Premature dark-horsing, false-nine nostalgia & introducing... Cricket Clichés

16:44Nick Miller:two sort of mainstream players for that. I mean, given they've got Haaland and Odegaard, who are both kind of Premier League superstars, I don't know. I feel like that makes them riddled with quality though, are they? No, this is the thing. I think that the fact that most people could not name another Norwegian player, that balances out the superstar.

17:02Charlie Eccleshare:Yeah, I think it's fine to have two superstars, no more. But I accept your point. At what point can you have too many good players to be true dark horses? So I accept that. You can't be unknowns either dave can you no i mean yeah the presence of odegaard perhaps i see what you're saying charlie but i think they are bang on for it really if you compare just focus on harland alone having him is the equivalent of like people tipping poland to do quite well because of or maybe zlatan for sweden just having a standout attacking play a standout goal scorer is ripe for dark horses what about senegal because they haven't got a standout talisman but they've got a squad full of really really really good players see yeah i think that's a sort of yeah i think

17:46Nick Miller:that's a purer form of it i mean obviously often these things just become a bit ridiculous like belgium seem to continue to be kind of dark horses or yeah they overstayed their dark horse welcome or the sort of hipster choice when it was like they're not they're incredibly mainstream now they've been knocking around for a while but yeah so like i think they might be a kind of may norway could be the sort of mainstream dark horse but actually yes it is more someone like Senegal, you know, for the kind of purists.

18:12Charlie Eccleshare:Extended dark horse chat in November. Wow. Could we call Norway the grey horses? Yeah, maybe. Yeah, maybe. Sort of dark horse status pending. Yeah, that could well be. Let's revisit a burning topic from the last couple of weeks. It comes from Ben Kisby. Here we go. I had the pleasure of attending the Grocery Aid Sporting Lunch on Friday. It's our industry charity. I've previously met Dion Dublin at the event and I was hoping to see him again this year. As I walked into the post-lunch drinks he was just finishing a conversation so i leapt in to ask him the only thing i could in that moment i'd had a few drinks but he said the deodora pass is one that isn't really on but you try and make it anyway that's the explanation for deodora pass charlie we i can't remember what we suggested it might be but surely that's along the right lines of what we thought it would be yeah that sounds sounds it yeah so the spirit of it has been established but what's the actual direct meaning?

19:05Charlie Eccleshare:So Ben says, clearly I followed up with, but why Deodora? His answer was simple. They were sponsored by them at Cambridge. I did some slightly drunk Googling and couldn't find a time that Cambridge had their shirt either produced by or sponsored by Deodora. He's getting HMRC'd. This is awful. Dion Dublin wore a Deodora shirt at Villa, Dave. And the AI consensus was that he wore Deodora boots, but not exclusively. Anyway, he shook my hand and walked off. By the time I process any follow-up questions, tracking him down felt outside the boundaries of social norms yeah yeah there's only so many times you can follow up with a question like fair play for bringing this up and having i mean said he had a few drinks but having the courage to um dutch or otherwise to go and uh speak to dion about this is great but you can't you can't really dig into the weeds with it you kind of have to take his word at face value don't you yeah sorry dion can i stop you there um just were we talking earlier about Diodora.

20:01Charlie Eccleshare:He's never worn Diodora boots, Nick. I had a quick search through Getty Images and what a fun little search that was. He's worn chronologically Mizuno, Puma Kings, Reebok for years, presumably a deal, Adidas World Cups again, Nike Tiempo's, Puma Kings again, and then in his, you know, really twilight years, Adidas World Cups at the end. And that's what he's worn in charity games ever since. So he's a boot journeyman. That kind of fits, I think. And this has presented some answers, but also raise questions as to where the Diodora thing comes in. What needs to happen here is someone else needs to ask him and we need to see if his story checks out.

20:38Does he give the same answer each time or is he just thinking about it off the top of his head? I thought that it was more likely to be that he was from an era when he was sort of maybe growing up or just getting into the game where Diodora had some sort of glamour attached to it, sort of Italian 90 kind of Serie A pomp days that he was kind of

21:00Charlie Eccleshare:yeah it sounds quite playgroundy Charlie like it seems something that you know do you remember what people used to call the Diodora Pass and then someone from a town six miles ago no we didn't call it that what are you on about

21:10Nick Miller:yeah yeah yeah all the disputes about Wembley singles and all of that yeah exactly right

21:15Charlie Eccleshare:right time for footballers names in things a trio for you first one comes from Oliver Hall he says listen for the Manchester United legend who is apparently going extinct here on New York City radio station. Wins 92.3 FM. A new look at the global naming records website NameCon finds names that were popular in the 1950s and 70s are hardly being used now. Karen, because that's unfortunately turned into a derogatory reference for middle-aged white women. In fact, it was number one in the 60s and 70s, but has now dropped to 4 ,844th. Other names going extinct Brenda, Gladys, Galvin Roderick, Gary Neville and Dale The best form of footballers names are things Completely incidental, completely out Out of context in a place Where it shouldn't exist Who's listening to Wins 92.3 FM Oliver Hall's listening to it What a joy that must have been to hear Nick It's one of those things where you kind of hope That whoever was writing that script is football, soccer, literate, and saw the Gary, saw the Neville, and thought, here we go, here's an opportunity.

22:25Charlie Eccleshare:Second one comes from Thomas Conway, who spotted a partner at Devon-based legal firm Tozers called Sue Halfyard. What a name! I didn't know that was a surname that existed. Halfyard! I mean, that's got to be the emphasis, right? Halfyard. Halfyard? Halfyard, yeah. Halfyard. It's not hyphenated, is it? No. we've got to go double barreled it's gonna be great on a podcast in 10 years time do this for me i'll do anything the son of mr half and miss yard and like their son is it like

23:03Nick Miller:oh we've got to go and find that we've got to go find a little half yard he's just hiding in one

23:07Charlie Eccleshare:of those little pockets somewhere yeah exactly gets the shit away oh dear half yard half yard Finally, this came from the Emerald Piper on Reddit, who was reading the Pro Wrestling Illustrated 1995 Top 500. And in at 227, Dave, was Diamond Tim Flowers. Wow. Six foot tall, so well within the realms of being the man himself. Yeah, not a wrestler I've ever heard of, I must confess. That is a real deep cut. Tim Flowers. He was the current international champion of West Coast Championship Wrestling. His body is scarred from his many cage match wars and has also competed in UWA, whatever that is. On 95, Flowers very much in his pomp.

23:47Charlie Eccleshare:Yeah, exactly.

23:48Nick Miller:I love the idea after a particularly sort of high pressure bout, him talking about bottle loads in his post-match interview.

23:54Charlie Eccleshare:Yeah, I can see Tim Flowers having the bottle for that. Next up, this came from Shrew123. It's Lichtenstein versus Wales. Nia Jones on BBC Co-coms. And I'm sure there's a little gasp of laughter after she says it. Takes on his man. Broadhead was sliding in. Well, that's better from Wales. And on this second attempt, it was cleared. Well, the tempo has been up. You couldn't wish for a better pair of balls to go across the front of the goal. Thomas. Jordan James. The Welsh fans are on their feet now. and Padu, James. Dave, she's 100 % losing it behind the mic there and rightly so. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

24:46I don't think that's not deliberate at all, is it? That's just, it's just happened. No, no. Yeah. You can definitely hear

24:51Nick Miller:the laughter of realisation. Yeah, you can hear the beginnings of a sort of half laugh, half gasp as she realises what she just said. Beyond the innuendo,

24:59Charlie Eccleshare:it just made me think you don't really ever hear pair of balls during a game. But, you know, it's a perfectly plausible combination of situations to use it. So, yeah, pair of balls. Next up, Johnny Hall revisits another continuing strand of the Football Clichés podcast. He says, my YouTube algorithm brought up Bolton 0 Manchester United 6th in February 1996. I'm a United fan for my sins, and my ears pricked up hearing the crowd noise after David Beckham's opener. Have a listen. Yes, Clinton's problems have been really defensively. They've tended to self-destruct, and they've got a defensive problem here.

25:33There's so much room for Giggs. He's got three in red to his left. Giggs does it his own way. It's touched in by Beckham.

25:42Charlie Eccleshare:It's definitely there, right, Charlie? That noise is definitely there.

25:46Nick Miller:It is. I have to confess it took a second time listening to hear it. But yeah, then I definitely could.

25:51Charlie Eccleshare:So I've checked various sources of this video, Nick. Admittedly, they are all from the same place. But it strikes me that someone's put that BBC sound effect over the top of the actual crowd noise from this game. Why would they do that? I like the idea that it might have been sort of piped in in the stadium. Someone's just got their finger over a button somewhere over the tannoy and just kind of, oh. Really got to get the timing right on that one. Oh, yeah, big time. God, whoever recorded this really has contributed to football audio history. But that's it for part one. We'll be back very shortly.

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28:27Charlie Eccleshare:Welcome back to Football Clichés, a reminder of Dreamland. Episode 11 is out now. It's all about the international break, the joys of and otherwise. You can sign up to Dreamland for just£5.99 a month. You'll get ad-free listening of all of our episodes and two episodes a month of Dreamland, our exclusive show. Other things as well, including an exclusive discount on our merchandise, go to merch.footballcliches.com to see what's on offer there. And by the way, on Thursday's episode is going to be listeners, Mesut Harland Dicks. We want to hear about your obscure footballing fascinations and irritations.

29:04Charlie Eccleshare:Just get in touch in all sorts of ways. Twitter, Blue Sky, Instagram, or you can just email in at footballcliches at gmail.com. Ideally, a 30 second voice note to accompany your foibles and irritations as well. That would be fantastic. Get in touch. Next. Right, next up, this is from Ben Wright, who was listening to BBC Radio 2's The Jazz Show. And here's Mark Declive Lowe waxing lyrical about Japanese audiences. And a great sound system. That's one thing in Japan. The sound is always going to be on point. And that's something I really appreciate, both as a performer and a listener. The Japanese audiences, they're super committed to the listening experience and quite often really educated in the music and its history and lineage.

29:50Charlie Eccleshare:Now, I wasn't sure if this was a welcome addition, Nick, to the oeuvre of knowledgeable crowds, but educated Japanese jazz audiences. This does work because it's not an easy music to grasp. You need to know when to start clicking your fingers and stuff.

30:06Nick Miller:Big jazz man yourself, Adam? You know, with all the clicking and that.

30:14Charlie Eccleshare:You're really on it.

30:15Nick Miller:You're on me today for some reason. I don't know where to go from that. But yeah, I don't know. Can you be a casual? I suppose you can be a casual Jasmine. Well, yeah, I guess like compared to say like Ronnie Scott's, is that a knowledgeable crowd? I don't know. Like in some ways, maybe, but it's also quite touristy. Like I've been there and I'm absolutely not a jazz. It's like where you go if you're like, oh, you know, it's very mainstream. So that's probably not that knowledgeable a crowd, I would imagine.

30:39Charlie Eccleshare:If I could just return to my original point, Dave, and be treated with more respect about it. jazz is a harder concept to grasp you know sort of structurally and a knowledgeable crowd is going to know when to appreciate it both you know audibly and emotionally so you're going to need a knowledgeable crowd for jazz as opposed to a more mainstream form of music you do get when you go to jazz clubs it's not clicking that you hear it's applaud like people clap at the right moment after like the solos when they know that the solo is coming to an end or the movement or whatever is coming to an end. It's the timing of that that is very specific, isn't it?

31:13Charlie Eccleshare:You can't do it after the solo's finished, can you? It's a bit snookery. Yeah, it is a bit snookery. The very moment that they need snookers, and there's this one. It's a similar thing with classical music. Everyone stops playing, but you're not supposed to applaud at that point. Wow. And the first time I went to one of these, I committed the faux pas, started clapping. No one else was. Wow, stood up. Use that yob. We've got him.

31:35Nick Miller:It's all gone, quiet boys, where are you?

31:41Charlie Eccleshare:There we go. This does work. Thanks to Ben Wright for that one. This next one comes from Dave O 'Leary, who was listening to Don Hutchison on Five Live. So hopefully, I mentioned the likes of Mick Half and Gary Sweet and Luton. Hopefully there's guys at Chef Wed and there's guys in the inside of the training ground and the management and coaching staff that can look after the players that are playing. Dave, how do you feel about Chef Wed just being chucked in on a radio chat? There was no need for that. There was no need for Chef Wed there, was there? No, it's a weird one. I've never heard it said out loud before, I don't think.

32:12You know, you occasionally will see it written down as that. Even then, I'm not sure if I love it as an abbreviation. I guess the, you know, is it similar to Knott's Forest, Nick? Steady. You know how that upsets us? Yeah. The other thing that annoyed me about this is when you see that written down, it's weds. It's not wed, it's Sheffields. So if you are going to say something out loud that should really only be written down, then come on.

32:37Nick Miller:I mean, Adam, you mentioned before about like, you know, in the school playground having different names. It feels quite school playground-y to me, which in my head is the last time I heard like Man U and that sort of thing. Which, again, you couldn't say that on a broadcast, could you? It would sound absurd.

32:52Charlie Eccleshare:Yeah, I definitely weaned myself off Man U. It does feel quite childlike. It definitely feels playground, actually. Is it because it's a bit dismissive? It's not. It was never designed to be pejorative, but it's a little bit too breezy for a team that may not be your team, I guess. I guess it sort of rolls off the tongue a little bit better than, I mean, can you, you can't imagine anyone saying West Ham U, Newcastle U.

33:16Nick Miller:Did people, I sort of remember people saying like Man C, which sounds absurd. But if you're saying Man U, then Man C kind of follows, but it's as if like, it's almost like it stems from, you know, at school, how it would be like, you know, Adam H or Nick M. Like it's that sort of, it's that kind of way of talking and identifying people yeah um but Dave O 'Leary's question here

33:37Charlie Eccleshare:Nick was that it didn't really agree with me Don Hutchison's chef wed it got me thinking are there any acceptable two word two syllable abbreviations that are okay that aren't United related Man U Chef U Cole U etc and even those are bad I can't find a valid one from the 92 actually that aren't related to a united i went through four divisions and the national leagues and i couldn't find one the closest i got was west brom which i didn't really think entered into spirit of it because it's the shortening of the place rather than the football exactly you've got to have that the suffix in there somehow uh which i guess limits matters so so essentially charlie there are no valid non-united equivalents but there are plenty of candidates throughout the other 92 that could be done like this and we want to assess how weird some of these sound um let's kick you off with chris pal how do you feel about chris pal sounds like chris pal yeah i think i mean i just think

34:35Nick Miller:they all sound really odd no can't see that wick wand wick wand really rolls off the tongue dave i like wick wand uh it's terrible with uh with west brom you'd have to go west brom alb i suppose wouldn't you? Yeah, West Bromwich Alb. Colu, I think, is used. I think Colchester supporters are actually, they use that, I think. Plymarg. Wigga.

35:00Charlie Eccleshare:Late Or. Blackrow. Blackrow sounds good. Yeah. Crew Owl, yeah. Crew fans will talk about Crew Alex. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you wouldn't need to shorten it any further. Axtan could definitely be a thing, Nick. Yeah, that probably is a thing. Yeah. No, it's not. No, it isn't. Come on. No one's calling Mac Stan. Mac Stan. Have you been to Action Stanley on Only Scrans yet, Dave? No. Just leaning very much back on your Football League podcast heritage there. Yeah. Someone's going to write and prove one of us right anyway. Next up, this came from Benjamin Livingston, Charlie, who was reading the Times' Fame and Fortune interview.

35:37Charlie Eccleshare:And this time it was with Sean Dyche, who was talking all things personal finance. The whole thing, by the way, I've never read an interview so vividly in the interviewee's voice and this whole thing. It's not particularly explosive. And why would it be? It's about his personal finances. But the first answer, I think, is the most dicey thing. First question is, how much is in your wallet? And he says, I always carry some cash, maybe 100 quid or 150, which I'll use for cabs when I'm in London. I like the old school way of actually using cash to pay for things. I like to tip people in cash rather than through their companies.

36:11Charlie Eccleshare:There's definite hint of, well, we used to just do this in cash. What was wrong with cash?

36:14Nick Miller:I mean, this is a real thing. Like, I've noticed it with my father-in-law. He always has cash and is one that pays for things in cash. And it's kind of like, I don't know, it's like a... Visceral. There are lots of people who do that. It's like a tradition. And there's also a hangover that some people have. I mean, less so now, but, you know, it used to be, oh, you know, they might not accept cards sort of thing. It's like, you know, before it became completely ubiquitous. Like, to be fair, there was a point at which there was a bit of a kind of like, they might, they might not. Now, everywhere just does.

36:43Outside of Ubers, cabs are probably the only place now that you're still not 100 % sure if they're going to accept card, are they?

36:51Charlie Eccleshare:It's just the most deflating thing at 3am when you're trying it on the last leg of your journey. Do you take cards? No. And you know you have to get more out at the petrol station than you need for the cab. I've read a few of these sorts of interviews, Nick. The answer to the question, they're usually sort of semi-famous people, and the answer to the question how much cash you have in a wallet is always about 100 or 150. I just think, imagine walking around with 150 quid in your wallet all the time. I actually can't get my head around that. 20 for me, max. Is this in the card ubiquity era? Because you limit yourself before that as well.

37:24Charlie Eccleshare:I don't know the answer to that, to be honest. But I guess I would still be stunned to find a 20 in my wallet now. You're absolutely right. But what a conversation this has turned out to be. But yeah, please read this interview. It's in the Times. It's just incredibly diced the whole way through. You can really hear his voice. Mike Bailey gets in touch next, Charlie, and says, I was listening again to episode 256 where a discussion was had about old-fashioned centre-forwards, prompting the question, at what point weren't centre-forwards old-fashioned? I'm studying for a master's degree in sport history.

37:56Charlie Eccleshare:Listen, fair play. And I delved into the archives and discovered the term has been used regularly since the turn of the 1900s. For example, the Daily Citizen, back in December 1912, describes Falkirk's James Robertson as a remnant of the old-fashioned centre-forward school. His game is not to hover within a given radius of the opposition goal and wait for scoring chances, but to make them. Wow. So it's always been a thing, the old-fashioned centre-forward. Yeah, that's great. Great research. Yeah. Logically, Dave, he says it makes sense that this phrase has been used since time immemorial. Football exists in an evolving state of tactics and codification, causing earlier generations of players and play to seem old-fashioned regardless of the given period.

38:35Charlie Eccleshare:So basically a spot on. I mean, it's just all cyclical at the end of the day, isn't it? Yeah. And I mean, how many years, what would you have had like by 1912, what are you coming on for like 30 odd years of football? 50. 40 something. Nearly 50. When did football start? 1870, something like that? 70. 70. More than enough time to, you know, for something to have gone in and out of fashion. Yeah, I suppose so. Yeah. Things would have been evolving rapidly at that point. People working out what the optimal way of playing football is back then. So very possible. This leads on to this next one. This came from listener Michael Cox, who sent me a tweet from Ryan Babble.

39:10Charlie Eccleshare:And it was a video of Roberto Firmino. And Babble tweeted, Nick, one of the best false nines in modern football, Bobby Firmino, 17-18, was unreal. Are there even any real false nines left in today's game? We've really moved on. This is great. Nostalgia for false nines. I mean, Nick, we are plausibly entering into a phase where false nines could be sort of thought about in that way. Maybe it was just a fleeting phase. And we look back on them like, I don't know. What were the kind of iPods but weren't iPhones? What were they? The iPod Touch. iPod Touch. False nines were basically the iPod Touches of football.

39:43Charlie Eccleshare:Why do I sound like Dean Saunders? Swallowed an iPod Touch. But yeah, so is it acceptable, Nick, to be nostalgic for a false nine? Yeah, I think so, because it kind of potentially speaks to a, now we're in this kind of, teams are playing more direct, so people have a big centre forward, it speaks to a kind of, maybe a nostalgia for a time when teams actually pass the ball, you know? Yes. I suppose, Charlie, we have to address the fact that the false nine concept got to a stage where it was basically anybody who wasn't a striker who played up front was called a false nine, and the purists hated that.

40:18Nick Miller:It did sort of eat itself, didn't it? That concept of a false nine. Because it was like any player you're not exactly sure how to characterize, you could describe as a false nine. Or just someone who didn't, like if it was a striker, a bit like Bobby Firmino, who didn't score loads, then it was like, oh, we'll call him a false nine. Yeah. But I don't know if they're sort of dying out.

40:37Charlie Eccleshare:No, there's no real footballing reason necessarily for them to have done. But I guess they just, it was a means to an end for one team. And the other team thought, do you know what? We actually need one. I think we're all right. I suppose he probably wouldn't have played on his own up front much. So, you know, it was in the era of still having two strikers. But would like Teddy Sheringham be a false nine? He's just a support striker, isn't he?

40:58Nick Miller:Yeah, he was sort of an out-and-out ten, I'd say.

41:00Charlie Eccleshare:Yeah, there's no deception involved, I guess. Is it like you knew he was going to drop deep and that's what he did. So, yeah, there's no dragging anybody out of position, I guess, to a certain extent. But yeah, until we hear the phrase old-fashioned false nine, I guess we are still in a phase of stasis for that.

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42:58Charlie Eccleshare:Next up, Andrew King writes in and says, For years, my brother, friend and I have had a spreadsheet tracking our grounds attended. I went through a large number in my 20s and went past 50 grounds at one stage, though I haven't managed any new ones for some time. It's not been a point of discussion for a while, but this week my brother shared in our WhatsApp group. He had a work event at Portman Road. The immediate reaction in the group chat was that he ticked off another ground for Club 92 purposes. That's bollocks, right? The absence of clear and definitive rules anywhere makes this a little difficult.

43:25Charlie Eccleshare:I accept that one could, in theory, come up with their own little rules, but that'd be a different game. The fundamental concept of Club 92 is you must see a competitive game of football being played. It must be, surely, and arguably some minimum conditions. You must see 60 minutes of the match for it to count, for instance. what a weird little technicality that is by the way nick like what scenario would you have to leave early i don't know were your wife giving birth or your car being parked in the wrong place i i've had a few friends doing versions of the 92 so i'm very very well versed in the kind of arguments and the technicalities and and the disdain for anyone who attends like a concert

44:02Nick Miller:or something and tries to pass that off i guess as well like with the 60 minute thing i guess if you're such a kind of 92 head is it possible that you're trying to you might try and squeeze out like two in a day and that to do that might mean leaving before the end of the game but there's exactly but there's a limit on well you can't take the piss you know you can't just go you can't just like set foot in there and be like right yep see you nick i'm done i'm gonna go to the next game that that was very much the one of the conversations i'm not gonna say talk part in was kind of listening to right was it was the the idea that because you have to inevitably towards the end of it the grounds are more obscure it's possibly like a mid-week carabao cup something like that there were public transport considerations to be made so you had to kind of leave to get the train or something like that okay there's debate about whether that counted or not if you have to leave at a certain point i watched the miami dolphins take on the washington commanders in the burnabout this weekend so does that count on no level does that count it's a different pitch

45:03Charlie Eccleshare:from the basement so definitely you didn't even have the whole stadium yeah minus points but i

45:08Nick Miller:have that with sancero i've seen springsteen there i've never actually seen a game and so when there are all these things going around like oh you must go before it's demolished because there's nothing quite like it and i'm just like does that apply to me like do i need to go is it counts on your gig or is it like no no no no that doesn't count yeah that yeah that it can't count

45:25Charlie Eccleshare:obviously acoustics in there yeah exactly wow um on the burn about dave did you know it has been officially renamed Bernabeu. The Santiago has been removed. So you can call it the Bernabeu officially now and no one will be allowed to frown upon it. Not from the tube station it hasn't. I can tell you that much. But yeah, we were drinking out of branded cups with just Bernabeu on them. Oh wow. It rolls off the tongue. I quite like it. Right, last couple of items for you. This first one came from Sy Mintoft. Here is Chris Wickfield from Sheffield Wednesday's Administrator's Begbie's Trainer being interviewed on the club's YouTube channel about the state of things and how things are going at Hillsborough, you know, mid-administration.

46:03Charlie Eccleshare:And I've never really paid much attention to what administration really involves. I grasped the main concept of it. I never thought they'd really have to go into the weeds like this. This is the first thing he talks about.

46:14Nick Miller:We've had a big debate this week about what shorts we're going to wear at Blackburn Rovers. So we're in a position that we probably shouldn't be in where we've got effectively three kits. And if we play against somebody in blue and white away from home, we are struggling a little bit. so away at Blackburn Rovers our shorts clash with them so the options we've basically got is we can wear the blue home shorts which with the purple kit do not look good at all or we've been given special dispensation to wear some black shorts that we had last season but the problem with the black shorts is the numbers don't match up and they've got to be those exact shorts, we can't go on just buy some other black shorts.

47:01We've decided to do that. So there's been things like that that have been strange.

47:05Charlie Eccleshare:So, Dave, on one hand, you know, it's so sad to see a grand old club like this in such a parlour state. Like Chef Wedding. But on the other hand, great to see the administrators really getting involved in the finer details. So I'm comforted. Begby's trainer, clearly the number one administrators in football because no one else seems to get a look in. But it's good to see that they're doing their job properly. Yeah, I mean, that is quite mad, though. Like when he says there that you're not allowed to just go and get some more shorts. I mean, I suppose the whole point of this situation is there isn't just money knocking about to be splashed on whatever they need.

47:36But yeah, wow. It's so tin pot Sunday League stuff. Exactly.

47:42Charlie Eccleshare:In the championship. And if anyone's played for a Sunday League team who have black shorts, you know full well, but by the end of at least the first season, those shorts are never going to match. No one has the right shorts, and rightly so. Do you think when we hear about financial stuff in football, I do certainly just kind of go, oh, this is not... I resent having to know about this. This isn't why I got into football. There's the flip side with the administrators where they have to talk about this kind of thing. They're kind of shaking their heads and going, this isn't why I got into the administration.

48:11It's about shorts.

48:14Charlie Eccleshare:This is the great sort of meeting point between our two minds then. But now once shorts chat is out of the way, Charlie, he gets onto the real sort of significant matters of running a football club. Even there, we had a big debate yesterday on chicken and chips. So what I wasn't expecting to happen is, apart from in the grandstand, we can't properly cook chicken and chips because the fire suppression system, obviously if you have a fire, you can't have water that comes down on the cooking oil. So while some fans might be disappointed, apart from the grandstand, we have taken the decision that we're going to take chicken and chips off the menu until the fire suppression system can be upgraded.

48:55Nick Miller:this this whole thing just kind of screams comedy mockumentary it's amazing like his tone the way like the granularity of the detail he gives it's it's amazing yeah there's a grin across his like he's sort of stifling a grin isn't he knows how ridiculous this is i had to i had to

49:13Charlie Eccleshare:take out several utterances of chicken and chips out of that clip as well just to tighten it up and uh it was great he kept on saying it um right we've done food so where next fire suppression We've had similar debates around the drinks that we sell. We sell 12 times as much lager as what we do bitter, and then people are queuing for the lager and not getting served quick enough, so we're having a look at whether we mix that up a little bit. We might be able to improve the lager offering. We're looking at whether we can bring a premium lager in, in addition to people who want carling. So, yeah, things like that that maybe fans wouldn't think would cause such internal debate, but they have done, and they've been a bit strange.

49:53That's great.

49:54Charlie Eccleshare:Chill out, Chris Wigfield. You can't have an exotic lager signing at Sheffield Wednesday. You get a Cruz Campo or a Madri. Premium lager. Cruz Campo played for them in the 90s, I think, didn't they? But yeah, that's great. Talking about the lager as if it is a new signing. I mean, on a semi-serious point, Nick, this just really does sort of, it rams home the tiny things that go into running a football club well and that need to be kind of fine-tuned to get a club back on a good financial footing for a new owner, I guess. just kind of ramp home the old well you know I could do job X or something like that but then when you actually hear about the stuff that is involved in it he started this interview Charlie by saying like he's been having real trouble sleeping at night to try and keep this club going and presumably I'm not surprised now because he has to think about chicken and chips for fuck's sake

50:39Nick Miller:yeah I mean that is actually like a proper intray isn't it you know it's all about managers and chips but what an intray this guy's got

50:45Charlie Eccleshare:chicken and chips in your intray

50:48Nick Miller:and then premium lager the next item

50:50Charlie Eccleshare:I want to end today's episode with this one. I'm always hesitant, Dave, to do an item on mad foreign commentary for all sorts of reasons, but this came from Ryan Preston. He says, My partner is Brazilian. In order to improve my Portuguese and a shameless attempt to enamor myself with her father, I've been trying to watch Brazilian football as and when I can. One of my biggest joys of Brazilian football is the energy in the commentary box, which is demonstrated perfectly in this clip from a match between Sao Paulo and Red Bull Bragantino. The The band Linkin Park were performing in Sao Paulo, and commentator Beto Jr.

51:21Charlie Eccleshare:was asked if he liked any of their songs, which prompted the following response. But why is Sao Paulo sending the game to Villa del Miro? Because today is the song of Linkin Park. Are you going to play a song of Linkin Park, Beto Jr.? In the end... Like, In the end is a great song. I think it's the biggest hit in the story of Linkin Park. Or the end of Crawling. Crawling also.

51:58I mean,

52:05Charlie Eccleshare:more than anything, Dave, it's an insane language, an insane accent. Whenever they have to launch into anything sort of anglophone, it sounds incredible. Incredible. Link in Bark. Nom. Yeah, amazing. I mean, over to you, Fletch and Maka. Yeah. Come on. This is the Brazilian equivalent, Charlie, of Andy Townsend talking about a foo-fighters. Foo-fighters. Imagine if he actually did then bust some out. I think we should be glad that they didn't drop into the Jay-Z collab album. But, yeah, I mean, yeah, I only break open the emergency foreign commentary content very infrequently, Nick but I feel like it was justified here 100 % on the Brazilian accent thing I used to a guy used to play in our five-a-side game who's Brazilian and I it was worth it every week for to hear him shout it's an amazing language honestly but yes yeah anyway welcome back from all of your respected travels thanks to you Nick Miller thank you link man and second in command for cricket cliches which is launching this week look forward to that thanks to you Charlie Eccleshare Thank you.

53:10Charlie Eccleshare:Thanks to you, David Walker. Thank you. Thanks to everyone for listening. We'll be back on Thursday with your Meza Harlan dicks. See you then.

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