Learn English Through Football

On this football language podcast for learners of English we look at some of the phrases from the recent Chelsea vs Tottenham Premier League match, including ‘touchline ban‘; ‘needle‘ and ‘clash‘. You can read the transcript for this podcast below, while you can also check out our glossary of footballing phrases here and visit our site to access all our previous posts and podcasts. If you have any suggestions or questions then you can contact us at admin@languagecaster.com
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Learn English Through Football Podcast: Touchline Ban – Chelsea v Tottenham 2022-23 Season
DF: Hello again everyone and welcome to Languagecaster.com – the football-language podcast for learners of English who love the beautiful game of football. I’m Damian and I’m back in London after a wonderful trip around the north of Europe (to Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Belgium!). Now, I’m one half of the languagecaster team, the other member of course is Damon who’s based in Tokyo, in Japan. And Damon posted a great podcast last week all about the Manchester United defeat at Brentford – a 4-0 thrashing – in which he focused on the phrases ‘play off the park‘ and ‘well worth the win‘. If you haven’t heard it yet I’d recommend it and of course I’d also recommend everyone to subscribe to the podcast – simply come along to the site and click the button!
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (In Hindi)
Now, on today’s podcast I am going to look at some of the language from the Chelsea versus Tottenham 2-2 draw and in particular about some of the language to describe the managers in this feisty affair – and this refers to the fact that both managers were sent off at the end of the game and that there was some bad feeling or bad blood between the two sets of players and of course both sets of fans! I’ll look at the phrases, ‘needle’; ‘clash’ and ‘touchline ban‘.
Needle
OK, let’s start by looking at the word ‘needle‘ which is often used to describe teams or players who simply do not like each other. This might be because of local rivalry – so there is some needle between Fulham and Brentford as both teams are from the west of London. But it could also be due to an incident in a previous match that has led to bad blood between the two clubs. So, in the example of Spurs and Chelsea we can say that the needle comes from both local rivalry and from a previous incident, in this case the ‘Battle of the Bridge’ when the 2-2 draw in 2016 prevented Spurs from winning the title. The game was famous,