Rob Morgan on FA Cup engraving, football rhyming slang & overrated wondergoals

23:09Visit www.mclobaltra.com slash superior access slash FIFA World Cup 2-6 for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes, and details. This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome? That's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required compatibility and availability varies 18+.

23:43Oh, look at that! That is wonderful!

23:51Charlie Eccleshare:Welcome back to Football Cliché. It's a reminder that you can sign up for Dreamland for $5.99 a month. You get ad-free listening of all of our episodes, two episodes a month of Dreamland, our exclusive show, and other bits as well. It's gone right to the wire, but episode 10 will be with you on Friday. Just go to dreamland.footballcliches.com. Right, time for the main event. Mezzet Harland-Dix with lifetime Football Cliches fan Rob Morgan. And I had great fun whittling down your long list to the final order. It was an absolute joy. Rob, kick us off with number one, please. My first fascination is the phrase, let them know you're there.

24:31Right. I think early in my life, I wouldn't really know what to do when somebody shouted at me. Like, do I tap on the shoulder of the striker and introduce myself? Hey, mate, just let you know I'm there. I'm here. Do I inform the referee? But yeah, you have to let them know you're there by physicality, I suppose. I suppose it's a shout towards an encouragement to just be physical and almost foul. and yeah it's funny the only way you can let them know you're there is through like a two-footed challenge behind the back you can't you can't like dribble past them or like nutmeg them even though that would be maybe more of a clearer message to let somebody know that you are in fact there I guess you're just adjusting the expectations of what the striker thinks he can get away with like a free run no you've you've let them know you're there you are definitely you I'm well in fact there.

25:27Also, I think there is a time frame. You have to let them know you're there within the first five, I think. Interesting. If you don't, it's kind of seen as hot-headed and lack of discipline, I think. There's a very small registration window to let them know that you are present there. Yeah, a few things like a shoulder barge or backing into someone or giving a routine challenge a bit more oomph, like 30 % more. If it's like a routine challenge, you just, you let them know you're there.

26:00Charlie Eccleshare:I definitely want to tackle the time limit of this, Nick. Do not, we're not allowed to move on. If I forget, you have to remind me. But the main issue here is that I think letting them know you're there is a mid-level act of violence in a football game. I think it can't be a two-footed challenge as Rob sort of posited at the start. I feel like that's too much of a signifier that you are indeed there. But at the same time, it can't just be a nudge. so it so it has to be it has to be kind of a hefty sort of full-bodied challenge that you basically send them flying but with your whole body rather than you know stud on shin and obviously this is kind of had to be recalibrated over time so in in the the past the let them know you're there challenge could be a full like right from behind you know the ball might be vaguely there but you what you're really doing is like going through their achilles or something like that which obviously because of because of woke presumably you can't do that anymore probably so it is a kind of it's graduated just to kind of as you say a more lusty tackle than you might otherwise have done it's a sort of off the ball kind of nudge in the ribs little elbow or something like that does that qualify or does does it have to be a slightly more kind of declamatory does it have to be does everyone have to know that you've not let him know you're there it has surely rob it has to be when the ball is in and around the player.

27:23Yeah, it has to be an on-the-ball incident. I don't think you can do it off the ball. Otherwise it's just constant hints that they're there

27:30Charlie Eccleshare:and that's not official enough. But actually on that point, Nick, this did make me think of sort of ongoing physical contact between defender and striker. And you'll see this a lot, especially when they do a sort of close-up at a throw-in of the player who might be about to receive it and their marker. You see this sort of pathetic, needly little nudging that goes on. And it's not when they're jostling for the ball when it's thrown. It's before the throwing is about to be taken. So a striker will move into position and as they reach a kind of Christian Romero figure behind them, before physical contact even needs to take place, there'll be just a shove.

28:05Charlie Eccleshare:It'll just be like no emotion whatsoever. It's almost ingrained in football now. It's almost unthinking where a defender will just immediately just barge them out of the way in a kind of shovey kind of motion. And there never will be a reaction from the striker either because I guess you can't really react to it because you don't want to lose your head. But it just seems to me like that's the one thing I see in football, apart from all the physical and technical level that required, where I think I couldn't handle that. I could not handle being passive-aggressively just nudged out of the way for no reason.

28:31Charlie Eccleshare:It would rather me so much. Yeah, I have kind of problems with personal space as well, so that's not going to fly. Interesting. As you say, many, many reasons why I'm not a professional footballer, but you're kind of going, fuck off, mate. I'm standing here. What are you doing? What are you trying to do? that's not it's not really going to fly when you're trying to defend the corner is it really looking forward to the karaoke room at the uh football cliches christmas do then that's gonna be great uh you can have a little corner to yourself but um rob i mean this is this is kind of um if any kind of universal concept because i remember even at kids level someone shouting let them know you're there to the center backs so this is this is drilled into kids right from a very young age but um i mean should we be alarmed by this is this the thing that kids should be being taught yeah i don't know i mean people shouted at me and i didn't really know what it meant so i think i think parents just like to shout it because it is quite a good phrase like it kind of rolls off your tongue like all one syllable let them know you that like it can let them know you're there let them know you're there like it's just it it's got a nice ring to it i think it's more about the the shouter of the phrase rather than the receiver of the the command right let's so let's get on to the the the purely cliches element of this rob you have you have suggested that five minutes is the time limit for their letting knowing.

29:49Charlie Eccleshare:Yeah, I think so. I mean, that seems pretty strict. I mean, the ball could just not be at that end of the pitch and you're never going to get the chance. Is that your fault? No, five minutes is longer than you think, I think, Adam. Five minutes is enough time to at least get an opportunity to win the ball, I think. Right. Unless you're a really bad player. But Nick, you know, some would suggest that, you know, a time limit is kind of arbitrary here. It should just be the first contact between the two players involved, up to a sensible limit of time at least. I did quite like the idea of someone nervously glancing up at the clock, going, that's getting towards five minutes.

30:25I haven't let him know I'm there yet. I need to do something. And then someone just panicking and booting someone up the arse off the ball, getting sent off. It was five minutes. I needed to let him know I was there. There's nothing I could do.

30:39Charlie Eccleshare:Yeah, the panic setting in. Okay, all right. Okay, interesting start. I like this. Rob tell us about your second fascination of football please Okay number two Is in a cup final When they cut to the engraver This just Reminds me I suppose nostalgia Really but just of classic Cup finals I don't know if they still do it But I just always think like are there other Engravers watching that like are they Getting are there other engravers watching that getting More out of that than the football like just Great font on like The spacing on that that is five minutes to go. Sublime. Effortless. Left-handed too.

31:16But yeah, and just also just the process of like, how do they decide who engraves the cup? Like, is there an in-form engraver? Like, just everything that he touches, test of gold. Last week, he like engraved the Seniors Volleyball Tournament and now at a Spelling Bee, back-to-back, without a stencil. Like, so he's going to get a big move. I don't know. It would be quite interesting to see who gets picked. And I think also it just, I like that it just causes more drama when they cut to him at like 85 minutes and he's already started. I would be more nervous about the engraver having to redo his work than actually who won the FA Cup or whatever.

31:55Charlie Eccleshare:It is a genuinely tense moment watching the engraver at work, Nick, in the final moments of a cup final. You know that they're seasoned professionals and you convinced yourself that there's no way that they would televise this if they thought there was any chance of it going wrong. And yet, it's quite a precise thing, so you do fear for them. I mean, given the so few occasions that I actually write anything with a pen these days, I get really nervous about signing my name on a birthday card. So never mind if you've got a camera over your shoulder and you're trying to engrave Arsenal onto the cup or whatever.

32:29On the other engravers watching, I quite like the other end of that where the engraver goes, I can't fucking believe that Kevin got that gig. I mean, he's an absolute fraud. Look at him. That is just amateur stuff. It reminds me of the European Championships last summer. I was in the media centre as the person who had commentated on that game was watching the later game and was absolutely tearing into the people who were commentating on that one. The bitterness in it was just sensational, really, really enjoyable. I'd like to think that that kind of applies to the engravers as well.

33:07Charlie Eccleshare:I mean, there's absolutely no reason to suggest that such a specialist occupation, Rob, doesn't have that level of bitchiness amongst its union. I don't know if they have a union, but on the idea of who gets chosen, it must be just like who gets to referee the final. It's who's been assessed over the season to be at the highest level or has already done the final before. Someone's already done the final and they're not allowed to do it again, so they have to pick someone fresh. So maybe the same criteria is used for the engraver, but you've got to be on top of your game the whole season, surely?

33:37Surely. It's interesting about the Manchester FA Cup final. You must have just done... You could do half the work before. You wouldn't even have to turn up until like 90 minutes.

33:47Charlie Eccleshare:You joke about this, but in the 2023 FA Cup final, Manchester was engraved in advance before the game. I mean, is that good prep or is that just not a high stakes moment you don't want to get involved in? It is good prep, Nick, but there's also a complete lack of magic about that as well. Yeah, that's what I mean. Yeah, the magic. Yeah, no magic. There is a lack of magic, but it is also, this is a bit like in journalism, you have like obituaries prepared for people ahead of time and, you know, other things that you think are going to happen. And, you know, sometimes they backfire. But this just seems kind of, from the engraver's perspective anyway, it just seems like a sensible move.

34:29Charlie Eccleshare:So I managed to unearth a Guardian interview in 2007, Rob, with the FA Cup engraver for the final that year. And so it's like a quick fire interview. And some of the questions and the answers are genuinely superb. So Emmett Smith, the FA Cup engraver, was asked if it was all a bit stressful and says, yeah, it's a bit nerve wracking when the camera's on you. You need really steady hands. Hand engraving is an ancient craft. I have to remain calm while the FA staff the army and the TV crews run around so it's really stressful doing it in five minutes he's then asked do you ever try to guess the winner to save time what an insane question but I suppose they get asked that all the time don't they Rob yeah yeah but I feel like they would I remember I was at the Liverpool Arsenal one at Millennium Stadium that the engraver was already he's already doing half his work with like you know 82 minutes and so there's got to be some sort of guesswork or just hoping.

35:29Charlie Eccleshare:Rob, you'll never believe it. It was Emmitt Smith for that FA Cup final. He was the engraver. Oh, wow. So in answer to the question of do you ever try to guess the winner to save time, he says the first year I counted my chickens and predicted the winner. In the last seven minutes, two goals went in and everything changed. That set the cat among the pigeons, which is an amazing phrase. That was the Liverpool one, yeah. He says that was Liverpool versus Arsenal when Michael Owen scored the winner. I was gutted. I'm a gooner. It was painful rubbing Arsenal off and writing Liverpool instead. Yeah, that was like the first cup final I properly, properly remember.

36:04Charlie Eccleshare:So Nick, what happens is he sketches the name on with a pencil just to get himself primed. But yeah, in that situation, he has to rub it off to then engrave it. This begs the next question from the Guardian. Have you ever made a mistake? And he says, I end up checking spellings far too much. I get obsessive about it, checking everything hundreds of times. After a while, I begin to doubt my own sanity what is that awful what an incredibly like because I think in that interview he also says he's kind of just obviously just waiting around for the rest of the time but he's obviously got to be there for the whole day but to just be waiting around for you know three four hours and then this very intense thing that is the only thing you're there for is intense five minutes where you think cannot fuck this up what if I get even a little bit wrong here then this is all down the toilet.

36:53Charlie Eccleshare:Everything we've said about FA Cup engraving so far Rob implies that the person involved in this is a very important person in the process in the match day situation quite central to the whole magic of the situation. But there's a segment of this interview where he's asked what his routine is on the day. He says if there's a spare seat I'm allowed to watch the game but if not I'm in the FA office with tea and sandwiches watching the game on TV. Fuck's sake give him a seat. That's awful. Finally Nick he's asked has your TV engraving appearances ever made you a celebrity? He says, usually you just see my hands on TV, but a couple of years ago, the whole of me was on screen for a few seconds.

37:29Charlie Eccleshare:I was out in the bars afterwards and kept getting recognised. It's remarkable just how those few seconds made people want their photograph taken with me. It's nuts, really, the whole day. People get whipped up into a frenzy, and for that one day, everything else is forgotten. Get your picture taken with the engraver! He's asking for a selfie. People in the bar kind of nudging each other. Have you seen that? Can you sign this mate? Yeah. Sure, just give me 20 minutes. Fair play. Fair play. And do you know what? Just a lovely bookend to this story, Rob. Emmett Smith, the FA Cup engraver, no longer does the FA Cup engraving.

38:08Charlie Eccleshare:He now trains people to engrave trophies. Wow. He's off the front line now. He's like a retired soldier. Just seen it all. Seen it all. Mentors other people. I was hoping what you were going to say there was that he doesn't do it anymore. His son does it. He's passed it down the generation or something like that. He has taught his son how to engrave trophies, I can confirm. So there you go. Emmett Smith, absolute legend. Rob, did you know you're not actually the first MHD guest to bring up trophy engraving? The only other one was the great Jeff Shreves. You personally went to the FA for permission to get the engraver involved in the latter stages of the game.

38:48Charlie Eccleshare:So you just show the kind of the trophy being engraved right at the end. And there was a very kind of tight time period. So you got this all sorted out. The FA kind of grudgingly agreed to do it. Not grudgingly. Grudgingly. Enthusiastically went along with it. Sorry. Much to my surprise. I thought there's no way they'll have it. You know, FA setting their ways. They couldn't be more supportive because I laid out the case. I went to them. I showed the timings from the previous 10 finals from the moment the referee whistled, whistled the final whistle and then it was in the captain's hands and hoisted aloft and i also may gave me permission to go and speak to their engraver we did a couple of dummy engravings so no they were all for it why is dummy engravings really funny rob if i was the engraver i would just be doing like the next day i'd be doing stuff that's that use my hands a lot more just in case anybody recognised my hands.

39:42I like that that little clip from that episode of MHD really kind of summed the whole episode up. Perhaps the most aggressive example of Mazzaharland Dix has ever been from Shreves either. Him going in, no, not grudgingly, not grudgingly, enthusiastically.

39:58Charlie Eccleshare:I know, I had to revisit that episode for this purpose and it was really hard to find a minute's worth of chat which didn't involve him taking us on in the tiniest way possible. But anyway, good to have Rob Morgan and Jeff Shreves aligned on one issue at the very least. Right, Rob, your third and final fascination of football, please. Third and final thing is people using football rhyming slang in conversation. I think this is quite a new thing that's come about, but I really love it. I think it can really accelerate a bond, a friendship, if you just say, I'm just going for a Pascal Chimbonda, Wanda.

40:35And if the other person clocks on, my friend George, who loves the show, he does this a lot. Like, oh, he's on the Roque, the Santa Cruz booze. Oh, for fuck's sake. Need to take the Edwin down to the garage, Van der Sar. No, no, no, sorry. Worst one is dying for the junior toilet. Thanks for explaining that one.

41:03Charlie Eccleshare:I appreciate you outlining it. Anybody know where the juniors are? Desperate for a junior. This is like Keezy translating El Classico for us on Tuesday. When guys just name random noughties footballers, it's kind of a follow on from that. This is like the next level of that, I think. My first question for you for this, Rob, was like, who does this? And you have already outlined that it is your flatmate, George. Glad we've got him in. Glad we've got a mention of him in. so at least we have one confirmed human being that does this but Nick I mean one thing I'm one thing I am very much aligned with on this process is the is the types of footballer that get chosen for the rhyming like you Pascal Chimbondas you're Rocky Santa Cruz's I mean this was inevitably going to be a kind of Barclisman situation wasn't it I mean they just feel right for this you you they have to be slightly out of our consciousness a bit you can't have real star level players can you yeah for it to be truly kind of rewarding then it has to you You have to, not only do you have to nail the kind of the rhyming element, but you have to satisfy with a kind of, oh, I haven't heard about him for a while kind of element to it.

42:09Yeah, it's very strong. It does kind of remind me slightly of, you know, in Ocean's Eleven, when Don Cheadle has a famously, a completely incongruous Cockney accent. Yes. And does some rhyming slang in this that no one, you know, no one really understands. And it's basically an inside joke. This is kind of, this reminds me of that a little bit.

42:28Charlie Eccleshare:Rob, I wonder what real cockneys think about sort of, you know, general unofficial slash improvised rhyming slang. Like, is it cultural appropriation of some kind? Yeah, I don't know. You're a Billeric-y boy, you're not that far away. I'd have to ask a few cockneys. I don't know how they feel about it, that we're taking their language and using it for naughties footballer purposes. But yeah. As I said, there is a kind of kudos to using your Pascal Chimbondas for this sort of thing. but I mean, even with actual Cockney rhyming slang, Rob, the subtlety of using the non-rhyming word so that people have to stop and think about it.

43:05Charlie Eccleshare:That's how you've got to do it. It's a touch of class, right? Yeah, that's how you've got to do it. You can't do the other word. He's on the Rocky. Yeah, I would really have to stop and think about that one. Yeah, but only Barclaysman literate people are really worthwhile for this conversation. If you do get it, think of the friendship you're going to have with that guy. like it's going to accelerate like through years and years of conversation you can accelerate it with just a you know rocke center cruise slang like it's it's magic nick how long could you tolerate a friendship with someone who does this habitually the problem will come up is is if you is this the sort of thing that will be i suspect will be funny for a while and then you'll grow weary of but there's always going to be someone who just takes it a little bit too far or not not takes it too far, but carries on longer than the sort of life of it, really.

43:54Charlie Eccleshare:I'm trying to think of a Premier League football that rhymes with second half. No, it's not going to happen. Right, that brings to the end of Rob Morgan's niche footballing fascinations. We'll be back very shortly with his irritations.

44:14This episode is brought to you by State Farm. listening to this podcast instead of doom scrolling smart move another smart move getting help from one of state farm's 19 000 local agents when you choose to bundle home and auto bundling just another way to save with the personal price plan prices are based on rating plans that vary by state coverage options are selected by the customer availability amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state so good so good so good new summer arrivals are at Nordstrom Rack stores now. Get ready to save big with up to 60 % off brands like Rag & Bone, Levi's, Adidas, and Free People.

44:53Join the Nordiclub to unlock exclusive discounts, shop new arrivals first, and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack. Are all batteries the same? That's like asking if all soccer players are the same. Take Messi, the most decorated player ever. Is there any other player who has achieved that? No, just him. Now take Duracell. Is there any other battery with Power Boost ingredients inside? No, just Duracell. Remember, goats only trust goats because they're built different. And Messi only trusts Duracell.

45:40Oh, look at that! That is wonderful!

45:47Charlie Eccleshare:Welcome back to Football Clichés. We've heard Rob Morgan's niche footballing fascinations. Rob, you don't strike me as somebody who gets irritated, to be honest. You seem quite a happy guy, a joy-filled guy. I can get annoyed. This is all a front. I can get really annoyed. Yeah, you'll see. You'll see. Yeah, I mean, your patience slowly began to run out as I was filling around with mic settings before we started recording. So we might be close. to that point but um tell us about your first footballing irritation please my first football irritation is goals from the halfway line being nominated for goal of the month or goal of the season i just think there's a big deception that halfway line goals are actually like beautiful and good girls they're ugly like and i just yes it's it is a long way and you have to have something i could i couldn't score the halfway line goal i put my hands up but you are essentially just booting the ball it's like the ball has the same trajectory as a defensive clearance but they these goals get like they get awards left right and center and it's just yeah i think with a well-worked team goal there's much a better the goal satisfaction is so much more but like a halfway line goal is just like like this this is my reaction it's like oh it's that it's not uh it's not the same satisfaction as any other girl, I think.

47:07Even a tap-in, I think, has more girl satisfaction than a halfway line girl. But it's more the deception and the delusion that we think these halfway line girls are just incredible girls.

47:20Charlie Eccleshare:This is a timely time to have this debate, Nick, given that Route 1 football is clearly on its way back. But I do agree. I am at the same sort of point of my tolerance for halfway line goals as Rob is in the sense that if you know if a kind of viral looking tweet will pop up saying watch this player score from the halfway line in Peru or something for the first time in my life I actually I won't watch it by default I'll be like I don't think anything here is going to surprise me and nothing's going to make me go watch this whereas if it's any other type of goal that they hint at I'm going to watch it because I'm going to want to know what technical skill is involved I won't go as far to say it's just booting it But what I would say, Nick, is that halfway-learn goals should have got themselves into a position now where they're not great goals, they're not amazing, they're just feats.

48:03Charlie Eccleshare:And feats are still good and still noteworthy, but they're not on the same level as any other type of great goal. Yeah, absolutely. I'm fully on board with this. It speaks to a sort of laziness or lack of imagination that you could think that this is automatically going to be a brilliant goal. The one thing I would say, Rob, is would you kind of allow any tolerance for a player? Like, you know, Xabi Alonso did it a couple of times. A player who has done it a few times, so it's clearly a thing that they do. It's clearly something they try very often. Is there any kind of tolerance to that, or are you not allowing that?

48:48Not really. It's still a halfway line goal. like it's still no not really but I mean

48:55Charlie Eccleshare:surely Rob there are degrees of impressiveness with halfway line goals I mean if we take you know the kind of standard industry standard default reference here which is David Beckham's 1996 effort against Wimbledon he had a lot of time to think about that there's an element of style about it I mean it still required some delicacy but that's your standard effort it's you know struck from the halfway line off the floor essentially a chip. But, you know, you could have, there's Wayne Rooney's for Everton, which was kind of first-time strike, sort of nice flat trajectory over the goalkeeper's head.

49:28Charlie Eccleshare:You could, there's been occasional volleys. I'm sure I've seen a Sunday League one where, you know, a goal kick has been returned with interest on the volley back over the goalkeeper's head. Now, surely that would impress you, wouldn't it? Yeah, no, I'm not saying you don't, yeah, I'm not saying you don't have to be, have like no ability to do it. Like, I couldn't do it, but it's just, I think just the way it looks, it doesn't please my soul. And it annoys me that everybody else loves it. I think it's more that that I don't like. On that point then, Nick, the kind of default inclusion of any halfway line goal in goal of the month slash goal of the season.

50:05Charlie Eccleshare:Is this the point we need to address? It's like, are we at the point now where we need to really kind of interrogate whether they actually deserve to be in the list? because, I mean, take for example, you know Tony Iboa's goal for Leeds against Wimbledon, the half volley. He tried to lob the goalkeeper in that game from kickoff. I think it was before that goal. So if he'd scored that, and let's assume the other goal would have happened, he would have completely overshadowed it. He might even have edged it out. Do you want to live in a world where that goal would edge out that goal? I do not, no.

50:31I am kind of fully behind the idea that there should be a sort of an agreement, a broad agreement that, yes, okay, fine, that's impressive and we like the kind of impudence of trying that kind of thing but we're going to leave those out of your Puskas awards and you know match the goals of the seasons um because because we know yeah that's fine that's very impressive but we want a little bit more imagination yeah a little bit more creativity a little bit more variety in in the kind of goals because you so because you know people who have been watching football for a very long time you're quite infrequently surprised by the goal.

51:09But something that is truly inventive or just truly weird, then they're the kind of things that belong in these things rather than something you've seen dozens of times before.

51:21Charlie Eccleshare:This is a good point. Rob, the Pushkus Award is kind of pushing boundaries with this. They're clearly not having halfway line goals in the Pushkus Award situation. And to the Pushkus Award's credit, they are going for the weirdest goal they could possibly find that looked like it was remotely deliberate. And that, I mean, maybe they've gone too far with it, but they're after your heart there, aren't they, really? The Pushkas Awards. Yeah, they're doing a great job. I think it's more the Premier League, like goal of the month, goal of the month, goal of the season. They're still in there. They feel forced.

51:50Like, oh, we have to have a halfway line goal. Would you accept a quota for this sort of thing?

51:57Charlie Eccleshare:Would you say, okay, there's going to be one. There's going to be one every season. No, not every season, definitely not. I think one every 10 years. Wow. One every five years. That's how freaking I want to see them. Once a decade. We'll get to August, they'll go, did you know it's a halfway line goal season? It could be this year. It's like a leap year. It's like a leap year. Would you be willing to accept, like Adam said, the volley, Stankovic scored one of those for Inter in the Champions League. It's a similar kind of thing. He's done it a couple of times, actually. Yeah. Surprisingly, there's another one, yeah.

52:33Would you accept, I realise this is kind of physically unlikely, but would you accept like a Rabona from the halfway line as the sort of variant on the theme kind of thing? Yeah, if they're kind of doing something different, they're changing the genre a little bit. But if it's just a big boot, I think it's just because when a girl is like a bullet, it's more satisfying. yeah it's the trajectory of the ball wasn't it it just is that a halfway line rabona i actually i

53:07Charlie Eccleshare:genuinely think would literally break the internet and i think the pushcus award would be plummeting into crisis about what they had to do about it but yeah i think the rabona aspect would transcend the halfway line so at least they would dovetail so rob i can see why you would accept that and and i think your original point is unbroken your resolution remains unbroken about this right on to your second irritation of football please second irritation it's like when a player breaks out of the warm-up to have a chat with a punditry team that annoys me like I think it's like a symbol of this new era loose jokey frenzy punditry I mean I'm at risk of sounding like Roy Keane here you sound genuinely annoyed here yeah I think I just have a high value for professionalism I suppose or I think the era that you grew up watching football is always going to be the best era.

54:04And when stuff changes, it annoys you, I think. But first of all, I don't even know why the punditry team are on the pitch. There should be more separation. I don't like this mixy kind of everyone's fret. It should be like church and state. Just pundits in the studio, players on the pitch. Everything's a bit cash. I mean, I think Grealish did it. Ronaldo definitely did it. I think Ronaldo probably could get away with it just because he is Ronaldo, but I miss Hanson. And I mean, you don't have to be a robot pundit or it's good to have personality, but then also what qualifies you as a player to interrupt the punditry team?

54:39I think it's, if one of the pundits is a former manager you've played under, possibly, or if you've been abroad for a while, like maybe Harry Kane could be excused from interrupting the punditry team. Incredible caveats here. Definitely, yeah, definitely not the third goalie.

54:58Charlie Eccleshare:Mick, this is quite clearly BT Sport slash TNT Sports doing, isn't it? You know, essentially breaking that boundary between studio and pitch. We've become accustomed to the little kind of, what do we call it, podium, plinth, the table that they use. I think just the table. I think it's usually too big to be a plinth and it's not really a podium. No, it's not. You can't stand on it. So, you know, that's broken the pitch perimeters. And then, of course, you've got to the situation where Kelly Cates and Carragher will be strolling through the centre circle on Sky while the team's warming up either side of them.

55:32Charlie Eccleshare:And a ball will inevitably go near them and there'll be a little chuckle as one of them kicks it back. I don't know. I mean, TV companies have made the fairly brave assumption, Nick, that we want to be embedded in the action, such as it is in the warm up. I mean, I mean, televisually looks all right to me. Yeah, it does. And it just has a very mild tangent. You bring up Hanson there. I cannot picture him, and I can't imagine he'd be happy with the table at the side of the pitch set up. You can't really picture him standing up while delivering punditry. Don't know why. Anyway, sorry. it's a good point yeah it is is definitely a kind of a uh a consequence of this and they it's probably by design as well because they particularly tnt they like their kind of matey bantery pundits like you know joe cole and peter crouch who have played you know maybe they're examples of players who are a little bit who've retired a little bit too long ago to be playing with too many players who will be on the pitch at that stage right but like daniel sturridge or someone like that they'll play with a lot of these people they're going to be matey so the tv companies probably want them to to do this kind of thing as it is a almost as a maybe this is overthinking it but as a way of kind of underlining the relevance of these guys like this guy played so recently he knows some of the guys that are in the game today so you know look at him he's saying hello rob what this one thing i will kind of agree on with this and where it does irritate me is that um these situations where they're talking to a player you know mid warm-up it just reminds me how much more time there is before the fucking game starts.

57:01Charlie Eccleshare:Because I get really impatient, whether it's my team or whoever's on TV, and we know that there's going to be a good hour before the game starts that they're going to cover this game. I get really impatient in the bit before they go back in before the warm-up, because I know that they've got to go back in, get changed, and then come out and do the whole ceremony before the game starts. And that is the point I'm thinking, I really want to watch some football now, especially, it really kicks in at 12.30 on a Saturday, which is of course the TNT slot. So I think that's where I get most impatient about it.

57:31Yeah, it's a long time. Yeah, too much time. But I just think surely the warm-up can't be that important if you're happy to have a little chat with the pundits. Like, what are you doing in the warm-up? Surely... I mean, that's a valid point. I mean, these days, Rob,

57:44Charlie Eccleshare:is borderline unprofessional to break off your warm-up and go and chat to the TV guy? It's obviously contractual as well. So maybe, if anything, it's too professional. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. So lots to consider on that one. Right, time for your third and final irritation of football, please. Okay, my final irritant is defenders celebrating when they make a challenge. Again, I feel like this is quite new. I don't remember this growing up. But I feel it was an unwritten code that defenders shouldn't need to celebrate. Strikers and attacking players, we get it. They're fragile people. They need the ego.

58:20Yeah, we give you that. You need it. You need it. defenders, they should be stoic and just robotic machines. Obviously you want passion, but in terms of celebrating, it just gives me the ick when it's 90 minutes and the whole defence is celebrating because they're forced to throw in. How bad is it going to get? Is Lewis Dunk going to be doing the robot because of when it's executed off side trap? I think it comes mainly, maybe it comes from American football. I don't think consciously, but American football, they celebrate every play and the defence celebrate too. So maybe subconsciously they've taken it from there.

58:59But I don't mind when a keeper saves a pen. Right. And a defender will give like a quick fist bump and then the keeper will just be like, all right, carry on, carry on. But defenders celebrating, yeah, it irritates me.

59:15Charlie Eccleshare:At the top of this section, Nick, I said that I thought Rob was a joyful fellow who I can possibly imagine being irritated by stuff. And his selections have been people scoring goals, people wanting to have a talk with someone else, and then defenders doing their job and wanting to actually be, you know, recognised for it. This is all very personal stuff, to me, actually. So he's more vindictive than I thought he would be, actually. Yes, it's a deep insight into the soul of a person, isn't it? Yeah, definitely. So, Nick, really, how did this snowball so quickly? Because it does feel like it's had a really small gestation period, the defenders celebrating sort of blocks and tackles and winning throw-ins and stuff like that.

59:54Charlie Eccleshare:But it hasn't quite developed enough to have an athletic long read about it. So, I mean, this is a constant joke that we would make on this podcast, but I do feel now that is a cultural milestone that has to be reached for a phenomenon. Yeah, if you're really overthinking it, you could think of it as a sort of, well, we have, as the exposure of footballers has increased over the years, and even the kind of stodgy, stoic defenders whose job is to essentially ruin football by stopping the thing that we're all watching for. Even as their profiles grow, the profile isn't quite commensurate with the sort of attention or glory that they get.

1:00:32So it's like they have to emphasize that, you know, this is just as important as that flashy fucker up the other end of the pitch scoring a goal. So I have to really kind of emphasize that this is an achievement and this is really important it's also quite it's also a very sort of alpha thing yeah you gonna you joke about lewis dunk doing the doing the robot or whatever but it's all when the defenders do celebrate this this thing it's always that really kind of angry scream into the kind of night sky type celebration if you're really being nfl and kind of over the

1:01:07Charlie Eccleshare:top about it there might be a chest bump or something yeah um i'm picturing gabrielle here the Arsenal version Gabriel the leading exponent right now big time big time I mean we're speculating Rob on the kind of the motivation for it and how it's become a cultural phenomenon obviously in football things don't really need a great deal of encouragement to catch on if players see other players doing it to some effect it's going to carry on so in that respect it's not a huge surprise that it's snowballed so quickly but at the same time you can see why it's caught on because it gets a massive reaction from crowds straight away and, you know, Premier League atmospheres are being bemoaned year after year and about, you know, how they're all so quiet.

1:01:47Charlie Eccleshare:But it is a really easy way to get your crowd going. But you couldn't do it if you were... You couldn't do it if it was... Could you do it at nil-nil? There has to be a scoreline criteria for this, surely. Do you have to be lead? Is it like, does it have to be an important match or is it like you're leading 2-1 and it's like the 85th? I feel they happen at the end more than just in the game. I don't know. I think, yeah, nil-nil, I don't think it would warrant that. So I would say, Nick, that there are kind of two explicit kind of scenarios broadly where this can happen. One, where you're winning comfortably and so you're not tempting fate in any way and you're in front of your home fans so you know it's going to be, you're going to have this kind of effect of just getting everything together and the other team are going to be crestfallen.

1:02:35Charlie Eccleshare:So if you're winning and you know you're going to win, you could probably get away with doing it. The only other scenario I think you would be allowed to do is if it's real backs to the wall situation and you're probably not expected to hold on and it's really late and you put in something like an incredibly last ditch tackle. At that point, you could probably get away with a quite a furious one, but nothing too smug. But other than that, I don't really see much of a window for this. Yeah, the two examples that inevitably Forrest examples that I can think of for the latter thing was one was the other night when Forrest were playing Porto and I can't remember what he did.

1:03:07I think it was a big tackle or a clearance or something Murillo really gave it the big one after and it was a kind of it wasn't quite the tension was mounting and he was kind of really trying to whip up the crowd but there was an element of that and the other one was a few years ago when in Forrest's first season back in the Premier League when I think it was I can't remember if it was the last game of the season I don't think it was the last game of the season but it was Forrest against Arsenal and if Forrest won the game they would have survived, it was like confirming survival and Morgan Gibbs-White chased someone back and put in a tackle and cleared it out.

1:03:39And he celebrated, I think, more enthusiastically than I've ever seen him celebrate an actual goal, which I suppose it was such a kind of important game. It was such a tense situation. And that was real kind of for a score quite early on and then held onto it for the rest of the game. So that was a real kind of backs to the wall in a crucial situation kind of thing. But it was also a, because it was Gibbs-White, it was a, I've done something that I shouldn't really be doing. Yeah. Or I'm not associated with doing. And I've done it brilliantly. So kind of, you know, whipping up the crowd that way.

1:04:14Charlie Eccleshare:Yeah, the long run back would definitely have fed into that as well. It's like, look what I've just done. You know, Rob, if I'm thinking of the most mundane current thing that gets that reaction, it would be, because you see it for goal-bound shots being blocked. You'd see it for a penalty save. You'd see it for a last-its tackle. but the most mundane thing at the moment would be when a defender goes in for a kind of 50-50 kind of block tackle by the touchline and in their half and the assistant referee will give the throw in to them. So not only are they celebrating their own kind of commitment to the tackle they are essentially celebrating the opponent not getting the throw in.

1:04:52Charlie Eccleshare:So there's an element of ridicule about it which I think really, really adds to the whole thing. So Schadenfreude definitely plays a part here I think as well. Yeah. but where can we go from here like if the most mundane thing at the moment is winning an unexpected throw in slash goal kick and you've suggested that Lewis Dunk might celebrate like performing an offside trap really well that's perfectly feasible because if you think about it an offside trap being executed perfectly is clearly a thing that gets drilled it results in a break of play and one player could well be perceived as the one who kind of engineered the whole thing the beresi of the whole situation.

1:05:27It's also a team effort do like all the four defenders do a joint celebration if it's like a side trap yeah a human pyramid as though something maybe a headed clearance that's where we're where we're going

1:05:41Charlie Eccleshare:but god could you but this i mean this is the thing i mean we've we've joked about offside traps but i do think this is a perfectly feasible thing but a headed clearance could you celebrate something mid-game while the ball's still in play that would i think that would be the line for a lot of pundits the ball has to go out of play i think it has to or at least out of the half at least out the half i'll tell you what what one thing that i would really encourage would have really encouraged the celebration for was the the famous um phil jones heading the ball while on the ground kind of thing that would that would have been i can't remember whether he it immediately did go out of play following that but that would have been superb if he if he'd leapt up and given it the big one after that the thing with that nick though was was the net consensus on that that it was actually an achievement or that he'd fucked up and somehow got away with it so that's a distinction there's a yeah there's a whole other kind of element to this about how it was actually good defending but because it was phil jones and everyone had kind of decided that phil jones was a clown at that point then it became very meme-y and it became very oh look at this idiot heading the ball while it's on the ground it was quite improvisation if anything exactly yeah yeah so finally rob how would you feel about a player celebrating a goal scored from the halfway line oh god no uh no well okay it can't it can't be a big celebration it's the best it can be is just like a surprised little group hug that's it you can't do any individual celebration for that okay okay so we haven't we haven't managed to make rob morgan budge an inch on his uh on his commitments here so um but yeah that was that was a wonderful array of uh mesut harland dicks thanks to you rob morgan thank you very much thanks to you nick miller thank you and thanks to everyone for listening we'll be back on tuesday see you then