Cliche Counting

The Forest game was full of cliches wasn’t it? It was all the more so as my Dad had been to Vision Express (or some other well-known vision enhancement device provider). Oh thank goodness, I thought, as we perched in our usual spot upstairs in the Barclay, I may not have to constantly answer the “Who was that?” question, which is made all the more difficult as he doesn’t always have his eyes on the game. Frankly, before the new glasses I wasn’t sure he could even see the ball. Oh and he’s a little bit mutton, and can barely hear me, (and I’m quite loud) so I sound like I have some kind of team line up Tourette’s for 90 minutes.

Anyway back to the cliches, the upper Barclay loves them, and of course the one that has been whispered a lot of late is the “turned a corner” one, even Puntino dared say it out loud in his review of the 5-1 win. It got me thinking as I was dropping off to sleep, lullabied by a 5-1 win, who actually turned the first corner? Or was it a super bendy corner whipped in from the right like a Brexit banana? I woke up with a thirst for knowledge…

Most of the research I uncovered suggests the phrase originates from the 1800’s possibly the 1860’s and is equivalent ‘to passing around the corner in a race, particularly the last corner’. Akin to entering the home straight. The 1860’s also saw the first oval running tracks we are familiar with today, but surely the ancient Greeks when they ran the diaulos two length race of the stadion in 724BC had to turn a corner somewhere? I also found one article speculating it had its origins in shipping but no date: ‘Ships that had sailed past the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn were said to have ‘turned the corner’. I’ll stick with the sporting connection and say it was coined in 724BC and claim it as the oldest cliche of them all.

So Dad, in his new glasses, SEES Pritchard (no it’s not Naismith, Dad) cut inside on the edge of the Forest box in front of the River End (always will be the River End, even when swallowed up by a swollen Wensum fuelled by storm surges and melted icebergs); “Go on lad, make a name for yourself”.

It’s then I realised that maybe Dad should have gone to Specsavers, as Pritchard had already scored two. “Making a name for yourself” is a well-used clich’e in the Upper Barclay, urging “the lads”‘ to shoot, even from the half way line, which is what Wes did (almost anyway as his shots can’t actually reach the goal from there – not my words but those of Alex Neil) with his “cultured left foot” Argh! There’s another.

So it was all “going swimmingly” (must investigate that one), when some “schoolboy defending” (there’s another) let in Ross McCormack to ruin a “cleanshit” (I love this clich’e, it’s my personal favourite). “Clean sheet” incidentally isn’t a phrase that’s made it to Italy as Joe Hart found out when he translated the phrase directly into Italian.

So cheers on the final whistle at a 5-1 score line you’d think that would be the end of clich’e counting but some of the best/worse are heard on the way out…

“I was worried we had scored too early” Blimey we scored THREE ‘too early’ for goodness sake.

“Finally a squad that looks good on paper, is starting to do the business.” There’s two in there.

“It really should have been a cricket score” Personally, I think five in a game will do just fine and has there ever been a 346-7? No.

It was 5 fabulous goals “out of the top drawer” and cliches too numerous I lost count, but the best thing is having my team line up tourettes cured – sort of. Love you Dad.