
Football Cliches
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
Latest episodes

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:
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Jun 23, 2025 • 1h 1min
”The most involved-goals man", Swiss Army knives & watching the Roy Keane film trailer
Adam Hurrey is joined on the Adjudication Panel by Charlie Eccleshare and David Walker. On the agenda: which player could most plausibly play for all 32 Club World Cup teams, the inevitability of Ref Cam in the Premier League, more inappropriate EFL new-signing language, slightly desperate football references in Channel 4 TV listings, describing players as "Swiss Army knives" and the first glimpse of Steve Coogan’s big-screen Mick McCarthy
Meanwhile, the panel decide the cut-off point for declaring a successful penalty was "never in doubt" and what it would take for a player operating outside Europe to win the Ballon d'Or.
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 18, 2025 • 1h 16min
The Pure Bundesliga XI
Adam Hurrey is joined by Charlie Eccleshare, David Walker and Bundesliga commentator Kevin Hatchard to compile the quintessential lineup of players from modern German football.
The selection process involves some unhinged goalkeepers, giant defenders fathered by US military servicemen, lesser-known Brazilians, meat-and-potatoes midfielders, Japanese imports who stayed forever, German Under-21 internationals with English mums, a walking advert fort German footballing mentality, a Brazilian striker with no more than four caps for the Selecao and a lumbering German journeyman to spearhead the whole thing.
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
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 16, 2025 • 55min
Count Infantula's Club World Cup, referee kit launches & goal sandwiches
Adam Hurrey is joined on the Adjudication Panel by Charlie Eccleshare and David Walker. On the agenda: some early Club World Cup observations (including DAZN's motley crew of pundits and co-commentators), an unexpected Nigel Farage-based analogy, barely-audible Andy Hinchcliffe co-commentary in Ukrainian dance music, Kyle Walker's Turkish Super Lig credentials, a double header of football references in audiobooks and the Lampard & Gerrard of darts.
Meanwhile, the panel examine the concept of "showing too much of the ball to the defender" and enjoy the launch material for next season's referee kits.
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 11, 2025 • 56min
Heavy England shirts, absolute clinics & Club World Cup curiosity levels
& David Walker. On the agenda: the half-hearted fallout from England 1-3 Senegal, Scotland's George Hirst mixes up his metaphorical goalscoring relief, why Claudio Ranieri should go to the World Cup, an unexpected exclamation from a South American commentator and cash vs curiosity as the Club World Cup looms.
Meanwhile, the panel enjoy some elite-level Reddit pedantry and thrash out the definition of putting on a footballing "clinic".
Sign up for Dreamland, the new members-only Football Clichés experience, to access our exclusive new show and much more: 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 9, 2025 • 45min
Dixon is the new Lawro, Ange's logical next move & "where the dust mites dwell”
Adam Hurrey is joined on the Adjudication Panel by Charlie Eccleshare and David Walker. On the agenda: the Clichés army react to Dave's big news, Thomas Tuchel enters familiar territory for an England manager, Lee Dixon continues to settle into his co-commentary caricature, Ange Postecoglou and other managers "always welcome back at [Stadium X]", acceptable new-signing adjectives from EFL social media admins, Conor Coady's hyper-logical next move and news of the 2025 Football Clichés Live tour.
Meanwhile, the panel tick off the only club in the top five tiers of English football to have never been mentioned on the pod.
Sign up for Dreamland, the new members-only Football Clichés experience, to access our exclusive new show and much more: 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

Jun 5, 2025 • 43min
Vivaldo, the "end to end" threshold & the authenticity of Lionel Messi's pub crisps
Adam Hurrey is joined on the midweek Adjudication Panel by Charlie Eccleshare & Nick Miller. On the agenda: the bonus Tom Cruise punditry we all wanted to hear, the traditional opening bell for the England/World Cup news cycle, tracking down the Richard Keys commentary from an early-90s management sim, the unofficial Cristiano Ronaldo classical music night, Dan Walker mixes up Baroque composers with generic Brazilian footballers and the club who are most obviously going to sign Aleksandar Mitrovic this summer.
Meanwhile, the panel decide the point at which a game can be described as "end to end" and discover whose name has been uttered the most in Cliches pod history: Keys or Gray?
Sign up for Dreamland, the new members-only Football Clichés experience, to access our exclusive new show and much more: 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 https://saily.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jun 2, 2025 • 45min
Tom Cruise on short corners, VAR at Tesco and introducing... Dreamland
Adam Hurrey is joined on the Adjudication Panel by Charlie Eccleshare and David Walker. On the agenda: US advertising getting the Champions League exquisitely wrong, the suffocating sycophancy of watching the final with David Beckham, Tom Cruise and Tom Brady, out-of-work football managers in basketball novels, 7/10 football debates in Netflix crime dramas, Tesco introduces VAR at its self-service checkouts and a Clichés listener goes above and beyond in service to the podcast.
Also, the pod unveils Dreamland, the new members-only Football Clichés experience. Sign up now at 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

May 28, 2025 • 1h 31min
Proper clubs & "woke pressing" with the Screen Rot Podcast
The pod welcomes Jacob Hawley and Jake Farrell - aka The Screen Rot Podcast - for the latest edition of Mesut Haaland Dicks, as they choose their six personal fascinations and irritations of football.
Among their selections are the criteria for being a "proper football club", judging anonymous 5-a-side teammates by the obscurity of the kit they’re wearing, referee bias when the ball is being kept in the corner and the modern scourge of cross-sport tribute celebrations.
Meanwhile, the epic search for the commentary sampled in the theme tune to Gazzetta Football Italia comes to a glorious conclusion.
Download SAILY in your app store and use our code CLICHES at checkout to get an exclusive 15% off your first purchase
Adam's new book, Extra Time Beckons, Penalties Loom: How to Use (and Abuse) The Language of Football, is OUT NOW: http://geni.us/ExtraTimeBeckons
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