step ladder and we've saved it. Seven days is a lot Dave. That's a lot of time to use in this situation I think. Yeah, I sort of like It doesn't bear any scrutiny whatsoever, does it? No, absolutely not. Yeah, it really, really rammed home the unsavability of Bakaya Saka's effort.

6:35Charlie Eccleshare:Next up, this came from Dave Williams. Here's Scott Minto on TalkSport talking about Thomas Tuchel criticising the England fans at Wembley. And do you think that maybe then, bearing in mind the information that you seem to have here, that's a play on his behalf? No, I don't think it's a play. I think it's just him being him. I think he is what he is. and he's a very forthright, very believing in himself, and rightly so, because he is one of the top managers in the world. So I've got no beef to grind at all with Thomas Tuchel. That's it. I want it to be beef to grind from now on. You can see how it's happened, Dave.

7:12Charlie Eccleshare:Yeah, you can. Grinding the beef. Lovely fine mince. Where does the England pod, which is now obviously the official mouthpiece of all things England, Dave, stand on the thorny issue of Tuchel against the England fans. You know, the reaction that stemmed from that from various outlets, I felt like I could have predicted, you know, in advance. It's not that big a deal, is it? We were there on Thursday and we were actually recording our post-match pod while he was doing that interview. And we saw the quotes like midway through our record. So we kind of reacted to them on the spot a bit. And it's weird.

7:46Like, he's definitely not wrong. Like it's not a pulsating atmosphere at Wembley, but it rarely is. And it's at friendlies in particular, but even qualifiers as well. Like Wembley is just England at Wembley. There's a lot of families. There's a lot of kids. There are like a hardcore of England fans who go home and away who are there, but there's no real sort of singing section. So there's perhaps like a bit like he needs to sort of learn a little bit. They're like, that's just not the way. But also I think it speaks to the fact that like, this is something that I think an English manager probably wouldn't say.

8:18he's got that distance where he can sort of challenge us a bit and say look guys like i think we need to do this better whether it be the fans or whether it be any other aspects of the whole um situation and also like he's just had two matches two good performances two wins probably feels a bit bold and confident but on the flip side i was sort of thinking ah you finally had two games you've won really well and people are starting to feel positive and then you just throw this in there of your own accord i like that slight loose cannon this about him charlie but

8:46Charlie Eccleshare:Doesn't like to do things the easy way, does he, Tuchel? No, clearly. But some of the more reasoned aspects of the criticism that I read, Charlie, was that Thomas Tuchel's just passing through. He doesn't really care how he's perceived in this way. He's not going to leave that sort of legacy like an English manager might do. But it did spill over into something like this. I read that Tuchel should have been more mindful of the fact that the Metropolitan Line was not running after the game. Doesn't know our tubes. Yeah, there were delays. And if he'd been checking his TFL app, he would have been across that.

9:16It's quite a weird thing as well because, I mean, obviously, you know, you want to keep the fans on side in the broader sense. But the atmosphere at Wembley will make so little difference to how this England team does. I mean, it's not like a club team where that will decide their fate, you know, their home form. They're going to win whatever easy games they have left to qualify. And then it's all about how this tiny pocket of support, you know, helps them in whatever way it can in the US and, you know, the Canada and Mexico. But it's not like it's really going to make that much of a difference anyway.

9:46Charlie Eccleshare:And also, it's not going to change at Wembley either, Dave. He's not going to suddenly get a reaction out of a complete nebulous sort of set of England fans who may or may not choose to go to an England game. We're not talking about 80 ,000 hardcore here who are going to respond to their manager's rallying cry, are they? Exactly. You know, away from home in Latvia on Tuesday, I'm sure they'll get a big response. But you know what I think the big problem is about Wembley? The paper aeroplanes. they need to sort out like there's too many people that have got like printed tickets and they turn them into paper airplanes and start chucking them about everywhere come on guys get that sorted is that what it is is it printed tickets not all of it but some of it is yeah very lucky that could be a fad that passes but you know we've all seen the viral video of it hitting the peru player on the head and it's uh people just trying to live up to that right back to domestic matters now charlie um sean dyche is emerging as the front runner for the nottingham Forrest's job should Ange Postacoglu be binned after mere weeks in the job could this be could this be the first managerial unveiling press conference where we hear a Brian Clough impression from the incumbent I don't think he'd do it in the his unveiling press conference I think it might be more when he gets sacked and he's then on a podcast talking about his experience at Forrest and then he feels emboldened to oh wow to kind of do that I don't I don't think he'd go you're already writing him off yeah I mean yeah I mean well I think we probably all know how it's going to go but yeah I don't think I think unveiling certainly would be too soon yeah I think yeah it's interesting he might do like he obviously it would be something of a full circle moment for him because he started his career at Forest when Clough was still there I didn't really play but he was sort of in the youth team and around it but wouldn't put it past him doing it as like towards the end of the press conference maybe What must the producers of his podcast feel right now, Dave?

11:33Charlie Eccleshare:Sean, I mean, at least make half a dozen episodes before you actually go off and do the thing you're actually employed to do. Yeah, that was always the danger. I remember working with Stuart Pearce years ago at TalkSport and he would be sort of all in with us, but there would always be the provisor of like, if I get the call to a football job, assistant to David Moyes or managerial job, whatever, I'm out of here sort of thing. And that was kind of always understood, but I guess it's probably the same with Daishi. Yeah, I'll do this. But like, you know, there's always the chance that something comes up.

12:02Yes.

12:02Charlie Eccleshare:Meanwhile, in international football, Israel were thumped by Norway. And Beautiful Square says the BBC's write-up of Israel's own goal used comedic to describe it. When is an own goal comedic? And what else can it be apart from bizarre? So what's the threat? What's the kind of cutoff point, Charlie, for an own goal to be weird and then funny? like what fundamentally defines a funny own goal from a just a hapless one yeah i mean you you imagine like comedic or comedy own goal you do think sort of can i picture this on like own goals and gaffes yeah james pollock yeah exactly yeah i mean i guess a bizarre one could also go on own goals and gaffes but in a slightly different way i think that one a sort of bizarre one on own goals and gaffes would be more one that takes a little bit of like diving into and working out you know what's happened here whereas comedic's more like as he whacks the ball off his head and it flies in or whatever it's more just sort of slapstick yeah i think comedic is yeah you're right there's like it's a level down from that it's a bit more humble than the sort of bizarre freak own goal because their own goals that are just unlucky they still have they have to go down as own goals like the ball coming off the bar and hitting the keeper in the back of the head or yeah a defender at a corner sort of goes for the clearance but just slightly gets it wrong and it goes in and it's an own goal but comedic is like when a player's under no real pressure but still somehow ends up striking it or heading it into the back of the net like there was the way in Hatswell yeah was there one at uh Leeds earlier this season I think against Fulham um was like a bit of a weird one where defenders ended up just sort of last minute winner just headed oh the header yeah to the goal um we were a couple of weeks ago um for for Ribblesdale the oppo scored an own goal and it was one where we all sort of looked around and going did that just happen like one of our players just sort of squared the ball across the six yard box and the defender just clearly didn't really have his bearings and just planted it into the net wow like a good finish he just put it into the top corner he obviously thought he was going to clear it because he was under pressure but he just sort of got it wrong and it's just gone in where would you classify remember that alan smith one for leads where he kind of slices it at the near post from a corner he catches it it's one of that he goes to clear it and he basically just slices it and he back spins it and it goes in off the post and goes in probably right on the cuts yeah it's right on the dividing point but probably more comedy and the reason i would say that is the dividing line i think is now bizarre own goals are the cause of just chaos theory they're a bit of pinball it looks it looks a bit unorthodox you'd have something you've never seen before but is fundamentally an accident comedy owned goals as david has essentially outlined already are avoidable acts of individual haplessness ineptitude like making the wrong decision or just executing what you want to do really badly and it goes in the goal and and that is fundamentally quite funny when someone does something that they could have avoided so yeah i think that's that's the dichotomy there explained so there you are beautiful square now a slight tangent now this came from henry tydman he says there's a truly remarkable error in stephen king's 1986 novel it how how has no one thought to check this most basic of cricket idioms the union boss was big but soft freddie who still played football every chance he got and who had once bowled a century at cricket was big and hard there are two aspects to this dave first of all obviously how has this happened you know and it's just no american person getting getting cricket wrong but secondly what do you think what do you think stephen king thinks that bowling a century means in cricket 100 wickets?

15:40100, yeah, 100. What's the maximum amount of balls any bowler would bowl in a spell? Do you do 100 in a row? I don't know if you would, to be honest.

15:48Charlie Eccleshare:I'm not sure what kind of achievement. I mean, either way, it's pretty outlandish. But yeah, not necessarily within our remit, Charlie. Took 100 test wickets. Yeah. But, you know, I'm glad Harry Tyburn has brought it to our attention nonetheless. I mean, this would be one for cricket cliches and people more learned than us. but could it be 100 balls with no runs scored against you? That would seem plausible. The inverse of the century. That's what bowling a century should be. Cricket Clichés podcast needed more than ever. On the back of the row next, Charlie, about Gary Neville's comments about the English flag being displayed at one of his building sites, the Daily Mail have taken it upon themselves to construct a Champagne Socialists 11.

16:34Charlie Eccleshare:in goal Neville Southall a back four of Graham Lasseau Pep Guardiola Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville a midfield of Marcus Rashford Javier Zanetti Diego Maradona and Stan Collymore and up front Gary Lineker and Eric Cantona a genuinely great team if you don't worry too much about their individual roles yeah Guardiola filling in at centre back but he's smart enough he's so left wing I'm sure he could find a way of making it work you worry about Maradona in the engine room perhaps slightly slightly but um he's like two players in there though isn't he yeah he's like two commies in there isn't he fergie's the manager as well yeah so yeah but i mean curious really is dergo maradona champagne socially he's a man of the people isn't he yeah but yeah i'm fascinated by the lineup just how great it was to be honest this next thing came from the great colin roberts it's martin kelly casually announcing his retirement in an interview with the athletic he said i've never actually got round to writing the social media post to announce it i've only told friends and family but yeah i've retired it was march when i sat down with the family and told them i was thinking about it around the same time i got asked to play for liverpool in a legends game against chelsea one of the stipulations was that you had to be retired so that just reaffirmed my decision i'm really fascinated charlie by the idea of just casual retirements i mean there's probably a pfa sort of rigmarole you have to go through so you can get your pension from now on and and maybe there's an insurance aspect to it but other than that maybe maybe some people just go i don't really want to announce it i want people to just ask me and then i wonder where i am yeah i did a piece on this actually in relation to tennis on different ways to retire because some play there was a player who just was suddenly listed as inactive on the wta site it was like they retired it was like yeah that's sort of how they do it and like so i was talking to players and some were like yeah i'd love to just not have to do a big thing about it yeah just be like just not play for a few months and people be like, is that player still playing?

18:25And then it turns out, no. Yeah, I love the tone. I've only told friends around me, but yeah, I've retired. Yeah. Oh, cool. Okay.

18:32Charlie Eccleshare:I've just tried to sign you with FPL. Where have you gone? The feeling of like, oh yeah, I never actually got around to doing that thing is something I'm very familiar with in general. But I've still got a post from the US Open on Insta that I haven't done. That's the thing, yeah. It's sort of too late to post those really good pictures that I took from that holiday. could I just sort of lump it in with the general things I did this year or 2025 madness but there are players like that like if they don't have a natural sort of crescendo or end point to their career like I'm I always think it's about Troy Deeney because he he went from playing for Forrest Green and then their manager got sacked and he got made the Forrest Green manager but then spectacularly crashed and burned within about a week after he went mental at all the players in public and got sacked and then and then he's just never he's just been a pundit ever since but i i'm unless i'm wrong i don't think he ever announced his retirement right he's clearly not you know he's been playing in the bloody baller league now and he's you know he's not going to be playing football ever again he's you know it's like you still if you don't say it have Have you completely shut the door?

19:45Charlie Eccleshare:Left the door ajar. But I mean, there was a certain element of formality to this, Charlie, because he says he wasn't allowed to play in the Legends game unless he'd officially retired. So, oh, God, I suppose it might be fun. I quite like that. Again, I think that's quite relatable, being like you need to kick up the arse sometimes to actually get some admin done. It's like, well, if you don't renew that, you do realise you can't do that. You're like, oh, OK, I better do that then. But then you can come out of retirement, can't you? Like Paul Scholes. Yeah, but would undermine his appearance in the Legends game.

20:12Charlie Eccleshare:there's going to be an asterisk over that from now on isn't there um speaking of this legends game i've caught snippets of it no one in their right mind be watching the whole thing but um there were cameos of eden hazard rolling back the years in a very pedestrian kind of way and skipping around defenders but sadly there were some pantomime elements to it dave diego costa getting involved in a few skirmishes with martin skirtle and you just thought oh god does he go out there thinking well i've got to do this because 20 000 people in and i think they're expecting me to have a bit of a dust-up with a turtle.

20:41Charlie Eccleshare:So I'll leave one in late on him. So it's probably just a bit like wrestling and I feel really, really bad about that. Yeah, you've seen occasionally like elements of this creeping to soccer aid. And like when Jose Mourinho's been involved, he'll like tackle a player who's running down the touchline or whatever or run onto the pitch and nip the ball away. And it's fine because these, obviously these things are supposed to be fun occasions for all the family and fans to go and watch. But in the same way that I would be annoyed if I was playing a friendly game of five-a-side and somebody did something that undermined the sense of competitiveness, I would get annoyed with that.

21:20Like, you know, occasionally if you're playing five-a-side and somebody tends to be like, if you're like playing with colleagues or, you know, there might be like somebody who's playing to make up the numbers, who's not really much of a footballer, but happy to muck in. And they'll just like catch the ball because they've like fucked up and they can't clear it. They can't head it. And they'll sort of just catch it. And you're like, what are you doing? if we're playing football here

21:40Charlie Eccleshare:stop doing that yeah it should be a base level of seriousness you can still have fun yeah still have fun just do it properly but mark your man yeah it may make wonder Charlie I mean you know in forthcoming years players who are sort of known for certain individual acts in their careers having to reenact them in legends games sort of really half-heartedly I don't know is Michael Coyote going to do a long throw when he's turning out for a legends game at Brentford in 20 years time go on Michael do the throw go on Cucurella could you just waste a bit of time, please? I don't know. Tactical fouls in Ledger's game because that's what he was known for.

22:12Rodri doing a tactical foul. Oh my God, he's done it. I know you're sort of moving into your 40s now, Mark, and you probably want to cut your hair and have a bit more of a respectable haircut in middle age. Can you just leave it? Because we do want someone to pull your hair in the friendly and you can go down.

22:28Charlie Eccleshare:Oh no. Right. Could this be a triumphant return? The next instalment of Get the Shot Away. It came from James Bunce. It's from the Seahawks versus the Jaguars. And seven minutes 43 into the game, the Jaguars punt the ball and the commentator gives a lovely sing-along. Heard somebody yell offside. The punt is away and Horton lets it go. Touch of Elvis there, Charlie. Was he referring to someone having sort of sung it? I don't know. Very strange. Yeah. Again, Dave, there's a hint of, you know, ball trajectory to the delivery of it. Are we allowing this into the oeuvre? Yeah, I think so. OK. Oh, well, we've got something out of the NFL this week at least.

23:15Charlie Eccleshare:This, wow, it came from McRoy. And he says, This Brent-like doctor from a documentary about IVF is comparing football teams to sperm. You can pinpoint the exact time the documentary was made through his choices of club. When Charles needs to speak to a man about the quality of his sperm, he tries to get onto the man's level. I'll say, do you follow football? And they'll say, yes. I'll say, well, your sperm is Fulham. Your sperm is Wigan. And they'll say, what does that mean? I say, well, you'll probably stay up this year, but it'll be a tough fight. Rarely are they Manchester United or Manchester City.

23:53Most of us are Stoke or West Brom, although West Brom are doing particularly well this year. And then some of us, unfortunately, might be Southampton. The West Brom caveat, Charlie, is superb, by the way. I really think with a subject as sensitive as this, just be more direct with your feedback. I don't think giving people... You're kind of West Brom, right? What does that mean, exactly? Is that in a broader macro sense? Or are you meaning specifically this season? No, no, this season. I've got yo-yo sperm, have I?

24:25Charlie Eccleshare:Yeah.

24:29Charlie Eccleshare:Charlie on the basis of the analogies there can you work out what season they were currently in when he was speaking was it 10-11 West Brom I mean West Brom started really well in 10-11 I think so 10-11 yeah was it the season that Hodgson was at West Brom before he got England job not quite you both scored no points in happy spunking grounds there it was actually 12-13 the season that West Brom finished 8th in the Premier League That does make more sense. Yeah, I knew I had a reason for thinking it wasn't that long ago because the way he talks about City and United, he talks about them as being more established as a top two and of course they wouldn't, City weren't in 10-11.

25:04Yeah.

25:05Charlie Eccleshare:Anyway, this episode is brought to you in association with NordVPN. For those who don't know, VPN sets a 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 appear as if it's in another country, which is great for accessing content while travelling. Indeed. Over to Pakistan we go next. Dave, were you aware that Norberto Solano is the head coach of Pakistan these days? I was not aware, no. Yes, indeed. And it seems that he's stamping his identity on their way of playing already.

25:39Charlie Eccleshare:This came from Shrew123. It's from Pakistan versus Afghanistan in an AFC Asian Cup qualifier. Like you've said multiple times, this could be a new start, a new dawn. I think Nobby Ball in Pakistan I think that it comes across as a completely different style than Stephen Constantine. Amit, you've hopped onto the ball wagon very quickly, huh? I didn't expect Nobby Ball to come in in his third or fourth game in charge. I love everything about this Charlie, I love the fact that Nobby Solano is Pakistan's head coach, I love the fact that they've dubbed his style of play Nobby Ball and I love the fact that the commentators have discussed the concept of calling it Nobby Ball.