Football Language: Daisy Cutter
The phrase daisy cutter is not heard as often in the modern game as it used to be, but is a wonderful way to describe a particular kind of shot. First of all, a daisy is a flower that often grows on patches of grass. Its flower rises just above the top of cut grass. So, if you say a shot was a daisy cutter, you are describing a shot that skims the ground on its way to the goal. If there were daisies in the grass t would cut their heads off. It doesn’t dip; it doesn’t loop or swerve; it goes straight and hard just touching the ground all the way.
- Example: Arsenal’s Santi Cazorla scores pinpoint daisy cutter for Spain v Haiti (Headline)
- Example: Of course, you all know what happened next — from Steven Gerrard’s header, Vladimir Smicer’s daisy-cutter that Dida should have saved, Xabi Alonso’s penalty… (Liverpool v AC Milan, CL Final 2005)
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I think that the flower you are describing is a dandelion, not a daisy. Daisies are a common garden flower that can grow 3-4 feet tall. Hence, the saying makes no sense.
Interesting. Not sure what kind of daisy you are thinking about, but the daisy we think of for this phrase is a common garden flower on grass lawns in the UK that rarely grows higher than a couple of inches. Many gardeners don’t like them and are continually cutting them with a lawn mower.