Playing for your dad's team & mercifully short injury time: The listeners' loves & hates

23:45I've just thought of Lou Makari signing both his sons who were both equally awful. One of them was called Paul. But yeah, any others out there, but I just love it.

23:55Charlie Eccleshare:Dave, this is another example of something that appears to be fairly timeless. Like I'm stunned that it's still going on in 2025, you know, in the hyper-organized professional game. But also it's quite a universal concept as well. Like it will happen in Sunday league, you know, all the way down to under 12s. Like my brother has to manage his own son. And you can see there's a slight tension there because he'll get back chat that no other players will give him. And just so from there all the way up to the top level, Dave, I just think it's genuinely pathetic. Signing your own son is pathetic. Can we think of any examples of where the son has been genuinely worth their place and like had a properly good career?

24:36Charlie Eccleshare:Simeone's son? Yeah, Simeone now, Concei Sal, Porto. Cruyff is pushing it, isn't he? Daly Blind and Danny Blind. Yeah, okay. So there are a few. Paolo Maldini and Cesare for the national team. Charlie, we should factor in that the offspring of elite professionals have a head start when it comes to football development. So we should factor that. So it's not a massive surprise that the occasional one sort of, you know, warrants their place. But there are so many examples of some genuinely tenuous existences. Players who never even come close to a first team appearance. And you just think, how does that work?

25:10Charlie Eccleshare:Both in terms of the negotiations to sign them, which presumably happens when the manager arrives. And also just the ongoing relations with other squad members. It's like, how can that happen in the top three divisions of any league? This is a really good choice because it's so relatable. And I'm sure everyone can remember the first time they kind of became aware of this. Like I remember there was like Colin Todd and Andy Todd. And you'd sort of, and you would be really interested because you'd have all these questions. Like how did that come about? How do the other players feel? How does he, what happens when he has to drop him?

25:43How does it impact his selection? I do think that kind of nepo babies in football terms, that their cause has been really helped by that famous Lampard, Redknapp, because he's going right to the top, genuinely, because I think that that one example really sort of because it's so contradicts the idea that he's there just because of his dad and his uncle and all of that, because he was so good. I think people consciously or otherwise are a bit like, oh, maybe I should hold my tongue just a little bit if I'm going to just call this out as pure nepotism.

26:15Charlie Eccleshare:Yeah, this is a good point, Dave. Sometimes the accusation is so obvious that it becomes too obvious and an angry denial just tends to get rid of it. I mean, I've seen an interview about this so many times over the years where it will be the manager being interviewed about having his son in the squad. He says, if anything, I'm harder on him. Exactly. If anything, I'm harder on him. I'll give him more. I'll give more than the rest of the lads. So it's harder for him, if anything. I mean, I think that's natural as well. I think you would be conscious of it if you were the father. Yeah. For sure.

26:45But there is just that inescapable sense. They probably do, certainly initially anyway, they do have to justify their place perhaps in a different way. It seems mad to me, this was slightly before my time, but it seems mad to me to think that Darren Ferguson played for Manchester United in a Premier League title winning team.

27:07Charlie Eccleshare:Yeah, I mean, yeah, again, you're not going to mess with Ferguson in that situation, Charlie. But it seems to me what's emerging here that there are various subtypes of this. There are the quite obviously signed as a favour just to keep them out of trouble. They play in the reserves for ages. And there are examples that we've had of players who are very, very good and warrant their place. And it's almost incidental that they're the manager's son. And then you've got the middling ones like the Andy Todds of this world, where you just think they may not be good enough to play for their dad in this team, but they're quite useful as a kind of trusted lieutenant.

27:43Charlie Eccleshare:Like they will be deployed as the kind of manager's attack dog. A bit like Alex Bruce and Steve Bruce, maybe. Yeah, because he's got a good player, right? Yeah, exactly. Perfectly solid pro. I do also think there is a difference when they've, because a lot of the time they've just sort of started out at the club because their manager, their dad is the manager. to sign them, I think that would be even more, that must be even more weird in some ways and raise more eyebrows. Because if they're just part of the academy and they've come through, whatever, that's one thing. To go out and buy them, I imagine there are a lot of people being like, well, that's, what a coincidence you've signed your son.

28:18There's probably quite a lot of pressure on the coaches in the academy as well to like keep them in. Even like subconsciously of like, oh God, we can't get rid of them. Yeah, imagine letting go of like 12 year old son of the manager or something.

28:32Charlie Eccleshare:Yeah, what an awkward conversation it must be when they finally get released. Peter Shilton signed his own son, Sam, for Plymouth. And by an account that I can't remember where it came from, a Plymouth fan just said he was utterly rubbish and then somehow signed for Coventry. Like he just wasn't good enough. So there must be really glaring instances of this. I remember, and I think, Dave, you'll remember him because I seem to remember he went to Watford, but Pochettino's son, also called Maurizio Pochettino, but with a different spelling, which is also a whole, that's a whole other MHD fascination Michael Mellon Anthony Pulis and Maurizio Pochettino what's going on the arrogance of this but that's like calling your son the same name as you is one thing to call him the same name but give it a different spelling is I'd love to ask Poch about that sometime but yeah anyway he was sort of knocking around the academy but it was and I remember seeing him actually once playing in a youth team game where I think he scored but it was clear he wasn't really going to make it and you'd imagine everyone would have known and what was particularly awkward was that Poch the manager Maurizio Senior got sacked but Maurizio his son stuck around for a little bit he was still there for like the rest of that season can't be nepotism if you're still there exactly and then it was like is is Maurizio senior gonna come and watch him at youth team games and things like that like we we had a little spell where we had the son of Pochettino we had Dennis Bergkamp's son we've we've now got Andrei Shevchenko's son in the academy so we've been we've been hoovering them up just a little bit Just in case.

29:56Charlie Eccleshare:Why not take the punt? Just in case. He's a very football manager as well, isn't he? You just see them. You think, oh, that's quite fun, isn't it? I'll sign Dennis Bergkamp's son as a 16-year-old. He might be good. Irresistible. He must be irresistible to do it. Just you never know, basically. And they always turn out to be shit. Always. Have you seen the most recent sort of adjacent example of this? Is that Ashley Young's son, who nearly played against him last season in the FA Cup, when Young's son, Tyler, was playing for Peterborough and Ashley was... I remember the row about it. Yeah, that was the whole thing.

30:26Was it Everton? Yeah. So Ashley Young signs for Ipswich this summer. And lo and behold, Tyler Young, who had made one appearance for Peterborough in a cup competition, then signs for promotion chasing Ipswich Town all of a sudden.

30:41Charlie Eccleshare:You think, for God's sake. A favour, probably. Yeah, just side games signed a King's Lynn or something like that. Just temper it a bit, for God's sake. What money is he on? like how do you negotiate that what's he worth I'm baffled it must be a bit weird for him as well for the son to be sort of in training with his dad it's different they're actually teammates it's not like manager and player god maybe it wasn't yeah that is really odd yeah that's weird and it'd be like you know remember it's I mean obviously what you're saying that's a more extreme example but this broader phenomenon it's like do you remember at school occasionally there'd be like a teacher's child would be at the school and again you'd always be really I'd always wonder Like, do they say hi to each other?

31:23Do they, like, come in together? How does this work? Like, how much are you bothered by it? Especially, like, find if your dad, if your parent's, like, popular teacher. But what if they're not? That must be rubbish. Oh, yeah. In the top set, are we? Yeah. Exactly, yeah.

31:39Charlie Eccleshare:My mum was a teacher at the primary school I went to. And she had to keep moving up a year to stop so she didn't have to teach me. It's like a B team not allowed to be promoted. What, and then left the school when you got to year six? Oh, dear. Actually, this reminds me, famous sort of managers who have very similar sounding named offspring. There is this story going around that Emelyn Hughes, his son is called Emelyn Hughes and that his daughter is called Emmelyn Hughes. I only recently discovered that that second bit is complete urban myth. She's not called Emmelyn Hughes. That must really annoy her all these years.

32:14Charlie Eccleshare:She's not called Emmelyn Hughes. So there you go. I mean, that would have been just astonishing self-worth. But there you go. So Christopher Peacock, what a can of worms you opened there. Finally, for our fascinations this month, this comes from Alistair Norman. My fascination of football is what I like to call the Jeff Stelling fake-out, where he would make you believe one thing was about to happen and then switch it up at the end in his inimitable voice. But I'll give it a try. But he says something along the lines of, Bolton Wanderers haven't conceded a goal in eight games. Well, they have now, Dave Racegirdle.

32:47Charlie Eccleshare:Or something like, Manchester City have been knocking at the door all game, so you know what's happened. Charlie Nicholas. First of all, Dave, that is an 8 out of 10, perhaps an 8.5 out of 10 Jeff Stelling impression. I'm really impressed. Yeah, and Dave Bracegirdle as well. That's the perfect choice. The little growl in there, Charlie, was good, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah, really good. Don't I always pronounce Dave Bracegirdle wrong somehow? How are you pronouncing it? I think I put the emphasis on the brace, the girdle. Dave Bracegirdle. Dave Brace Girdle. Oh, right. That would be bad. But an amazing name.

33:22And yeah, lovely to have him mentioned again.

33:24Charlie Eccleshare:This is long admired, this device, Charlie. And naturally, it's always been pinned to Stelling himself as one of his characteristics. But if you look at it on face value as a kind of score program sort of method of delivering an update, it's really effective. Like, it's entertaining. But, like, it has the right amounts of suspense in it. I don't think it's too mischievous. I think I've always admired him for this one. Yeah, and just as a reminder of how another world that feels like, imagine actually finding out a goal, a really important goal update from Jeff Stelling kind of playfully telling you.

33:59It's really nice. There's something really nice and at least communal about that rather than it just being like an anxious check of the phone or a goal of that or something.

34:06Charlie Eccleshare:I suppose the only drawback to it, Dave, is if you've watched Soccer Saturday for, I don't know, at least five years with Stelling at the helm, after a while you knew it was going to happen. and it kind of, it began to eat itself, didn't it? A little bit, yeah. But it's done with enough mirth that it's all part of the show. It's part of his thing. And, you know, in his pomp, that was definitely part of the appeal of it, was Stelling, because there are a lot of people that do round-the-ground shows, you know, on radio, and, you know, we've had your final score, you had the BT one and stuff. But Stelling definitely brought something different to it than all the others, I think, for sure.

34:44Charlie Eccleshare:Do other presenters still deploy it? Are they allowed? I don't think I've ever heard. I think Simon Thomas does it. Does he? I don't know. In their own way, I think. Okay. Now I think about it, Charlie. When you think about the really sort of drawn out versions of this, I don't ever remember being on the kind of beneficiary side of this. You only really remember being the thing, oh, it's fucking us that's conceded, isn't it? And the more drawn out it is, the worse the realisation becomes. because when he completes the first bit about how your team have dominated possession, they've had so much of the ball, and then you think, oh, this is a joke.

35:18Charlie Eccleshare:And then you feel quite annoyed. You feel quite annoyed by him. So I can see how some people might not like it. Well, yeah, that's kind of what I mean, I guess, now that maybe we didn't take things quite as seriously as we do now. Maybe we did, and maybe, like you say, it was annoying. I mean, did he not vary it enough to keep you guessing? Because presumably there were some times where you'd sort of hear the kind of double, double bluff. Yes, he must have done that. Yeah, because otherwise it's just the same thing. Yeah, I mean, that would be a statement of fact, right? They've dominated and now they've got their goal.

35:49All right, Keezy.

35:51Charlie Eccleshare:They're all the same, aren't they? They've got their goal. But perhaps this kind of mini phenomenon, Dave, is overshadowed by the more commonly known Jeff Stelling-inspired meme, which is there's been an X and Y, which way is it gone, correspondent Z. and the versatility of that meme across culture, I still love it. Like, I still think it's a viable thing to put out. Obviously, it's usually sort of politics inspired. There's been another dismissal at the cabinet. Which way is it gone? And I still like it. I don't think it's ever grown tired. You know, it's the purest essence of that format, isn't it?

36:31And you're right, Charlie. There is something a bit nostalgic about it. You think about what scenarios do I end up watching Soccer Saturday at now? Like very occasionally, if you're out on a Saturday afternoon with some mates, it might be in a pub, but then you can't hear it. So you don't get that sort of thing.

36:49Charlie Eccleshare:Why do I watch it less now? But it sort of harks back to days just knocking about a Saturday at university, really, for me, which was in that classic Cammy sort of Portsmouth Reading era. But surely now, if it was a game you cared about, Certainly at Premier League level, you'd be streaming it. You know, you wouldn't be, you'd be sort of streaming slash on social media. I just can't imagine. How would you do that, I wonder? Yeah, basically, Charlie, what you're trying to say is you can't put yourself at the mercy of other people anymore. Exactly. You have to have it firsthand because if you do, that means you could subtly influence it with your mind, Uri Geller style, and your team won't lose.

37:28Well, that's the thing. That's the thing. And that's a whole other concept. but there's a great bit in Fever Pitch where he talked when it called me talks about that and how he comes down, like he's scarred by coming down one morning. And I think it's his mum's written like Arsenal lost exclamation mark. And he's like, what? Like, how is that how I'm finding this out? And why the exclamation mark? Like you do want control of how, of finding out a result is such like a carefully, I had this actually when I was in Australia because of the time difference, a couple of times I'd wake up and so this is so unusual now.

37:58I'd have missed the team news, the whole game, the whole reaction, which is kind of mad. And you wake up and you're like, how do I want to find this out? Like, what's the best way? And what's going to bring luck here? It's the worst feeling.

38:09Charlie Eccleshare:And it hits mostly. Like, Charlie, your situation there is quite extreme. But for an average fan, it will hit when they're playing like a pre-season friendly in America. So basically, it happens overnight. And you've got to wake up and see the score. I'm such a coward in these situations. I basically have to cover my phone screen and gently push my hand across. for a friendly no it hurts it's crazy I know sometimes if I'm checking it out I'll feel like I'm getting like A-level results or something I'm like oh god and like this is insane I think I think your your notification settings are important there in that scenario Charlie because when you turn your phone on like and it's all there like do you just clear all or do you just scroll back through them and sort of see it in reverse chronological order I refuse to get push notifications for my football results.

38:58No, so do I. But even like from Freddie, they might be like on a WhatsApp group or something. Yeah, there's just something, there'll be something that slips through the net. I've got no mates, I'm all right. I had a similar situation when Watford were going for promotion in 2012-13, which was the season that led to the Deeney goal. But on the last day of the season, we could have gone up automatically. And I was in Vegas and I'd sort of committed mentally to trying to stay up to follow the game. but just we were on a night out and I just I just at some point just couldn't hack it anymore and sort of drifted off to sleep but because I was aware that this thing was happening I kind of kind of kept sort of coming to a little bit looking at my phone and getting texts from my dad and I and I sort of was sort of hard we ended up losing the game it was quite a calamitous situation and then I sort of drifted off back to sleep then woke up the next morning I was like did it happen was it did I dream that as it actually happened did we lose oh yeah we did which is a very similar feeling as well to following an election.

39:57And you sort of, you try and, particularly for like the American ones, you try and stay up and then you sort of hear half through sleep that now Trump's going to walk it. Then you wake up in the morning, oh God, yeah, it really is as bad as I thought it was.

40:12Charlie Eccleshare:Spot on. Election results across the pond are exactly like following your team across the pond. A cracking set of fascinations. Thanks to the listeners for those. We'll be back very shortly with your irritations.

40:51pretty much everything else. Just search Liberal wherever you get your podcasts.

40:55Charlie Eccleshare:Sports Social Podcast Network.

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41:49Charlie Eccleshare:and so much drama. Search Not The Top 20 and listen wherever you get your podcasts.

42:04Oh, look at that! That is wonderful!

42:12Charlie Eccleshare:Welcome back to Football Clichés. We've done your fascinations. It's time for your footballing irritations and we kick it off with Ryan Bridget Blake. Hi guys, my footballing irritation is my eldest starting to watch football properly for the first time, he's 10 years old, and that is a great thing, but I'm having to marry teaching him how to watch football and react to football at the same time as managing my own anxieties about watching my team play football. So he will be peppering me with questions about everything from who have United signed this week? Why are we selling this player? What did that advertising hoarding say?

42:50Well, I am worrying about why my team stops playing after the first 10 minutes. And it's very hard to channel that frustration in a positive way.

42:58Charlie Eccleshare:I mean, I'm in awe to a certain extent, Charlie, of a listener just essentially using their child as a footballing irritation, which is quite funny. What a relationship that must be. Charlie, you mentioned in conversations with me the other day about how difficult you find it to be questioned on football while watching a football game. Like, it's almost like there's a certain level of football knowledge that you want from a co-watcher, right? Yeah, I would say I'm fairly specific. I mean, in that instance, I was saying if someone were just asking questions because they feel they want to, like, fill a silence, I'd sort of be like, do we need to do this now?

43:31If they genuinely were curious, then, you know, that would be one thing. Same for the post-match. We've got an hour to an off-air. Yeah, exactly.

43:38Charlie Eccleshare:Dave, I can really imagine Charlie's face at that point. like just that that look of annoyed concentration yeah definitely i mean the kid thing is interesting i mean my sons are too young really to watch for for very long what i do sometimes reflect on though is the fact that like i'm more of a child when it comes to watching football than they are which is quite a sort of sobering humbling experience and does make you question oh my god why am i like that like this is crazy you know i'm sat there sort of so tense getting like irritated by things and Whereas they would be able to brush it off straight away.

44:13It'd be like, oh, did we win? It'd be like, no. I'd be like, eh, and move on to the next thing. And sort of, I'm the child, which is quite a realisation to have. It's brought back some quite vivid memories for me, this one. Because thinking back to my first ever live game, which was Watford against Blackburn in the Coca-Cola Cup in October 1995, 1995 the thing that I actually can remember other than the green pitch when you walk out the steps and all that but the thing that I can actually remember more than anything else is my dad getting a bit annoyed at me asking a lot of questions just constantly you know just chipping away at him just probably asking you know observational questions about who's that what's that what's that for what are they doing like I was 10 as well I was the same age so So yeah, I guess it's just the way.

45:04And this is why I've thought carefully about this, about how I want to introduce my kids to going to live football. And I do think like a friendly or something like that would be really key because I want to be able to not care too much about the game. I want to be able to leave, say, if they're bored. I want to be able to field all those questions. Whereas if it's like the idea of taking them to like an important game, certainly at this age, it's like, I don't think that's good for anyone. Like, you know, I don't think they want to be around that kind of level of tension.

45:30Charlie Eccleshare:The tone we've taken so far is that it's annoying to be asked easy elementary questions about football while you're watching football, especially your own team. But some of these elementary questions they've been really difficult to answer. Like it forces you to confront some basic elements of football that you've never really had to consider for a long, long time. My daughter, I was watching Man City Arsenal the weekend and she noticed that one of the keepers had ventured out of their area to sweep up a ball, basically. and he hadn't really made much of an effort to get back into goal because they don't really these days.

46:00Charlie Eccleshare:They sort of linger around to be a sort of sweeper. And she was like, why hasn't he gone back into, why has he not gone back to his goal? Like, isn't that where he's supposed to be? Is he even allowed to be out this far? And I was like, oh. Well, let me tell you about Pep Guardiola and the Barcelona team in the early 2010s. But at that age, Charlie, all they're obsessed by is, are you allowed to do this? So it's like, yes, you are allowed, except in this situation or that one but then of course well don't worry about that bit but yeah you basically are allowed yeah that's a really that's a really good point I think because like early school years is there is that big obsession and preoccupation with rules and following them and breaking them and that kind of thing yeah that's that's very true yeah I mean in her earlier days Dave she wanted to know who the referee was she couldn't fathom who this person was in a different shirt wandering around in the middle who are they playing for but then you have to you have to explain it in such pathetic terms like Like, oh, he's the one that makes everyone behave properly.

46:56Charlie Eccleshare:Like, he makes sure that they stick to the rules. I'm so annoyed with myself for having to talk to someone like that. Daddy, can I stay up for Ref Watch again? Is that you? No, that's Howard Webb. Thank you very much. I couldn't not do this quiz, Charlie. The game that Dave cites, Watford versus Blackburn in the Coca-Cola Cup, 24th of October, 1995. It finished 2-1 to the visitors. Who scored? For Blackburn? Either team. So, well, I mean, because Blackburn would have been Premier League champions at that time, but sort of, you know, having that very difficult follow-up season. I wonder how much rotation, because they would have been, they were famously in the Champions League.

47:32I mean, they bombed out, but, you know, and that was the time, that was the season, wasn't it, that United lost 3-0 to York? And I remember that was a kind of, but they played a scratch team and it was kind of the start of... It's not this extra context. Yeah, sorry, no one needs this. But anyway, there would have been some rotation. I'll go with Mike Newell getting on the scoreship. feel like he might have come in for arrested Shearer or Sutton.

47:55Charlie Eccleshare:Mike Newell scored the winner. Wow. In fact. There you go. Who scored for Watford, Dave? Kevin Phillips put us 1-0 up. Kevin Phillips. Really? Phillip, Shearer and Newell. Phillips and Shearer on the same pitch. Little did they know around five years later it would be a seismic evening. So 66.6 % of the goal scorers were Premier League Golden Boot winners ultimately. Class. Wow. Yeah, fantastic stuff from Ryan. their second irritation of football comes from Greg Head. My football irritation is kit manufacturers being unable to deal with the problems caused by striped shirt. The stripes don't line up on the shoulders, they don't line up on the sleeves.

48:35Under the arms you get one big stripe or even a triangle shape where it tapers and then they've tried to deal with the numbers being difficult to spot by putting big horrible shields on the back which look terrible if you don't have a number on it.

48:47Charlie Eccleshare:Thank you. I mean I've always been troubled Dave by striped shirts and how they deal with the names and numbers situation. Newcastle, very much ahead of their time in terms of Premier League cynicism, weren't they, when they did the Shield approach, which was 97.8, I would say. Yeah, I think so, yeah. And obviously it looked terrible if you didn't stump up the cast to have a number placed in the middle of the Shield on the back of the shirt. So there must have been some backlash to this. I don't remember any, but it must have gone down like a lead balloon. Yeah, it's probably too much hassle to do like a separate non-shielded shirt for supporters.

49:24It was incorporated into the design as well. I guess this depends on how entrenched the stripes are into the club's history. But you could have like a plain back.

49:35Charlie Eccleshare:I think that's a very tasteful way of doing it. Stripey front. Yeah. I think Bournemouth have sort of dabbled with that, Charlie. But it's been an ongoing concern for football for about a century. How do you accommodate a number and then a name on a striped shirt? I mean, stripes are popular. Can't deny it. Yeah, I do remember that Newcastle one and it feeling like quite a good solution. A couple of years earlier, Sheffield Wednesday, famous striped team, Charlie, came up with a solution of not only did they have a little box for the number, which I don't know if that was on the commercially available shirt, but they also had a box around the name at the top, which looked really good.

50:13Charlie Eccleshare:But again, if you're buying that shirt with two boxes on it, it's going to be an absolute scandal. but I'm pretty sure they didn't make that commercially available. Yeah, when Petrescu was there and Waddle. Yeah. Yeah. Because around the time, because I think they were like, player names were kind of debuted at the 92-93 FA Cup final, which Sheffield Wednesday were in, obviously. Nice. Yeah, I mean, it looks good, but yeah, there are concerns about the... Yeah, I've got a picture of it now. Chris Waddle's shirt from 94-95. And yeah, the Waddle and the font as well, nice boxy. Really nice font.

50:44And their red number. it's really nice it's helpful like very helpful if you're a commentator I was thinking this earlier in the season when Watford played QPR at home and the numbers obviously they've got the hoops and then the numbers are just red in the sort of standard EFL font and no effort has been made to have any sort of legibility there at all and if you were a commentator you really would be struggling that's when you have to start looking like boot colours and sort of identifying players for their hairstyles or whatever

51:11Charlie Eccleshare:It seems to me Charlie the best solution if you're a blue and white or black and white the Stripe team is to have red numbers. That's the only solution that football's ever come up with to make it look remotely legible, just to put it in red. Is it a bit of a colourblind thing? I don't know if blue and red goes very well. It's not my area of expertise, I'll be honest. Black wouldn't work either, really. So I think you're best to sort of try and, like, white it out, sort of negative space, but then it depends what the base colour is. You could have a bit of a border, a little border around the numbers and letters.

51:40Charlie Eccleshare:That marks it out a bit, but from a distance, it's still going to be fairly useless, isn't it? What a conversation this is! But, I mean, but Greg's bang on. It's never quite been accommodated well. Which team has absolutely smashed it? I can't think of one. Milan, I guess, had an easier job, Dave, because they were black and red, but then just had white numbers and white. And that looked class. I mean, that's timeless. That's probably the best deployment of names and numbers on a strike kit I've ever seen. Yeah, yeah, it's good. I bet we'll have a lot of commentators listening to this, nodding along in agreement.

52:09Charlie Eccleshare:Yeah. So good to raise awareness of this. And if Greg can push through some legislation about this, then all the better for all of us. Right, I've saved this irritation for last. It comes all the way from Norway. Torkel Ryssen. I hate it when referees want to spare the weaker part and end the game early. Recently, I was at the World Cup qualifier at Ullevål and watched my Norway play Moldova. We lead the group, but the goal difference is key here, since Italy winning their game and beating us in the final group game would make us equal on points. Now, this was a trouncing. 11-1, but there were more goals in that game.

52:49And there were nine substitutions, stoppages, injuries, but you knew what would happen. And the board came up two minutes. Two minutes! If this was 1-1, they would have added six minutes easily. And those lost minutes could potentially cost Norway the place in the World Cup. And after every goal, Haaland ran back to the halfway line with the ball quickly to get the game restarted. And then if this doesn't say to the refs, these minutes matter, nothing will. Stop with this mercy refereeing

53:18Charlie Eccleshare:at your own discretion, please. Just obviously an immensely good delivery of this irritation, Charlie, first of all. Yeah, superb. I mean, this is really, it's an interesting one because we generally hate refs for blindly just following the laws and refusing to use discretion. but what we hate here is that they are kind of taking matters into their own hands and and kind of abusing the laws i mean david this is definitely a thing there's no there's no there's no debate about this this definitely happens uh you see it in pretty much every thrashing in the second half and so therefore you have to assume it's some sort of unwritten slash hinted at directive amongst pgmol and their kind of continental cousins but how can this be allowed like what what what's the what's the benefit in having this mercy compared to missing out what potentially might be an extra goal for a team i think yeah i think it's just discretion isn't it and i think in that example there with the harland at norway when he's just he scored five didn't he and he's just absolutely plundering goals you know maybe he would be annoyed that he'd want to get another one but generally players and teams are accepting of the fact that yeah come on Like, especially if you're the losing team, come on, ref, blow it up.

54:35Yeah, I don't think there are directives. I'd be very surprised if there were. No, I think it's just a ref thing. Yeah, I think it is just in the moment a ref feeling. Like, I mean, there are times as well where you do get a feel for, because sometimes the winning team, the team that's doing the battering, they might have another game in a few days and they've clearly, they're clearly not bothered anymore either. So there are times when it sort of makes sense. like it's in everyone's interest it's like you know who are we doing call it on 80 like you're getting battered you've stopped trying fuck it let's just call it after 92 but yeah i can i can see why why whatever the situation is it's going to bother some people because it is odd i like you know there are sometimes where you know there will be like one or two minutes added on you're like that's just never a thing like we know that's not a thing So this is, you are taking the law into your own hands.

55:29You do occasionally see when there's a slight discrepancy between the TV clock and the referee's watch and say they blow up for halftime at 44-57 and then you get people going, what, we're just making the rules up now, are we? We just blow it up when we want. Genuine scandal and that happens.

55:47Charlie Eccleshare:Three seconds. Yeah, and the referee's assessor should be stepping in here and marking them down, stamping it out. but I don't know maybe it will come down to goal difference in group I of World Cup qualification nitty sneak through goal difference is the thing isn't it it sort of just gives you certain scenarios at least it just does give you plausible route to question these things Norwegian tabloids finding out the email address of this referee I think the team yeah needs to be shown that they are committed to scoring those goals I think if they're not then I can sort of understand it thing is though to defend this alleged directive a little bit, Charlie.

56:24Charlie Eccleshare:Some of the stakeholders in the game, this is probably all right with. The winners, probably conserve energy, make sure they don't get an injury in the last minute. The losers, well, obviously are cated for here. But what about the fans of the team who are winning? If your team are winning 6-0 on telly and the referee indicates three minutes of injury time, you get annoyed because you're like, I want three more minutes of olé, please. I want to see my team in cruise control, zero stress mode for three more minutes. I want three more minutes of football that I want to watch, please. I'm being robbed.

56:54That is true. And because it is like a rare gift to have like, yeah, completely stress-free, basking football. It's annoying when you see the clock ticking down,

57:03Charlie Eccleshare:even from sort of 78, you're like, oh, this is great. This is the dream. No paranoia, no fear whatsoever. Referee's taking it away from us. Okay, so, okay, let's assume that this is a thing and it is encouraged from within the game, Dave. I still think two minutes is pushing it. I think three is fine. three is like that's that counts for most things but it's also merciful three is fine oh so you think three is the sweet spot between not taking the piss but still allowing some injury time yeah spot on because three is fine three is what you would expect from a normal game of football and also if FIFA did want to make if IFAB did want to make this an official thing they should say okay if it's more than six goals it's always going to be three minutes no matter what happens and then everyone would be like fine okay so consistency that's what I want I think the inflation of added on time, though, means even three minutes would feel like not very much.

57:58Three minutes isn't much nowadays. I mean, wasn't Moyes complaining about three the other day? Like, you never get three at the end of a game.

58:04Charlie Eccleshare:We're basically conditioned to it now. Very quickly, we've become conditioned to by the fact that three does seem quite full. But still, when five goes up, people still go, five? What? Do you think if you... Because obviously there's a nice sweet spot where you're, let's say... obviously if you're one goal, but even maybe if you're two goals behind and you get a really big, chunky, nine minutes of injury time, the home crowd, if they're behind, will give them a bit of impetus to roar the team on. Is there an inverse where, what's the number of minutes that would have to be shown when you are so far behind that you've got no chance of winning for there to be a mass groan in the stadium from the home fans?

58:43Charlie Eccleshare:Oh, come on! I totally imagine that impulse to groan. So, I don't know, six? Six goals, six minutes. Yeah. But, okay, here's a scenario for you, Charlie. If we are going to test this potential directive, what if you're 2-0 up right on the cusp the 90th minute and the injury time's about to be shown? What if you score two more in the next minute or so? So suddenly it's now a thrashing. So the referee's going to, what, change his mind about how much injury time there's going to be based on what he thought there should be? that's unpoliceable yeah I think that's why directives like this don't and can't exist because you're opening up a can of words I can imagine Kesey getting annoyed though at this why is he playing eight minutes of injury time when there's 6-0 up somebody could get injured here I thought he could go the other way yeah he could also go the other way and be like it's not for the refs to decide and make up some anecdote So, you know, like, imagine telling Cluffy that they weren't getting the full amount of time.

59:45You'd be telling him, wouldn't you? Because I wouldn't dare. So much for letter of the law, Howard. Yeah, exactly.

59:51Charlie Eccleshare:He'd be listing the substitutions in his blog. Well, there was one in the 13th minute, obviously early doors. And then there were six more in the second half. Now, that adds up to, as far as I understand, three and a half minutes. Right, that's enough. We're not going into injury time. Thanks to you, Dave Walker. Thank you. Thanks to you, Charlie Eccleshare. Thank you. Thanks to everyone for listening. Newcastle quizzes. We'll see you at digital tonight. Everyone else will be back on Tuesday. See you then.

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