For Our Sins: The Clichés Pod Archive

After three years and 262 glorious episodes for The Athletic, the Football Clichés podcast is moving to a new home.

The back catalogue will stay right here for you to revisit but Adam, Charlie and David’s exploration of the language of football (and beyond) will continue here: https://lnk.to/kdWOMyTA

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The Athletic's Adam Hurrey is joined by Charlie Eccleshare and - in his final appearance - David Walker for the closing Adjudication Panel of the season. On the agenda: the Premier League's "Pure Referee's Name XI", a deep data dive on footballers' appearances on celebrity TV shows, the criteria for "waltzing through" a defence, a textbook end-of-season rallying cry from Sean Dyche and Richard Keys' Premier League predictions revisited.

Meanwhile, the panel decide who is and isn't allowed to be included in the "spine" of a team and enjoy David's best bits from his three years of the Clichés pod.

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The Football Clichés Quiz returns for its eighth edition, and the stakes have been raised for defending champion Michael Cox as his challenger this time is none other than Adam Hurrey himself, with past-winner Charlie Eccleshare stepping into the quizmaster's chair.

Cox and Hurrey duke it out over another five rounds of niche footballing knowledge, including the Keys & Gray round, guessing the price of video calls with retired footballers on Cameo, mid-00s world cup squad battles and much more.

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The Athletic's Adam Hurrey is joined by Charlie Eccleshare and David Walker for the Adjudication Panel. On the agenda: What type of goal is the most "still had work to do" goal possible, the No 1 religious reference to deploy during a live TV commentary, the greatest recorded example of something other than a goal being "cheered like a goal", ambient household noise and the "Phantom Drury Effect", and the lowest-profile footballer who could end up on a celebrity reality TV show.

Meanwhile, the panel examine a US term for a goalkeeper spilling a low cross in their own six-yard box, while Charlie's Premier League Years memory skills go beyond parody.

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The Athletic's Adam Hurrey is joined by Charlie Eccleshare and David Walker for a midweek edition of the Adjudication Panel. On the agenda: some tense Serie A small talk with an Italian, the Russian football equivalent of being “on the beach”, the concept of being "the first name on the teamsheet", whether a goalkeeper can ever be "on fire" and some football-inspired language from the wider world.

Meanwhile, the panel ponder why some footballing acts are said to be out of the “top drawer” and look back at Howard Webb's bid for VAR transparency on Sky's Monday Night Football.

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The Athletic's Adam Hurrey is joined by Charlie Eccleshare and David Walker for the Adjudication Panel. On the agenda: stress-testing a “knows the club” coefficient model, the threshold for a club “going down with a whimper”, an exhaustive list of football’s “promised lands” and whether Michael Olise's latest assist was the epitome of a "ping".

Meanwhile, the panel discuss Arsenal vs Brighton in the Premier League's "day out" derby and a retiring referee giving his cards to a fan in the crowd.

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The Athletic's Adam Hurrey, Charlie Eccleshare and David Walker welcome the listeners' May entries for Mesut Haaland Dicks, with the Clichés faithful nominating their niche footballing fascinations and irritations.

Among the selections are the futility of fans trying to put off penalty-takers, the dying art of commentators just listing players’ names as they pass the ball, some niche observations on the wearing of base layers, the non-committal language for champions-elect and the precise parameters for shouting "WELL IN!"

Meanwhile, the Adjudication Panel hear of the most forward-thinking under-5s football team in the world and admire the inevitable end game for Erling Haaland vs Dixie Dean.

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The Athletic's Adam Hurrey is joined by Charlie Eccleshare and David Walker for the Adjudication Panel. On the agenda: The managerial disciplinary tightrope, when old-fashioned No 9s first became “old-fashioned”, the subtle difference between "score" and "scoreline", the language of Erling Haaland not scoring a goal, an entirely understandable misconception of “at sixes and sevens” and tenuous football curses.

Meanwhile, the panel help a listener with his spice-rack league table and decide where and when it's most appropriate for a player to do the “geeing up the crowd” gesture.

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The Athletic's Adam Hurrey is joined by Charlie Eccleshare and David Walker for a midweek edition of the Adjudication Panel. On the agenda: the spiralling language of Chelsea's meltdown, ChatGPT selects its Mesut Haaland Dicks, reducing Sam Allardyce's Leeds unveiling to its purest essence, how far into added time counts as "deep into added time" and what constitutes a title-race "twist".

Meanwhile, the panel try and pin down when football's "modern era" began and Charlie wrestles with a encyclopaedia-level definition of "The Barclays".

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The Athletic's Adam Hurrey is joined by Charlie Eccleshare and David Walker for the latest edition of the Adjudication Panel. On the agenda: Kasper Schmeichel's Monday Night Football punditry debut, Roy Keane spotted at the snooker, Rishi Sunak’s Northern Premier League Division One East play-off final rallying cry, podcaster Sam Allardyce returning to top-flight management and a 27-year wait for the final piece of a football-culture jigsaw is finally, sensationally ended.

Meanwhile, the panel decide if a listener should name their child after the Championship top scorer and if a new signing could ever be described as "like a player returning from a long injury".

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