Reading RA - From the Middle

The language of football

If someone mentions ‘language’ in connection with a game of football, you probably think of the language exchanged amongst the players or the chants of the Millwall (and other) fans, especially about the officials. Bad language.

Certainly language is a problem for referees, and so for players and managers, and I don’t mean the problem facing Vialli with his multi-lingual squad. Although the bit about language has recently been re-written, Law 12 is still absolutely clear, at least in its intention. A player is shown the red card and sent off if he ‘uses offensive, insulting or abusive language’.

Unfortunately (or fortunately maybe) all our sensitivities are different, and hours are spent pretty fruitlessly discussing what is and what is not acceptable. In the end it has to be in the opinion of the referee and for once we are accused of being too tolerant. This season we have been instructed by FIFA not to be so, especially in respect of racist remarks.

All right for some . .

Of course, some of our foreign players have a distinct advantage over the average English referee, as Klinsman famously pointed out:

"I swear a lot, but the advantage is that, having played abroad, I can choose a different language from the referee’s".

The secret languages of soccer

Aside from the bad language, football has created its own private language of fascinating new words and phrases or rather, common words used in a different way. Some of it – simple examples are ‘long ball’, ‘route 1’ , and ‘end-to-end stuff’- makes no sense to anyone outside the game, though ’sick as a parrot’ could be guessed! And what about the manager who ‘wants to get a result’. Is he afraid the game will be abandoned? Or ‘a game of two halves’. Aren’t they all (Law 7)? Which reminds me of the player who ‘sliced the ball’. Is that where the two halves come in? And so on.

The media experts have developed their own language habits too. Aside from their usual hype to try to stimulate interest, they indirectly comment on events and give away their opinions and prejudices by the language they use. Frequent examples: ‘The referee has given a corner’ means ‘I (the commentator from my position 100 yards away) know full well it was a goal-kick to England, and the referee’s got it wrong again’. ‘X has won the penalty’ means that ‘a player has deceived the referee into giving a penalty’.

The language of realisation

Action replays are seen as a threat to the officials but usually prove them right. What else they do is reveal how the language of the commentator changes as realisation dawns. See if you recognise who this is. A typical scenario:

An England defender kicks an attacker up in the air. Whistle, yellow card. Commentator: ‘I didn’t see much wrong in that, but this guy (the referee) has been a bit pernickety all afternoon’.

After the first action replay: ‘Well he did make contact but that’s what the game’s all about. Some of these continentals make a meal of it.’.

After the second replay: ‘Maybe he caught him a bit harder than we thought at first’.

After the third replay: ‘Well you can see why the referee thought he had to book him’Of course at no time are the words ‘the referee made a correct decision’ conceded – they don’t seem to be in this particular vocabulary.

Brian Palmer

© B. Palmer 1999

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