Scottish League Two scores, leaked fines lists & the sixth penalty taker: The listeners' loves & hates

23:14Yes, classic. Kennel with Throat. I'm properly looking, the camera actually has to pan down vertically for a throw-in. Yeah, exactly. And you sort of even can't even see like the one corner of the pitch on the on the near side it's sort of you you've got a bit of the stand in the frame and stuff like so that that plays into my mind when i see that i think all tight game you know this is going to be this isn't going to be free flowing but whereas some of the and slightly lower camera angle at like a big expansive european stadium that's too far yeah but then i don't know if a game can ever be too expansive looking can it charlie no but no but the pitches can just look massive and then you're like and even i mean you mentioned like a neutral get like a Wembley sometimes it can look just like I think the pitch is too big for for any good football it's like you know when you're you're at that age of like I don't know 13 or so and you start playing on pitches that are just realistic they're just too big for you yeah and it's and it's crap because it's like you the game just really suffers as a result and some games can't look or feel like that yeah it really is a bit like that yeah when you when you've got the real running track old sort of you know Serie A East European situations you know that that ball is going to fly for ages beyond the goal and it's going to slow everything down.

24:23So there is that, you know, quite literal element to it. But obviously, Dave, this is a TV watcher bias to this and it feeds into paranoia and not being able to control the game, you know, through your mind and that sort of thing. But in these situations, you just have to remind yourself that if you're on the pitch as a player, it will be fine. You know, you've got 120 yards by 50 or whatever it is to play with. Everything will be okay. They can handle it. Yeah, that's a good point, actually, because you still do, and I know there's obviously a maximum and a minimum pitch dimension, but it's not massive either way, is it?

24:54No. And yet you still hear some ex-pros and pundits going, oh, you know, big pitch, out on that big pitch at Wembley or really tight pitch down at Luton. It's going to be tricky for them. That sentiment, Charlie, is only recently starting to fade. Like it used to be such a thing and it's not necessarily coincided with standardised pitch sizes. It really has taken so long to cotton on that there really is no such thing as a tight pitch at the top level of football anymore. It's difficult, yeah. I mean, because you are talking about small differences, but like with anything, it's like, yeah, but at that level, you know, that can make a real difference.

25:24But I mean, everyone will remember, or everyone of our sort of age will remember the Highbury small pitch. And then, you know, that was always a massive thing that people talked about. And then when they moved to play those games at Wembley, it was like, God, they're good at Highbury. Think how good they'll be at Wembley. They've got Overmars and Anelka running into these huge swathes of space. And then they were terrible at Wembley. It was like, ah, no, because everyone got a lift from playing at Wembley. So no, go back to Highbury. I mean, this is actually the best case study for this, Dave.

25:48Think of Arsenal fans in the sort of 99-2000 season, having to switch between Highbury low, Wembley high, and just going, oh, I don't know what game to expect. No wonder they've fucked it all up. It's so weird, yeah. But this does still exist, Adam. Like, I know Arsenal were away at Fulham, and there was talk before the game of, oh, you know, that tight pitch at Fulham. Like, you know, it's not a, you know, that's still seen as like a tight pitch. The rosé swilling Fulham fans on top of you, right on top of you. Hemmed in right next to the Thames. There's no if you go. If you can't swim, you're fucked.

26:20Right, excellent stuff. The third fascination for this month comes from Chris Shelley. My football fascination is when referees have to award a goal kick when there's been an appeal for a penalty and they've got to really work hard to communicate that they are giving a goal kick and not a penalty with an exaggerated stance that involves squatting down, having a really flat hand pointing towards the six-yard box. to indicate that it's a goal kick, not a penalty. And I always judge their ability to do this on the reaction of the attacking team's fans, because if they're up in anger, then that means, hey, fair play, ref, you've communicated that really well.

26:56You've given a goal kick. Whereas if there's a mix half and half of some fans annoyed, but some fans celebrating the penalty, that means they've done a really bad job of communicating the fact that they were pointing to the six-yard box and not the penalty. So it's all about the ridiculous stance of the referee, and hopefully it's communicated the right thing to the fans. It doesn't matter whether the decision is correct or otherwise. This is absolutely spot on, by the way, Dave. And the first thing I want to talk about here is it must be a huge moment for referees because one, they must secretly enjoy knowing that they're in charge of everyone's emotional state in the next three or four seconds.

27:30And two, as Chris Shelley quite rightly points out, the audio feedback from the crowd will make the referee realise how effective their gesturing was. So it's just a great moment. Yeah, and as Chris said there, it's very important that the referee gets the particular aspects of the body language right here. Yeah, talk me through this. I need to know. I think a lot of it comes down to whether you're pointing to the spot or whether you've got your palm out flat to signify the goal kick. I think that's the right signal, isn't it? A flat palm with an outstretched arm facing downwards is goal kick.

28:04A point, obviously, to the spot, but still, I don't think you would point for a goal kick, would you? You wouldn't point to the six-yard line. Now I think about it, I think you're right. No, I think it's easier to make it clearer when you're giving a penalty because you can point right at the spot and you can kind of be quite exaggerated. We've seen refs do that. They almost crouch down and point to the spot to really emphasise it. That's harder to do with a goal kick. I mean, you almost need to do a kind of waving your hands out, like the crossing to say it's not a penalty, it's a goal kick. No, let's stop here.

28:31You can't overcomplicate it by denying the fact it's a penalty. No one was asking, there's no suggestion it should have been a penalty in your minds. You can't rule out something that you don't think could even possibly be the case, right? You're overcomplicating it. Don't worry about the negative. Maybe, but there are a lot of people that would be quite an effective way because the question you're asking here is, is that a penalty? And then they answer it. No. But the crossing of the arms, Dave, would raise the question about whether it might have been a penalty or not. And you're actually considering it.

28:55You can't do that. You've got to be unequivocal. You can shake your head. But refs shake their head all the time, don't they? They shake their head or they say, no, no way. Yeah, head shake, all right. Head shake, I'll accept. I think you're right, Charlie. I mean, I can envisage like a referee sort of running or running or walking backwards, doing not really exaggerated, but doing the little crossed arms thing and then just pointing to, you know, no goal kick sort of in the same movement rather than making it a big thing. But this also often happens, not just for penalties, but this can even sort of raise the ire of fans when they think it should be a corner and you get given a goal.

29:28You know, it gets given as a goal kick rather than a corner. Obviously, that's quite routine. But again, there's always a little moment because there'll be appeals from players and then you see it. And I always, it's something I notice on TV when the director isn't going to show the referee awarding a goal kick. It's not an interesting development. But if I'm unsure while watching the game, and I think it's a corner for my team when I'm watching the game, and then they go to a close-up of the player who might have just had the shot or the cross, and you're still not sure. You're trying to work out.

29:59Has he been given a corner? Is that player getting into position, or is he running back? Yes, 100%, because that close-up shot, you're working out whether they're moving. Are they walking away from the goal? But then you're trying to work out, would that player walk away from the goal anyway to prepare for a corner? is he running the farter he runs the more he's obviously trying to get back into position for the gold gig that's so spot on unbelievable TV directors don't help us sometimes I'm telling you this is great absolutely brilliant thank you Chris Shelley that's the listeners fascinations for this month we'll be back very shortly with their irritations

30:45Welcome back to Football Clichés. We've done your fascinations for October. It's time for your niche Football League irritations and we kick things off with David Triggs. My irritation is the assumption from commentators that there's only ever exactly five players that want to take a penalty in a penalty shootout. You hear it quite a lot that this assumption that as soon as they get to the sixth penalty taker that this person didn't want to take one. There is absolutely no logic behind it in my view. And it infuriates me every time I hear it. Thank you for allowing me to vent. Is it a wild assumption, Charlie?

31:19I mean, how many players in an average finishing 11 of a game would you expect to be properly keen on taking a penalty in a shootout and not bottling it? Yeah, I mean, I can see why. Because, yeah, it typically will be that. And now we're down to those who didn't put their hands up straight away or who, you know, weren't so keen on taking it, which I get as an assumption, which, I mean... Yeah, they weren't lobbying to take a penalty. If you're taking it sick, you weren't marching in going, I'll take one boss. I'll take one boss. Well, unless you were and you're like, please let me go fifth or fourth.

31:46No. Fuck off. We've got great. We've got five great penalty takers ahead of you, son. You're a left back. You might want, you might have just, or you might have six really good penalty takers and you might be really keen. It's quite hard with penalties, isn't it? Because you kind of, I don't know, you forget these are elite athletes who, you know, who will really back themselves. You kind of assume they're all just like, you know, weasels who are like, yep, very happy not to take, which is, but the reality though that probably is true of some players, because it is still such a big moment. They get rattled, yeah, completely.

32:12No, I'm sure there will have been instances where the players who were sixth, seventh, even eighth were keen, but there just wasn't space. We had a penalty shootout for Ribblesdale earlier this season in a first round cup game. We had five lads who put their hands up straight away and I said, right, you're the five, we'll work out the order. And then we did have someone that went, I'll take sixth. Wow. They stepped up and said, if it goes, I'll take the sixth. And I think at elite level, Obviously, we've talked a lot about how it seems that penalty, you know, long penalty shootouts seemingly more common these days.

32:43I wouldn't be surprised to see, like, let's say at the World Cup next year, if there's a big high profile penalty shootout that somebody from the Athletics, say, might write a piece and we might get a bit of detail which says they really put the emphasis on the sixth taker. Yeah. You know, they wanted this player to be sixth because if they go to sudden death, they wanted to have him ready to get it done quickly. Not implausible. Not implausible. I mean, this could be easily studied, Charlie. All we need to find out is just look back at penalty shootouts that went to at least six penalties for one team and collate all the players who took the sixth penalty in these shootouts because it would have been that the order is unlikely to change in this situation.

33:21If it gets the sixth penalty, you're not going to bump someone up the order because it suddenly becomes more urgent. So it's fairly set in stone. So we'll know who the sixth penalty taker is forever and work out, A, what the penalty record is generally, and, two, if we think that they are penalty-worthy players. so we could do this. Look at the contrast in that Euro 96 penalty shootout with the sixth men. England at Gareth Southgate who is your archetype he clearly didn't want to take one I think he'd taken one penalty before which he'd missed and was just like after five brilliant takers. But Germany's was Andy Moller wasn't it?

33:51Who scored and did that peacocky celebration he could feasibly have been like no I want to take one of the first five he looked like the type who'd back himself. Yeah it was an absolutely belting penalty as well. Dave I'm just thinking about in my wider life, when do I display sixth penalty taker energy? And it's when I'm in a restaurant and I will never ask for the bill. I'm not a bill asker, nor am I a prompter for service if things are taking a little bit longer. On tour, I always dispatch Charlie Eccleshare because I know he loves to force the issue. He's got more impatience than me and I'll send him off.

34:27So I like sort of deploying him as the Trojan horse in these situations. To be clear, yes. Certainly with asking for the bill because I think that I have no compunction about that because that's not like rude in any way. Obviously not, I know. I can't do it. That's your bread and butter. I would be warier of saying like, well, not pushing, but yeah, I'd be warier of asking like, is our food coming anytime soon? But I would still do it, but I would be sure to try not to do it in a dickish kind of way. Like in the Georgian restaurant in Cardiff. Insane. We arrived, we thought we'd have a nice early lunch.

34:56We were there for about 45 minutes waiting in an entirely empty Georgian restaurant, which I chose because I thought it might be an exotic choice. clearly wasn't very popular and Charlie not whacking around walked over to the back of the restaurant and went is the food coming any time soon and then the answer was yes four minutes I mean it was we were literally the only people in the room I'm honestly really curious to know what happened whether they were just so shocked by us being whether they had to run out and get some food or something the long walk the lonely long walk it was like that penalty long walk and then back to tell you the bad news that it was four minutes trying to keep a really straight face as he walked over to the desk not the rattle thank you for that david triggs you're absolutely right right second irritation comes from tom atkins my niche footballing irritation is lists of finds in premier league dressing rooms they're always leaked on social media like they're some amazing insight into the culture of an elite team whereas in fact all they are is a list of rules about punctuality and kit which aren't even petty enough to be interesting.

36:00Now, Charlie, you know, we are starved of true insight into the inner workings of elite level football clubs. But I feel like I do see this list published on social media about every three weeks or so. And it seems to be a sort of slightly grainy aversion each time. I think it's Aston Villa. It always seems to be Aston Villa the one thing. So it's just the same one every time, isn't it? It is. Yeah. I mean, in the age of no information and no access, I think this isn't any worse than lots of things. I mean, you know, we are, as many of the MHD listener entries over the last few months have kind of revealed, like we're constantly, anyone with any sort of information, like people have said, you know, a ground where they spot how much time is going to be added on first.

36:40and you know that kind of thing like any information is so precious that i think that i would find it annoying if people were presenting it as like revealed you know which i'm sure would happen if it was at like a big club you know the the 12 point rule plan that fired on a slot to liverpool to the title which would 100 percent happen that we would kind of massively over index this and sort of find causality between these as as was detailed there very normal oh yeah prosaic set of rules and equate it with a team's success or not. But I think just as a thing, I don't mind it so much because I don't really think people do overstate its importance too much.

37:15Maybe they do and I've just missed it. You know, the fines, the discipline culture could be a hindrance or a help depending on which way you want to talk about it. Like with all of this stuff, that's what's so ludicrous about it. It's like you just completely frame it around the ultimate outcome. You know, yeah, they were suffocated by these rules. They didn't have any room to breathe. I'm surprised. in a way that this element of dressing room culture still exists in this day and age when when you've got you know clubs are essentially they are essentially massive companies full of very high salaried employees and yet they've got this sort of ad hoc discipline system that people can be fined this and that for being late or whatever it might be and even the same thing with like bonuses and like you still hear of like players running the dressing room like the players ball and like it's it's it's a weird sort of hangover from like the 80s and and 90s era that still exists today and it's completely insulated from the from the management team and the coaching staff as well it's like it's run by the players you're absolutely right but yeah all the money goes towards the christmas party doesn't it it's yeah properly old school it hasn't really sort of moved on from there you're absolutely right but the um the leaked fine list um that always gets shared around is the aston villa one from 2022 under steven gerrard so that did the rounds july 2022 but i a simple google of it brings up stories from july 2025 of leaked aston villa fines list which is just the same one again and so i'm looking at it and it's this knackered old jpeg of a grainy list of you know no flip-flops in the shower 100 pounds forgetting cakes on birthday 50 pounds per day these are these are these are huge sums charlie i suspect that's what captures a lot of people's sort of imaginations is that's quite a lot of money what's wrong with flip-flops in a shower.

38:55Unhygienic? That shouldn't be£100 fine, should it? It's more hygienic, isn't it? What have you got for Rookas? Yeah. Snus being left anywhere is£200. Forgetting your recovery leggings. I mean, that's modern woke nonsense, isn't it? Fanny Gray finds out about that. Recovery leggings. Oh, hey. Andy, I'm wearing some of those new recovery leggings, actually. Okay. Under my suit. We need to call those DVT socks.

39:24What fines would you introduce on the Football Clichés Live Tour, Dave? I reckon it's£50 for every time Dave doesn't like his hotel and just goes and books another one ad hoc. Yeah, well, I do sort of live slightly in fear that you're going to try and fine me for not being 20 minutes early for a train. There I was at Leeds Station for the train up to Glasgow, one of the most crucial trains of all that I booked so far in advance, and Dave arrived at the station with 12 minutes to spare, and I was going spare. A mere 12 minutes. It's almost like Dave travels around for a living almost all the time and is actually quite comfortable with these margins, but that's fine.

40:00I, however, am not. But yeah,£12 fine for Charlie's just talking randomly in the dressing room before a show out of sheer nerves. There are things, yeah, I will get, I'll be the first to admit this, I will get things in my head that I then really struggle to get out, like a Foo Fighters or something. And yeah, a fine would be a good deterrent. I'll hold my hands up. Just a little insight into how we work. Right, brilliant stuff from Tom Atkins. Finally, Socrates1882 is back again. He was in the adjudication panel and now he's in listeners at Mesut Harland-Dix to round things off with your irritations for October.

40:35My minor irritation, my Mesut Harland-Dix submission, is around the use of those and that in football discourse. To give you an example, a commentator or a pundit might say, into those half spaces or into that bottom corner. What's wrong with the? Tell me which half spaces. I don't need to know which bottom corner because I can see it's their bottom corner. It's not that bottom corner. I think this is just a shortcut and a shorthand for pundits to try and seem more intelligent. But those and that in place of that. Charlie, there must be a grain of truth in the logic here that it does make your observation look a little bit more educated if you say those little pockets rather than the little pockets.

41:18But why? Well, also, though, I mean, I'm glad that those has been brought up because those often isn't you because there's, you know, typically there's a lot of like them players or, you know, them chances rather than those. Those often does. Yeah, one of them. But like those often gets overused. You also hear it with a like, you know, he gets onto that left foot, which makes more sense in a kind of like, you know, someone's I think you attain like that left foot status. That left foot of his. Yeah, but, you know, like an Iron Robin or a Salah or someone like and he just gets it onto that left foot.

41:46but you wouldn't say that about any old players left foot. So there are some subtle usages of that that do make a bit more sense. I always used to notice this in one very particular context when I used to work with Ray Parler, again on the aforementioned Round the Ground show on TalkSport. Whenever talking about the championship, without fail, he would say, you know, look, that championship, it's so tough down there. He would always say that championship, never the championship. Never heard that. So, I don't know, is it more definite? Is it more you're pointing towards it and going, that championship, that characterisable thing that we are now talking about, that is well documented.

42:26Let's take your example, Charlie, of that left foot. It's probably a close cousin of that night in Barcelona, you know, that free kick that he scored. That goal, then. That thing you already know about. So, if I say his left foot, it will feel like I've only just discovered it and he's got a documented thing in my brain. So maybe that's it. Yeah, I think so. And I'm just trying to think like with those, you know, he just gets... That's more subtle, yeah. Yeah, he just, you know, he just gets into those little pockets. That again implies that they are sort of, those pockets are specific to him in some ways.

43:00In some way. You know, there are certain players who you talk about in those terms, those kind of elusive, hard to pick up players, you know, and he'll just kind of move over into those pockets of space. This is really subtle stuff, Dave, but it's definitely a thing because if you present the difference between, yeah, he gets into little pockets, he operates in little pockets, but he operates in those little pockets. It basically narrows your focus and the speaker's focus into making those pockets seem as if they are something that's worth studying. They're not just incidental. They are the thing that we've been worrying, we've been thinking about for a while, and they're starting to become well-documented.

43:37Those little pockets, they're interesting. So it's both boasting about your knowledge, but also accepting the fact that other people might be talking about it as well. This is fascinating to me. Saying those pockets of space is slightly less defined than if you said he's in that pocket of space or the pocket of space. He's popping up in those areas rather than that specific bit of the pitch every time, which I think makes sense because it is, you know, like the hole. It's not a, there's no markings for the hole on the pitch, is it? It's just a sort of, we know where it is roughly. You can't say those holes.

44:12Yeah, you still don't take that hole. You just pop up in those holes. That hole. It gets into that hole. Oh, wow. This is fantastic. Yeah, thank you to Socrates1882. This, well, that was pure cliches. And someone with a bit more of a grasp on proper linguistics might have another theory on that. Please get in touch if you do. That was sensational stuff. Thanks to you, Charlie Eccleshare. Thank you. Thanks to you, David Walker. Thank you. Thanks to everyone for listening and contributing and everyone who came to the live shows for Clichés Live 2025. It's been an absolute pleasure. I mean, honestly, honestly, eight joyous nights chatting with people of like-minded football sensibilities every single night.

44:49And yeah, can't wait to do it again. Genuinely, it's been really good not to dwell on it too much, but it's great to meet people after the shows. And you know what I like as well, I've really enjoyed about this tour in particular, is you're starting to make friends with each other. Yeah. At one day, you won't need us anymore. I know. That is really heartwarming. On that note, actually, do you remember, I can't remember this was on, we got, someone pointed us something on Listen Fair Play. And it was about that time where there was like a date where people met on a first date off Tinder or one of the apps.

45:21And then they realized they had like a mutual love of football cliches. But that was a few years ago. Whatever happened to that couple? If that was you, let us know. Get invited to the wedding. But yes, I would like to, that is a mere addendum. It really has been amazing to meet so many people. And yeah, I think as Dave says, that's spot on, seeing people bonding these live show drinks. Well, there we are. Thanks to everyone for listening. We'll be back on Tuesday. See you then.