In this post we explain the noun phrase ‘fringe player.’ If you have questions or comments, email us at: admin@languagecaster.com.
- You can also find many more examples of soccer vocabulary by going to our football cliches page here and our huge football glossary here.
Football Language: (a) Fringe Player
In this post, I’m going to take a look at the phrase ‘fringe player.’ This is quite an easy expression to understand if we look at some examples of the noun fringe. A fringe is the part of your hair that goes over your forehead – it’s the edge of your hair, the last part, not the central part on the top of your head. A fringe is also a decoration at the edge of clothes – again, not the main part of the clothing. So, a fringe player is a player on a team that is not a regular starter in the first team. They may not even get on the bench often – they are at the fringe of the team, the edge.
You might also hear the phrase ‘a bit part player‘ meaning the same thing – a player that is not a regular in the first 11, someone who plays only a small part in the season. This week, in the Champions League, a fringe player at Chelsea, Ruben Loftus-Cheek scored a hat-trick against Bate, from Belarus. Maybe he won’t be a fringe player much longer!
Here’s another example from The Independent from September 2018: Gareth Southgate has warned England’s fringe players that if they are still not playing for their clubs by October’s international break, he may have to drop them.
Consider becoming a supporter of Languagecaster.com at Patreon.com
Check out our glossary of footballing phrases here and don’t forget to join our Premier League predictions competition. If you have any suggestions or questions, contact us at admin@languagecaster.com
Languagecaster.com
Or subscribe with your favorite app by using the address below
Leave a Reply