Football English: New Clubs Part 2

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Language level

Learning goals

Skills: Listening

Vocabulary: Words and phrases connected to relegation

Vocabulary: Words and phrases connected to feeling nervous

Task: Describe a time when you felt worried

Football English: New Clubs Part 2

In this Premier Skills English Podcast, we join Jack, Rowan and Rich on Radio UK where they are hosting a football phone-in show and asking football fans to call in and talk about their football clubs. The language focus is on words and phrases connected to relegation and feeling worried. Your task is to talk about a time when you felt worried about something. Don't forget to listen to the end of the podcast because we have a new football phrase for you to guess.

If the listening was a bit difficult, you can listen again and read the transcript at the same time.

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Football English: New Clubs (2)

Jack: Hello my name’s Jack

Rowan: My name’s Rowan

Rich: and I’m Rich and welcome to this week’s Premier Skills English podcast.

Jack: In the Premier Skills English podcast, we talk about football and help you with your English.

Rowan: Don’t forget you can find the transcript for all our podcasts on the Premier Skills English website.

Rich: This week’s podcast is connected to the three new football clubs in the Premier League this season: Norwich City, Watford and Brentford.

Jack: You’ll hear Rich and me hosting a phone-in on our radio station: Radio UK and we’ll be joined by our expert sports reporter - Rowan.

Rowan: In the phone-in, we speak to three football fans, one Norwich fan, one Watford fan and one Brentford fan, and we ask them how they are feeling now that the new Premier League season is only a few weeks away.

Rich: After we speak to each fan we’ll focus on some language. This week we’re going to focus on football English and the language we use to talk about promotion and relegation as well as how we feel about our team.

Jack: You will hear this week’s podcast in three different parts and we will have a task for you to do after each part and there will be an opportunity for you to talk about your team’s chances as the new Premier League season approaches.

Rowan: If you are listening to us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or any other podcast platform, you should also check out our website.

Rich: On the Premier Skills English website, you’ll find the transcript, examples and activities to help you understand the language, and a task for you to complete with other listeners.

Rowan: And don’t forget to listen to the end of the podcast because we have a new football phrase for you to guess!

Introduction to roleplay 2

Rich: As we said earlier, in this roleplay you are listening to a football phone-in on a radio station called Radio UK.

Jack: We’re asking listeners to phone in and talk about their club ahead of the new season and especially want to hear from fans of the clubs that have just been promoted to the Premier League.

Rowan: You’re about to listen to the second part of the phone-in, while you listen we want you to answer two questions and after you listen we’ll look at some of the language we used.

Rich: Here are the questions: Question one is: Which team does this fan support?

Jack: Question two is: How does this fan feel about her team playing in the Premier League?

Roleplay 2

Whitney is worried and nervous.

Jack: Welcome back to Radio UK.

Rich: Let’s return to the phones and our football phone-in I believe we have a Watford fan on line four. Maybe it’s Sir Elton himself?

Jack: I hope so. Hello, Elton?

Whitney: Come on you Hornets!

Rich: Hello, Whitney and Welcome to Radio UK. So … Watford are back in the Premier League again after just one year away. How are you feeling?

Whitney: Well, I’m happy we’re back up, obviously. The top flight is the place to be and no disrespect to smaller clubs but playing Manchester United and Chelsea is what we need to be doing.

Jack: Do you expect a battle to stay up this season?

Whitney: Staying up has got to be our first objective - anything else is a bonus really but I am concerned, although I don’t think we’ll go down without a fight.

Rich: That is a bit pessimistic. It sounds like you think you’re going down already. The season hasn’t kicked off yet. Relegation is not a done deal, you know.

Whitney: No, no. I don’t think we’ll get relegated I think we’ll stay up. You’ve got to be positive, but I don’t want us to become a yo-yo club that is too good for the Championship but not good enough for the Premier League.

Jack: Well, good luck to Watford and thanks for calling, Whitney. So, Rowan, what do you think about Watford’s chances this season?

Rowan: I’m not going to sit on the fence here. I think they’ll go down and Whitney is right to be worried but I have to say I predicted Burnley, Brighton and Crystal Palace to be relegated last season and none of them went down in the end.

Jack: You heard it here first on Radio UK - Watford to go down. We’ll be back with more after this short break.

Language Focus

Rowan: Before the roleplay, we asked you two questions. The first question was: Which team does this fan support?

Rich: The answer is Watford. What do we know about Watford? I’m going to give you 10 seconds each - go.

Jack: Watford. Elton John, the singer, is a big Watford fan and is honorary president. What else? Their nickname is the Hornets. They play at Vicarage Road. I know that Rich’s favourite footballer as a kid was John Barnes and before he played for Liverpool John Barnes played for Watford.

Rich: Jack. Stop. Rowan. Go.

Rowan: Watford. They play in yellow and black because they are the Hornets but not the Bees because that’s Brentford. But on their badge, they don’t have a hornet they have a stag which is a type of deer because Watford is in Hertfordshire - a region north of London. A hart is a male deer - a stag.

Rich: Rowan. Stop. Good knowledge. We should have some kind of animal football quiz on the podcast one day.

Jack: We also asked you another question. It was: How does this fan feel about her team playing in the Premier League?

Rowan: Well, I’d say Whitney sounded worried and nervous. She says she’s concerned about staying up and that she thinks it will be a battle. Even though she says that Watford will stay up she didn’t sound that confident.

Rich: Yes, I’d have to agree with you there. Let’s look at some more language from the roleplay.

...

Jack: If you listened to the first part of this podcast, you’ll remember we heard a Brentford fan talking about promotion. Promotion is when a team moves from a lower division to a higher division.

Rowan: In this roleplay, you heard a Watford fan talking about the opposite of promotion. Do you know what the opposite of promotion is? … That’s right … relegation. Relegation is the noun.

Rich: In football, when we talk about a football club being relegated we mean that they move from playing with one group of teams to another at a lower level.

Jack: A team is relegated from one division to another. In the roleplay, Whitney is worried that Watford will get relegated.

Rowan: The verb is relegate but it’s usually used in the passive form so you’ll hear relegated more often. Sheffield United were relegated last season.

Rich: We often use the collocation get relegated in the same way; you might have heard it in the roleplay. We also use the phrasal verb to go down. This is a bit more informal.

Jack: We’ve spoken about the opposite of relegation being promotion but relegate has another opposite: to stay up.

Rowan: When teams are fighting at the bottom of the Premier League table they will either get relegated or stay up.

Rich: To stay up is a phrasal verb that in a football context means to survive. Whitney thinks Watford will stay up.

Jack: Listen to this part of the roleplay again to hear how we used this language.

Jack: Do you expect a battle to stay up this season?

Whitney: Staying up has got to be our first objective - anything else is a bonus really but I am concerned although I don’t think we’ll go down without a fight.

Rich: That is a bit pessimistic. It sounds like you think you’re going down already. The season hasn’t kicked off yet. Relegation is not a done deal, you know.

Jack: There are a couple of other phrases that I’d like to look at from the roleplay. The first is a yo-yo club.

Rich: A yo-yo is a toy that is made of two wheels or discs usually made of plastic or wood with string between them. The wheels go up and down on the string. I used to love yo-yos, I could do all kinds of tricks with them.

Rowan: A yo-yo club is a phrase we use to describe a team that is often promoted to and relegated from the Premier League.

Jack: The final phrase I want to take a look at is top flight.

Rich: The top-flight is used to describe the top level or division in professional sport.

Rowan: In English football, there are four fully professional divisions: League Two, League One, the Championship and the Premier League.

Jack: The Premier League is the highest level or top-level so is often called the top flight or the top flight of English football.

Rich: The phrase can be used as a noun or an adjective because we can also talk about top-flight football or top-flight clubs or teams.

Rowan: You can look at this vocabulary in more detail on the Premier Skills English website where you’ll find free activities, the transcript and a quiz to help you understand.

TASK

Jack: In the roleplay, Whitney was nervous and a bit worried about her team, Watford.

Rich: In this task, we want you to talk about a time when you were very nervous or worried about something.

Rowan: This could be a football match. What was the match? Was your team in a battle to stay up or avoid relegation? Do you usually worry before your team play?

Jack: Or it could be something completely different. Maybe a driving test, a job interview or an exam of some kind.

Rich: How did you feel before the event? How did you feel afterwards?

Rowan: Write all your answers in the comments section on the Premier Skills English website or on Apple podcasts if that’s where you listen to us.

Football Phrase

Rowan: It’s time for this week’s football phrase. Have you got one, Jack?

Jack: I have. This week’s football phrase is * ***-*** ****. When neither team win a match and no goals are scored we say that the match finished in * ***-*** ****. This is much more common in British English than in American English where someone might say that the match finished in a tie or finished zero zero.

Rich: If you have a football phrase that you would like us to use in the podcast, just get in touch and let us know and if you are still wondering what the answer was to last week’s football phrase it was in the flesh.

Jack: Right, that’s all we have time for this week! Don’t forget to write your answers to our questions and make a guess at our football phrase in the comments below. If you get it right, we’ll announce your name on next week’s podcast.

Rich: If you have a question for us about football or English you can email us at premierskills@britishcouncil.org

Rowan: or you can leave your questions and comments on the website in the comments section or on our Facebook page.

Jack: or you could give us a rating and a fantastic review on Apple Podcasts.

Rich: Bye for now and enjoy your football!

How much did you understand?

Here is some of the vocabulary you might have heard in the roleplay. Do you know the words in bold?

Do you expect a battle to stay up this season?

Staying up has got to be our first objective.

That is a bit pessimistic. Relegation is not a done deal, you know.

Anything else is a bonus really but I am concerned.

I’m not going to sit on the fence here.

Activity 1: In this activity, take a look at some of the words that were used in the roleplay and match them to their definitions.

Watford have won promotion to the Premier League after just one season away.

Relegation!

In the roleplay, Rich and Jack spoke to a Watford fan who was a bit worried about their team playing in the Premier League next season. Look at the sentences below from the roleplay and the phrases in bold connected to relegation. Think about what they mean and then have a go at the activity.

Jack: Do you expect a battle to stay up this season?

Whitney: Avoiding relegation has got to be our first objective - anything else is a bonus really but I am concerned although I don’t think we’ll go down without a fight.

Rich: That is a bit pessimistic. It sounds like you think you’re going down already. The season hasn’t kicked off yet. Relegation is not a done deal, you know.

Whitney: No, no. I don’t think we’ll get relegated I think we’ll stay up.

Note: Relegated is often used in the passive form: Sheffield United were relegated last season. The noun is relegation and a common collocation is to avoid relegation and we also use a more informal phrasal verb here: to stay up. We often use the collocation to get relegated. We also use the phrasal verb to go down. This is a bit more informal.

The singer, Elton John, is honorary life president at Watford.

Phrases

In the podcast, we looked at a few useful football phrases from the roleplay. Look at the sentences below from the roleplay and the phrases in bold. Think about what they mean and then have a go at the activity.

Whitney: The top flight is the place to be and no disrespect to smaller clubs but playing Manchester United and Chelsea is what we need to be doing.

Whitney: I don’t want us to become a yo-yo club that is too good for the Championship but not good enough for the Premier League.

Rowan: I’m not going to sit on the fence here. I think they’ll go down and Whitney is right to be worried.

Activity 2: In this activity think about some of the phrases we used in the roleplay and language to talk about relegation.

Xisco Munoz is the manager who needs to keep Watford up this season.

Learn more about Watford:

A Nervous Time

Ismaila Sarr and Nathaniel Chalobah are two of Watford's star players.

In this task, we want you to talk about a time when you were very nervous or worried about something.

This could be a football match:

What was the match? Was your team in a battle to stay up or avoid relegation?
Do you usually worry before your team play?

Or it could be something completely different. Maybe a driving test, a job interview or an exam of some kind.

How did you feel before the event? How did you feel afterwards?

Write your answers below and don't forget to make a guess at this week's football phrase!