Premier Vocabulary is a mini-podcast for you to learn football English one word at a time. We have three different levels for you: easy, medium and hard.

This episode is hard so we’re looking at more difficult football phrases and idioms.

Summary

Learn more football vocabulary with Premier Skills English. Each lesson in our Premier Vocabulary section looks at one football word or phrase. This lesson looks at the phrase we were robbed.

You can find more lessons on the side of this page.

Transcript

Rich: Hello my name’s Rich and welcome to Premier Skills English - Premier Vocabulary.

Jack: Hi there! I’m Jack. We’re here to help you with your football English.

Rich: Remember you can find transcripts for all of our podcasts on the Premier Skills English website.

Jack: Premier Vocabulary is a mini-podcast for you to learn football English one word at a time.

Rich: We have three different levels for you: easy, medium and hard.

Jack: This episode is hard so we’re looking at more difficult football phrases and idioms. These phrases can be used to talk about football but are often useful when talking about other topics.

Rich: The phrase we are looking at in this episode is: we were robbed.

Jack: This phrase has a literal meaning and a non-literal meaning.

Rich: In its most common meaning to rob means to steal money or property from someone or from a place.

Jack: Bank robbers rob banks.

Rich: We were robbed on the bus the other day. I didn’t notice my wallet had gone until I got home.

Jack: But it can also be used in a more abstract way. We can use rob to talk about something important that has been taken away.

Rich: We might talk about people who are robbed of their rights if they are banned from doing certain things.

Jack: In this example of is a dependent preposition. We use it to talk about the thing that has been taken away.

Rich: Election fraud robbed the candidate of victory.

Jack: We often hear football fans saying we were robbed. It’s a bit of a cliche and is probably overused but it’s similar to the last example we gave you.

Rich: When a football fan says we were robbed they are talking about their football team being robbed of victory.

Jack: The fan or the team hasn’t been robbed literally but they feel that their team deserved to win.

Rich: Fans often say they were robbed if the other team scores near the end of the match, if there is a decision that doesn’t go their way or they feel that they were the better team.

Jack: Here’s an example:

Rich: I can’t believe that penalty was given in the last minute we were robbed.

Jack: A similar idiom is daylight robbery which is normally used when we think something costs far more money than it should.

Rich: But football fans use it to talk about their team deserving much more out of a match.

Jack: I can’t believe we lost that match. It was absolute daylight robbery, to be honest.

Rich: There is the final whistle!

Jack: We’ll be back soon with more Premier Vocabulary from Premier Skills English.

Rich: Bye for now and enjoy your football.

Discuss

When was the last time you felt your team were robbed?