Rich: Hello and welcome to Premier Skills English. This podcast is going to be a bit different because I’m at a local football match and I’m waiting for Jack to arrive. We’re going to look at some simple football English. But first, we need to find out where Jack is. I’ll give him a call.

Jack: Hi Rich

Rich: Hey Jack. What’s keeping you?

Jack: I know. I know. I’m on my way.

Rich: The match kicked off five minutes ago.

Jack: Yeah - I’m running late; er... um... the weather’s terrible.

Rich: That’s weird. It’s warm and sunny here.

Jack: No, sorry. I mean it’s the traffic. The traffic is really awful.

Rich: Really? We didn’t have any problems. Hold on. We’ve got a corner. Unlucky!

Jack: Did we score?

Rich: No. We hit the post. Where are you?

Jack: Not far. I’ll be about five minutes. I’m on the ring road.

Rich: The ring road? That’s the long way round. Wait a sec. Referee!!

Jack: What happened?

Rich: We should have had a penalty. It was an awful tackle. Nothing given. You’re going to miss most of the first half. It’s a good game.

Jack: No, I’m not. I’m nearly there. I’m pulling into the car park now.

Rich: Oh!!! So close. Just over the bar.

Jack: I’m getting out of the car now.

Rich: Car park? We parked on the street. Get in! Goal!!! That was a fantastic free-kick. Right in the top corner.

Jack: I’m coming. I didn’t hear much cheering. I know it’s local football but …

Rich: There’s a couple of hundred of us. We’re behind the goal near the shops.

Jack: There aren’t many people around. Shops? There aren’t any shops. I’m here ‘LUDLOW FOOTBALL STADIUM’. Ther’s only one team in Ludlow, right?

Rich: Yes but we’re not at home Jack! You need to get back in the car. We’re away from home!

Jack: Oh come on!

...

Jack: Ah well! I don’t have enough time to see the second half. I'll try to get to the home match next week. Are you still there, Rich? Oh, he seems to have gone.

Jack: Shall we have a look at some of the words and phrases we used while we were speaking? Let’s look at some words connected to football. It’s the first time I’ve used my car as a classroom so we’re going to keep this simple.

Jack: Let’s look at four common words we use to talk about a football match. The first is to kick off. This means to start a match. Manchester Utd kicked off in the first half, City kicked off in the second half.

Jack: It’s also used as a noun. We often say things like; What time is kick-off? Or like Rich said ‘Hurry up or you’re going to miss the kick-off!’

Jack: It sounded like I missed a good game and our team had a lot of chances to score a goal. One chance hit the post and another chance went over the bar.

Jack: Each goal has two posts and a bar. The posts stand up vertically and the bar or crossbar connects the two posts horizontally. We can say a shot hit the post or hit the bar or maybe it goes over the bar or wide of the post.

Jack: The other word I want to look at is ‘tackle’. Like ‘kick-off ‘tackle’ can be a noun or a verb. A tackle is when one player challenges another player to try to get the ball. A good tackle is when you get the ball from the other player but a bad tackle is when you don’t get the ball or you foul the other player.

Jack: Right, that’s all I’ve got time for now. I need to get home. If there is anything you’d like to know about this video or football vocabulary, write a comment below and take a look at the Premier Skills English website.

Jack: Bye for now and enjoy your football!