In this football language post we look at some words connected to Halloween that appear in football. There is a transcript with this listening activity along with some vocabulary practice and you can also check out our football glossary and football cliches pages for hundreds more explanations of the language of soccer. If you have questions or comments about this or any other phrase then email us at: [email protected].

Learning English Through Football Podcast: Halloween Language

DF: Hello everyone, this is Damian from the Learning English Through Football team. I hope we are all doing well and enjoying the football. How did your favourite team get on this week? My team Tottenham had a nightmare against the Red Devils as they were well beaten 0-3 at home by Manchester United this weekend. And so as at it’s Halloween we thought we’d look at some football words and phrases connected to all things horror, including of course nightmare and horror show two phrases that could easily describe that Spurs performance yesterday!

Now, don’t forget there is of course a transcript to go with this podcast – it’s great for teaching and learning English – and if you have any questions or comments about any of the football language in this report then you can contact us here at: [email protected].

Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (Brazilian fan).

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Nightmare

DF: OK, let’s start our Halloween tour with the word nightmare which of course means a bad dream and when it’s used in football it means that a team has had a really bad game. We sometimes hear a shortened version of this term – a mare – as in they are having a mare which means that they are having a really bad game and everything they do goes wrong. My team Tottenham had a mare this weekend against Manchester United losing 3-0 at home to a poor Manchester United team really. We can also say that a keeper has had a mare if they let an easy shot go in and if they make a couple of gaffes or howlers (that’s mistakes), it means the keeper has had a mare.

Frightening

The word ‘frightening‘ is often used to describe a team or a section of a team – usually the forward line – if they are re...