‘Soccer’, ‘Fancy Dan’ and more missed football phrases…

Matt Stead

Last week I offered up some of the more annoying fashionable football phrases. But this week I’m looking at some of the best expressions that have largely fallen out of use and need reviving…

 

Get right up his backside
In the days before any of us even knew that anyone might indulge in such a practice for sexual gratification, this could be said without so much as a snigger to describe close, aggressive defending. This was a job it did very well indeed and it hasn’t been successfully replaced, so let’s revive it even if it does allow us a wee smirk.

 

Turn on a sixpence
We’ve not had sixpences since 1971. They were a small silver coin, worth two-and-a-half New Pence, but the term persisted for a couple of decades. But now 49 years on from decimalisation, it no longer means anything to anyone under the age of 50. However, it was an elegant and efficient term to express a player’s ability to change direction deftly and efficiently in a confined space. Today it could be a penny.

 

The onion bag
A term coined many moons ago to describe goal nets. Onions still come in nets but for some reason we’ve moved on from this term, despite Tommy Smyth’s attempts to revive it on USA television for many years. These days we just call them nets, which is utilitarian and accurate, I guess, but lacks the romance of a bulging onion bag.

 

Dodgy keeper
This was the go-to chant for any crowd to adopt when an opposition goalie had made even the smallest of slips or mistakes. While “Aaahhhyourshit” has survived, “dodgy keeper” has fallen by the wayside, perhaps because today ‘dodgy’ evokes other, far less savoury activities than merely letting a ball slip through your fingers.

That seems a shame as it was a nuanced expression which, in two words, perfectly described, not a bad goalkeeper, but one who was prone to making a mistake, which isn’t the same thing at all. It has not been replaced properly. “He’s always got a rick in him,” is the nearest we have and that is more long-winded, clumsy and inelegant. Bring back the dodgy keeper.

 

Agricultural challenge
We all loved an agricultural challenge. Like all the best expressions, it has a poetic element which says so much in just two words. It was, of course, a term reserved for one of those tackles that took the ball, the man and often ploughed a long furrow in the pitch whilst doing so, evoking images of tilling the earth with large items of iron machinery.

The term has lost purchase in the modern game because agricultural challenges have been outlawed and possibly because kids now grow up thinking food comes from supermarkets, rather than being the produce of the earth, so the word ‘agricultural’ has little meaning anymore. But as we all get more in touch with nature, let’s bring it back.

 

Soccer
The sneering at the word ‘soccer’ by insular Brits who seem to think its use is a plastic word and part of the Americanisation of the game, has bullied soccer out of common usage. However, it is one of the game’s oldest terms, being used back in football’s Victorian roots, deriving from Association Football. Soccer annuals, soccer schools and soccer balls were commonplace right into the early 90s when we used to play Sensible Soccer. It is a lovely word. Very much the satin silk to football’s hessian, the double ‘c’ investing an exotic element. There is no good reason for it not to become the dominant term once again.

 

Gloveman
There have been several words used to describe the goalkeeper down the years, but gloveman works so well because it uses the distinct thing about the goalkeeper: gloves. Or it did until outfield players began also wearing gloves and then the term seemed to wither on the vine of football’s lexicon. But given the modern keeper’s gloves these days are such a literally huge part of the game, it deserves reviving. I am the gloveman, they are the glovemen, goo goo g’joob.

 

Up and under
The ‘up and under’ was coined by Yorkshire rugby league commentator Eddie Waring to describe a ball booted up into the air which everyone would then run to get under. Waring was hugely popular in the 60s to the 80s, and became an informal sort of role model for every northern granddad. His expression leaked into football because it perfectly described a massive hoof ball, usually from the keeper, the sort of ball that contractually obliged your captain or coach to shout “second ball!” as it plummeted back to earth with snow on it.

Of course, today, football is so in love with itself that the ‘up and under’ is frowned upon as dumb football and those who deploy it as dumb players and the term has fallen out of use as a result. But I’ll tell you this, the next time there’s a big clearance, you’re going to need a term to describe it and ‘up and under’ does that perfectly.

 

Fancy Dan
First used in the late 30s to describe anyone who was a bit flashy or who was thought to be all style and no substance. Who Dan was seems lost to time, but in football the FD was never a good thing. Somehow, the players who had great skill and liked to show it off were thought insubstantial and self-indulgent in comparison to a big meaty centre-half who would get right up your arse with an agricultural challenge. Even the word ‘fancy’ had accusatory gay implications in the 1970s.

Foreign players were very prone to being thought of as Fancy Dans with their exotic skills and formations. This, by the way, was A Bad Thing. But in today’s more enlightened times, the Fancy Dan needs reclaiming as a term to describe the sort of clever players that we all love to see ply their trade, even if they’re not called Dan.

 

John Nicholson