Thursday was glorious, wasn’t it? Scotland qualified for a major football tournament for the first time in 22 years. Between now and next summer you’ll see a lot of column inches devoted to the game and hear a lot of discussion on TV. It will be unavoidable.
This suits me, I love football. But I’ve never really liked the way it is written about. It is a succession of clichés, imprecise terms, and jargon. I often wonder what non-football people make of it.
I concede that much can be explained in a few words if jargon is employed. But only if you know the terms. Football people know what 4-4-2 is. They understand the diamond, a flat back four, and catenaccio, whereas these formations would take several paragraphs to fully explain.
Terms like “bicycle kick” are shorthand for a complicated action undertaken by a player instead of detailing the entire movement. Though the “bicycle” part jars with a literalist like me. The movement requires a player to be upside down in mid air, his legs performing a scissors action. It doesn’t look remotely like being on a bicycle.
“Holding on to the ball” is odd too. You hold things with your hands. And a “cross”, despite the name, should travel halfway, not all the way, across the pitch. Even within football there is dispute over the origin of “nutmeg”. It is possibly rhyming slang for legs, but wouldn’t that make it “nutmegs”, plural?
My least favourite term is “back of the net”. To hit the back of the net you’d need to be behind the goal. It should be “front of the net”.
The language used in football is one of the codes we use in society. Speaking fluent football gains you acceptance with other obsessives.
All other pastimes, from campanology to roller derbies, have codes. I enjoy watching like-minded people talk in their own language, whether they are nuclear physicists or knitters, especially if they have just met. It is heart-warming to see strangers find something in common. Their body language changes and their facial expressions lighten as they connect.
Social codes have a power we understand without even thinking. Not sitting next to another person in a cinema (if it isn’t crowded), or joining the end of a queue, not pushing in, are non-verbal codes we instinctively adhere to. We all want to fit in.
With that thought in mind, you’ll find the next seven months living in this country more enjoyable if you can distinguish Fergie-time from extra time.
Word of the week
Pauciloquent (adjective)
Using few words. EG: “You’ll find very few pauciloquent football pundits over the next couple of months”.
Read the latest Oh my word! every Saturday in The Courier. Contact me at sfinan@dctmedia.co.uk
