THE FAT SIDE

Top article from Chip Le Grand in Saturday's Strayan. I've always thought Gary Larson would make a great footy commentator; mainly so that he could use his wonderfully absurd gibberish to expose football's nauseatingly absurd and self-serving gibberish:

Bruised and broken language of footy

"WE fell down in the basics, really, the three phases of the game; contest, pressure and use. It is not catastrophic. It is in isolation but in the context of the season we are two and one, and we play the benchmark team next week so that will really switch us on mentally straight away. We will analyse the mechanics of why that happened and we will train it up on the track."

If you have reached the second paragraph of this story, congratulations.

Not a million miles from Moneyball, which we were talking about here yesterday, is also some stuff on statistics and commentary.

One thing Chip failed to add was something that really gets up my fat side: "football club". A management guru has obviously gone through the league insisting that everyone in footy must imbue everything they say with a sense of gravitas. Thus we get Tim Watson chanting something like the following: "The best way forward for the North Melbourne Football Club is for the the North Melbourne Football Club to get its finances in shape so that the North Melbourne Football Club can prosper both on and off the field. Otherwise the North Melbourne Football Club will have no option but to merge or move elsewhere to become, say, the Gold Coast Football Club." No mention of the Kangaroos, the Kangas, North, or even Norf, as the rest of us know 'em. Familiarity is a no-no. It doesn't help, in Tim's case, that he has a slight speech impediment which turns "football club" into a slightly South Aussie tinged "foopbaw cwlub".

Also, Don Watson. (No relation to Tim, as far as I'm aware.) We all know that Don, speech writer extraordinaire, word guru, Sheik of Syntax, knows big mobs about gibberish. But surely he's not the only person in this wide brown sunburnt constitutional monarchy who knows stuff about words and stuff. Does every article about speech mangularisation have to be pinned on quotes from Watson? I gots nothing against Don, but ain't there someone else out there... here, who can string together a couple of coherent quotes about what footy folks are doing to footy talk?

Not that Chip left out others. The above-mentioned Tim Watson gets a line or two, as does the Coodabeen's Geoff Richardson who goes to the very core of footy coverage:

"How much money is spent on special comments men on the radio and TV who don't make comments which are in any way special?"

My take is that commentators switch on the gibberish because they thing it makes them sound cool. Dermot and his "Yep, good catch"; Dwayne Russell and his "kicking from the paint"; John Casey and his "gets the job done". When Casey said that again yesterday after Luke Hodge had outmarked Stiffy Johncock and played on to kick a good goal, I was left wondering whether, if ever, there was any chance Casey might actually think up another way to describe a bloke kicking a goal.

More from Leapster:

Tardy Ten still lost in telly's space-time continuum

Don't know why they're pushing so hard — you figure that most people who tuned in probably wanted to watch the football anyway — but there it is. Anyway, it seemed that a number of players were "under the pump", and at least one of them was "in the gun", and presumably the mysterious "blowtorch" of latter-day football fame was only a matter of a few kicks away, presuming we ever got the game started.

As... ahem, Don Watson says, sort of: We'll be fucked if ever Dennis Cometti, Tim Lane and Rex Hunt retire. Like 'em, or not.

There's also one thing Chip couldn't really say. While much of the gibberish has a place in the modern professional footy world - in fact, it's not so much that it's used, it's how it's used - asking footy oafs to come to grips with complex terminology is asking for trouble.

Appended below is a glossary included in Chip's article that didn't make the online cut.

GLOSSARY OF GIBBERISH
BALL Formerly a Sherrin, now shorthand for possession. Often used in conjunction with other cliches; i.e. "we had plenty of ball going forward". Related terms include hard ball, loose ball, ground ball, contested ball and kill the ball; when a player deliberately causes a throw-in or ball-up.
BOX A four man set-up of forwards inside the 50 metre arc.
BRAND The style of football a team plays. Also an identifying mark of players that have come into contact with Ray McLean's 'Leading Teams' consultancy.
CLANGER A kick or a handball that goes straight to an opposition player.
COMPOSURE Used to describe a player who keeps his head in difficult circumstances.
Favourite phrase of Seven Network commentator Nathan Buckley, especially in conjunction with "stay in contest".
CONTESTED Catch-all for whenever more than one player is trying to get the ball. Related terms included contested mark, contested possession and contested situation.
CRAB Derogatory term for a player who prefers to move the ball sideways instead of forwards
DOUBLE BACK A leading pattern in which a player runs forward knowing the ball will be kicked to the spot he was originally standing.
EFFICIENCY First used by Denis Pagan to measure how many possessions it took to get the ball to Wayne Carey. Has since been adopted by Champion Data to give a percentage value to
kicking, disposal and scoring.
FAT SIDE The side of the ground which has the most space for players to lead into.
FLOOD TACTIC invented by Rodney Eade to clog up the forward line of an opposition team with extra players.
FOCUS Visual aid for footballers unable to see beyond one week at a time.
FOLD BACK A modern mix of flooding and zone defence developed by Adelaide and used to great effect by Hawthorn.
FRONT AND SQUARE The space in front a pack of players.
HAMBURGER Recruiting term for a young player with the lot.
HARD BODY A player with a strong, athletic build who can withstand physical pressure.
HIGH FORWARD A forward who plays up the ground. Also known as lead-up forward. Can also apply to former Sydney and Brisbane full-forward Warwick Capper, who claims he once played a game under the influence of cocaine.
HOLE The area of the ground used to lead in to by a team's best forward.
KEY BLANKET term for anything considered important; key forward, key defender, key moment, key decision. Can also refer to space between the goal square and centre-half forward.
KPI Acronym used to measure performance and justify the salaries of sports scientists.
NON-NEGOTIABLES Used by Leigh Matthews to describe the minimum conditions of employment as a Brisbane footballer. Includes keeping your head over the ball when at risk of death or serious injury.
PRESS Basketball term adopted to describe tactic of manning up in your own forward line.
Can also refer to a type of zone defence in which players move up and back in set formation.
PROCESS The method by which modern footballers have become as bland as sliced cheese. Rarely used without reference to structure.
OUTSIDE SPEED A player quick enough to run from contest to contest. Players with good foot speed are said to have "wheels".
ROTATION Changing players in the midfield either through the interchange or other positions on the ground.
RUN AND CARRY Running with the ball.
SCORE ASSIST A possession that directly results in a shot on goal.
SLIDING WINGER/OFFENSIVE WINGER See high forward
SPEED HUMP A slow or cumbersome player who arrests the momentum of his own team when he gets the ball.
SKILL EXECUTION Previously known as a handball or kick. Related term scoreboard execution: previously known as kicking a goal.
STRUCTURE The daddy of modern footy-speak. Can be used in plural (structures), or verb (structure-up) without risk of imparting meaning. Frequently used in conjunction with processes.
SWITCH Moving the ball from one side of the ground to the other.
TAKE The ability of a player to handle the ball cleanly.
TALL UTILITY A footballer who can play in a variety of positions on either tall or small opponents.
TANKING Selecting inexperienced teams and manipulating line-ups to reduce the chance of winning games. Used by bottom clubs to improve draft position. Also known as list management, player development and Swann diving, in reference to Carlton and former Collingwood chief executive Greg Swann.
TEMPO Tactic of manipulating the speed of play by retaining possession. Used brilliantly by Sydney in premiership year.
TRADE MARKS The characteristics player leadership groups aspire to after spending time with a 'Leading Teams' consultant. Previously known as 'core-values.'
TRANSITION The movement of the ball from back line to forward line.
UNCONTESTED The less fashionable sibling of contested, though preferred by modern coaches as a means of gaining possession.
ZONE Tactic of defending designated area of the field rather than a direct opponent. Related terms include zone-off; the practice of running away from the player with the ball, and zone-out; the tendency of players to become drowsy and confused during team meetings.

Comments

[Peter]

Note also:

COMPETITION: Formerly "league". The AFL, despite its acronym, can no longer be referred to as a "league". Players are "one of the best in the competition", teams "lead the competition" or are "some way behind the rest of the competition", and the AFL(C) is hell bent on "growing the competition", even if its at the expense of the league.

GROUP: Remember when there were "teams". No longer. Players now refer to their "group". eg "The group is working hard on the track", "there's a lot of faith in this group", "the group was obviously disappointed that they didn't play like a team" etc.

[RT]

"Skirting the perimeter" - chipping the ball around the 50 metre arc looking for an opening. More basketball lingo crap. "Turnover" wasn't even used in commentary 10 years ago (but used ad nauseaum in Demons games this year...)

Being a one country (4 state / 1 territory) code, we should have ensured any new terms were purely indigenous to this greatest of indigenous sporting codes. So a "non-negotiable" would be a "ngapanga", a "brand" is a "banyubaju", "tanking" is "thawuru". Canberra would be happy, or sorry....

[pat]

SHORTBALL: Once called "a forward pass".

FACEBALL: Laterally longer version of the shortball.

FORWARD PASS: Massively, obviously, too hard to ignore version of the short or face ball. Whenever such a discretion is acknowledged you can guarantee that in fact it was what was once known as "offside" resulting in a penalty. Now it's a scrum.

DECOY RUNNER: Deliberate shepherd.

ACCIDENTAL CONTACT: Shepherding player smashes out several defending players.

UP AND IN: Standing 8 metres offside in defence.

DEFLECTED HIGH SHOT: Defending player accidentally makes contact with the ball whilst trying to remove opponents head.

PHASE BALL: Ugly skirmish that went on far too long without the ref calling held somehow results in the ball being squirted out, usually via shortball, and play continues.

[Tony T]

P: Not just GROUP, it's PLAYING GROUP.

R: I will be happy if I never hear TURNOVER again. I won't be happy.

P: I still have absolutely no idea how the run-around, decoy, shepherd rule is supposed to work.

[Tony T]

To IMPACT THE SCOREBOARD: To score.

[The Worst of Perth]

I've always thought Yoda would be good as a commentator.

[Tony T]

Certainly better than Andrew Jarman.

[Clammy]

I have recommended this article to my friends at somedumbsite.com. It is a dating site for wealthy people and plus size singles. They all like it.

[Not at all edited by TT.]

[Tony T]

Fat rich people matched with footy gibberish? Can't see it working out.

[Mark U]

The football cliches are an unwelcome addition to all the normal cliches. For example, on Channel's 7's commnetary of the Carlton-Collingwood game one of the commentators must have said at least half a dozen times that Collingwood was "looking down the barrel". No wonder they lost - not concentrating on the ball.

[Nabakov]

Look, at the end of the day after you've done the hard yards in the commentary box it's what's on the plate served up to the board that counts when you're going out there to move your focus onto progressing the next phase of getting the call out there for a positive outcome that will impact up the ratings rto solid 20 share while maximising the collateral of the mechanics of the structural plan that we've been implementing on the field to leverage a strong forward movement that will keep the stakeholders onside while flooding the opposition with a responsive game plan that enhances Q ratings and pulls out that little bit more to achieve a 110% outcome for our onscreen bench in a team-based attack that harnesses collective strengths while also opening up systematic opportunities for individual talent to explore potential crossover niches to maximise their quarantined revenue streams across the whole network platform...mate.

Sure, we're not kicking many goals lately but we do have a strategy. And we're sticking to it, until we change it.

Remember, there's no "me" in "Commentator."

[carneagles]

God bless you, Chip The Big.

[Laura]

There's a bona fide AFL footballer in one of my tutorials this semester. I'm looking forward to seeing if he uses this sort of language to write his essay about the Merchant of Venice.

[Tony T]

The Bard steps up...

I am a footballer. Hath not a footballer eyes? Hath not a footballer hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions, hamstrings, quads, naviculars, osteitis pubis? Fed with the same food, carbo loading, energy replacement, low GI. Hurt with the same shirt-fronts, subject to the same king hits. Healed by the same physio. Warmed and cooled by the same heat lamps and ice packs. As a soccer player is? If you punch us on the nose, do we not bleed? If you squibb it, do we not laugh? If you poison our water bottles, do we not get a guts ache? And if you dud us, shall we not fly off the handle? Mate.