Has he nodded off yet?
Paul Loader sank deeper into his sofa in his London suburb of Penge East last weekend, after foolishly trading the bizarre punditry grammar of Wilks (Ray Wilkins) for a long-winded, dreary eurosceptic polemic by David Pleat.
“Wilks professional opinion of a left footed volley by Modric was that he ‘didn’t quite put enough swazz on it’, so I elected to switch channels and found dear ol’ uncle Pleat.” Loader added that earlier Wilkins had alluded to a “Growl-up” on the side of the pitch and for Loader it distanced him too far from the game and sent him into a surreal world where new grammatical forms were constantly being created.
“Little did I know, Pleat’s old money anecdote would cost me the match.” According to Loader Pleat began with a fairly innocuous comment about one of the midfielder’s ‘sticking the ball on a sixpence’, a footballing phrase familiar to just about anyone even remotely interested in sport or football. Strangely, Pleat assumed that as the ‘sixpence’ as legal tender had died out, so had the phrase. Loader added, “He should have stopped there, but he didn’t. He then started banging on about us being part of the Euro, which we aren’t.” Pleat’s co-commentator corrected him suggesting it was actually the “Eurozone,” but then rather irritatingly coaxed Pleat to continue with his coinage rambling. “He said something about Guineas next, and players not getting paid in them anymore.”
Apparently the final straw for a frustrated Loader was Pleat’s co-commentator retorting “or maybe sheckles” to Pleat’s “Guineas” remark of footballers’ wages ‘back in the day.’ Loader was utterly dumbfounded, “I mean, isn’t that the Israeli currency, so what the fuck’s that got to do with anything?”
As Loader tried to remain focused on his Spurs side, who ironically started with such energy and speed, Loader felt the anecdote was responsible for him drifting off and dribbling onto his Pierre Cardin wool fleece, early into the 19th minute. Loader finally recommended, “Pleat should certainly avoid mixing wallowy footballing nostalgia and blatant ill-founded Eurosceptic polemic, especially when shoe-horned crudely into a comment about tender-related idiom. He should note that just because a tender no longer exists, the same is not to be said for the language it created.”
de spin 