I find all forms of language interesting. In my opinion, it doesn’t matter about grammar, pronunciation or accent. The only thing that matters when speaking or writing is intelligibility. In other words, the only thing that matters is that the person speaking or writing is understood. That is particularly important for sports commentators.
If you were listening to Alan Green’s commentary at the end of England v Iceland last night on BBC Radio 5, you’d have heard this:
“And that is it.....Fantastic win for Iceland. ….Don’t take anything away from Iceland, they were outstanding……Brilliant……They denied England everything…..but England were shocking……”
“Don’t take anything away from Iceland.” What did he mean by that? “Don’t take anything away from *winning team*” is a phrase that commentators often use at the end of a game. It must have been something to do with Iceland’s performance as a football team. It couldn’t have anything to do with anything else as that would be irrelevant to them winning a football match.
I have never heard that phrase being explained. I hear it a lot at the end of football matches and I have come to understand that it means that a team have won a game because they played very well indeed. There had been no element of luck in the win and they would have won no matter what had happened.
So why did Alan Green finish that piece of commentary by saying, “but England were shocking……”?
By saying that England were shocking, he surely was taking something away from Iceland’s performance. He was saying that perhaps Iceland wouldn’t have won if England had played as well as they could but that is silly. It could be said of any winning team. England wouldn’t have beaten West Germany in 1966 if West Germany had played a bit better.
Before the game, Roy Hodgson, the manager and coach of England was asked what England needed to do in order to progress in the tournament.
“We need to get three or four results,” he said. So, everything should have been good because England definitely got results.
0 - 0 is a result, so is 1 -2 and so is 3 - 0 but sadly for him and us, 1 - 2 is but it isn’t and never has been the same as a “win”. When and why in football parlance, did “result” become a synonym for “win”?
Apparently, according to the television co-commentator who I think was Glen Hoddle, one of the reasons that England were so poor was their lack of a “Release Man”.
What the hell is a Release Man? It is obviously important because Hoddle asked more than once during the game, “Where’s the release man?”
Now I don’t want to take anything away from Glen Hoddle but he does talk bollocks sometimes.
No wonder England were “shocking”. Maybe this explains everything because I don’t suppose that any of the playing squad ever have a clue what the coaching staff are talking about at training sessions.
This confusion leads to these outcomes:
1. When Hodgson told them that he wanted a result, they all had different scorelines in mind. Too many aimed at 1 - 2.
2. Rooney thought he was following instructions when he deliberately sent every pass to a player in a blue shirt.
3. This explains why all crosses into the penalty box were sent fifteen yards over the head of the furthest England player.
4. I couldn’t understand at the time why almost every shot on goal went 10 feet over the bar but I do now.
5. Too many of the players spent the game searching for the Release Man or,
6. Perhaps, they were all following different plans.
Everything makes sense now.
The England squad, collectively, earns around £2.1 million pounds a week. In my opinion, that is money that would be better spent on the National Health.
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