

Football Cliches
Adam Hurrey & Goalhanger
Deconstructing the gloriously unique language of football – the words, the phrases and the tiny things you didn't think you cared about – with Adam Hurrey, Charlie Eccleshare & David Walker.Visit nordvpn.com/cliches to get four extra months on a two-year plan with NordVPN
Episodes
Mentioned books

Jul 28, 2025 • 43min
Goalkeepers' headers & elasticos on the deck of the Titanic: The listeners' loves & hates*
Adam Hurrey, Charlie Eccleshare and David Walker entertain this month's listener entries for Mesut Haaland Dicks, as the Clichés faithful nominate their niche footballing fascinations and irritations.
Among the selections are the body language of players who should have had the ball squared to them but their team scored anyway, high-risk extra-curricular goalkeeping activity, unrealistic football skills in films and the lack of chips on sale at top-level football stadia.
Sign up for Dreamland, the new members-only Football Clichés experience, to access our exclusive new show and much more: https://dreamland.footballcliches.com
Get your ticket for the Football Clichés Live tour this October: https://tickets.footballcliches.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jul 24, 2025 • 52min
The Agyemang Cacophony, the storm-weathering threshold & how clubs “get their man”
Adam Hurrey is joined on the midweek Adjudication Panel by Charlie Eccleshare & David Walker. On the agenda: a cultural review of England 2 Italy 1, Alan Brazil gets his head around the "Barclaysman" concept, the threshold for "weathering an early storm", Florian Wirtz blind-ranking potatoes and Troy Deeney offers some precious insight into being an elite-level player.
Meanwhile, the panel discuss when it is appropriate to say a club have "got their man" in the transfer market and suggest some unoriginal football articles that never need to be written again.
Sign up for Dreamland, the new members-only Football Clichés experience, to access our exclusive new show and much more: https://dreamland.footballcliches.com
Get your ticket for the Football Clichés Live tour this October: https://dreamland.footballcliches.com
Visit nordvpn.com/cliches to get four extra months on a two-year plan with NordVPN Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jul 21, 2025 • 42min
Talispersons, textbook Turkish Super Lig & time limits for the commentator's curse
Adam Hurrey is joined on the Adjudication Panel by Charlie Eccleshare and David Walker. On the agenda: Watford calling their new striker "free-scoring", the statute of limitations on a commentator's curse, adventurous commentators in UEFA Conference League qualifying, Besiktas find the most Besiktas solution to being snubbed by Kyle Walker-Peters, two-cap England internationals in Austro-Bavarian Christmas horror films and a 9/10 example of "the Lionel Messi Of [Industry X]"
Sign up for Dreamland, the new members-only Football Clichés experience, to access our exclusive new show and much more: https://dreamland.footballcliches.com
Get your ticket for the Football Clichés Live tour this October: https://dreamland.footballcliches.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jul 16, 2025 • 47min
The threshold for being "rudderless" & Tour de France riders as footballers
Adam Hurrey is joined on the midweek Adjudication Panel by Charlie Eccleshare & David Walker. On the agenda: The knowledgeable Wimbledon crowd being too knowledgeable, ex-Tottenham midfield maestros in West African percussion, Adam's addiction to identifying football matches in the background of TV shows, questionable depictions of the football calendar in Danish science fiction novels and much more.
Meanwhile, the panel give their vivid images of Tour de France riders as football players, based on their name alone.
Sign up for Dreamland, the new members-only Football Clichés experience, to access our exclusive new show and much more: https://dreamland.footballcliches.com
Get your ticket for the Football Clichés Live tour this October: https://dreamland.footballcliches.com
Visit nordvpn.com/cliches to get four extra months on a two-year plan with NordVPN Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jul 14, 2025 • 45min
Pre-season trophies, Iran in the Championship... and what happened to shin splints?
Adam Hurrey is joined on the Adjudication Panel by Charlie Eccleshare and David Walker. On the agenda: England meeting the Euro 2025 "lift-off" criteria, unexpected new players in the transfer-reporting game, Aston Villa marksmen in Basque hip-hop lyrics, an unorthodox analogy for Iran's terror threat to the UK, 90s football injuries you don't hear about, and much more.
Sign up for Dreamland, the new members-only Football Clichés experience, to access our exclusive new show and much more: https://dreamland.footballcliches.com
Get your ticket for the Football Clichés Live tour this October: https://dreamland.footballcliches.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jul 9, 2025 • 44min
Overage youth team mentors & the quickest repaying of a transfer fee ever
Adam Hurrey is joined on the midweek Adjudication Panel by Charlie Eccleshare & David Walker. On the agenda: Commentators vs Fancy Kit Fonts, Joao Pedro (almost) literally repays a chunk of his transfer fee, politicians getting football wrong Pt.1,586, the club most likely to sign the current Free Agent XI, and much more.
Sign up for Dreamland, the new members-only Football Clichés experience, to access our exclusive new show and much more: https://dreamland.footballcliches.com
Get your ticket for the Football Clichés Live tour this October: https://dreamland.footballcliches.com
Visit https://nordvpn.com/cliches to get four extra months on a two-year plan with NordVPN Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jul 7, 2025 • 42min
Giving 40,000%, Test Match Andy Townsend & "Can you explore a swoop?”
Adam Hurrey is joined on the Adjudication Panel by Charlie Eccleshare and David Walker. On the agenda: Dave's karaoke with an EFL goal machine's wife, the tennis equivalent of a goal going in off the crossbar, a possible world record for a player’s exaggerated percentage of effort given for their team, Watford's cowardly kit statement, a familiar crowd noise pops up in a 2002 ITV drama and Richard Keys takes on....Wimbledon's Royal Box.
Meanwhile, the panel tackle the two biggest philosophical questions of our time: can you "plot an exodus"? And can you "explore a swoop"?
Sign up for Dreamland, the new members-only Football Clichés experience, to access our exclusive new show and much more: https://dreamland.footballcliches.com
Get your ticket for the Football Clichés Live tour this October: https://dreamland.footballcliches.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jul 2, 2025 • 55min
Wimbledon tennis players as footballers & the floodgates threshold
Adam Hurrey is joined on the midweek Adjudication Panel by Charlie Eccleshare & David Walker. On the agenda: The return of an allegedly iconic football TV programme, a never-before-seen method of laying out a starting XI, fears for an England team in a European major-tournament heatwave and the hypothetical situation of a team that wins every single game 1-0.
Meanwhile, the panel imagine Wimbledon tennis players as footballers and decide when a game's "floodgates" can be opened.
Sign up for Dreamland, the new members-only Football Clichés experience, to access our exclusive new show and much more: https://dreamland.footballcliches.com
Get your ticket for the Football Clichés Live tour this October: https://dreamland.footballcliches.com
Download SAILY in your app store and use our code CLICHES at checkout to get an exclusive 15% off your first purchase Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jun 30, 2025 • 46min
Stopping Celeste's flame, pre-season lingo & Jhon Duran's reverse-gear career
Adam Hurrey is joined on the Adjudication Panel by Charlie Eccleshare and David Walker. On the agenda: Celeste refusing to play the Super Sunday theme tune at Glastonbury, the club we really should have predicted would sign a nine-goal striker called Vivaldo, the prospect of substituted players being interviewed live on TV next season, Jhon Duran's curious career path, Conor McNamara's freestyle Club World Cup commentary and schools acting like Premier League clubs.
Sign up for Dreamland, the new members-only Football Clichés experience, to access our exclusive new show and much more: https://dreamland.footballcliches.com
Get your ticket for the Football Clichés Live tour this October: https://dreamland.footballcliches.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jun 25, 2025 • 1h 8min
5-a-side injury updates & watching TV football from an acute angle: The listeners' loves & hates
Adam Hurrey, Charlie Eccleshare and David Walker entertain this month's listener entries for Mesut Haaland Dicks, as the Clichés faithful nominate their niche footballing fascinations and irritations.
Among the selections are the injury reports in 5-a-side group chats, players who look like they think throw-ins are beneath them, the horror of watching a game on a TV from an angle of less than 40 degrees and the unsatisfying asterisk that looms over at least half a dozen major international tournament winners since 1954.
Meanwhile, the Adjudication Panel ponder how many departing players make an "exodus".
Sign up for Dreamland, the new members-only Football Clichés experience, to access our exclusive new show and much more: https://dreamland.footballcliches.com
Get your ticket for the Football Clichés Live tour this October:
https://myticket.co.uk/artists/football-cliches-live Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices