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This learn English through football podcast explains the language of football: the words, phrases, and cliches used in the game. A This week, we look at the verb ‘to lump’. There is a transcript of the show below, which can be used by learners of English to practice listening and reading skills. It can also be used by teachers of English to create activities, such as fill in the blanks, true/false, comprehension questions, sentence ordering activities, etc. You can also check out our massive glossary of footballing phrases here. We have hundreds of previous posts and podcasts too on our website. All A can access these resources for free. A Let us know if you have any suggestions or questions then you can contact us at admin@languagecaster.com.
Learn English Through Football
DB: Hi there everyone. Welcome to languagecaster.com’s football language podcast. These podcast explain the words, phrases and cliches used in the beautiful game of football. My name’s Damon, and I’m based in Tokyo, while Damian, the other half of the team, is based in London. I wonder if he saw his team, Tottenham, take on Brighton this week. It was a cracking games, as both team’s pay exciting, skilful, attacking football. Today, we’ll be looking at a word used in football that is not used to describe exciting skilful, attacking football. that word is, to lump.
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in Norwegian)
DB: Yes, you are listening to languagecaster and that message was in Norwegian.
Right, let’s look at some football language, and we’ll start with the verb, to lump.
(To) Lump
DB: Let’s start with the word lump but as a noun, so a lump of metal, a lump of earth, a lump of stone. Here, lump of means an amount of something, but something with no shape. It isn’t round or square for example; we don’t know how much it weights. We don’t really care what shape or how much metal there is; there is just a lump of metal.
In football, to lump the ball means to kick the ball without worrying about passing it accurately. If you lump the ball, you kick it hard, usually into the opposition half and hope your player can get it. It isn’t very skilful or attractive.
Here is an example from SkySports (September 2023) website talking about styles of football: “The 4-4-2 formation gets a bad reputation these days, commonly being associated with an old, less-tactical style of play – with long balls ‘lumped’ up to big strikers. In recent seasons, Burnley and Southampton braved critics and went old-school.”
Here, they say the ball is lumped up – that means up the field – to the big strikers. It is connected with an old-fashioned way of playing.
Old-School
DB: The quote also says that Burnley and Southampton went ‘old-school‘. This means their style of play was old fashioned, with lots of long balls, and they used big, physical strikers. If a player or team is described as ‘old school’, it means they focus on the basics of the game: hard tackles, each position focusing on their main job: for example, a right back should defend rather than attack a lot. Goalkeepers taking long goal kicks rather than passing the ball to the defence so they can pass to midfield.
Route One
DB: So to lump the ball up, means to kick the ball into the opposition half without worrying about accuracy. Another way to talk about long passes, is to say ‘route one‘. This means a direct pass from defence, over the midfield, to the forwards. Many people think it is a bit basic and old fashioned, but sometimes it is very effective against teams that press high and leave space at the back. Here is an example describing a match between Leicester City and Aston Villa from the 2016 season: “Leicester went route one as Vardy raced onto Schmeichel’s kick and his audacious lob with the outside of his foot was clawed off the line by Bunn.”
Leicester went route one, meaning the goalkeeper kicked the ball directly to the striker. This kind of football is also known as long-ball football.
Stinger: Your are listening to languagecaster.com (in Welsh)
Goodbye
DB: Thank you for that message in Welsh. OK, we looked at some football language often connected with old-fashioned tactics or not very skilful or attractive play. To lump the ball up field, an old-school team, to go route one or play long-ball football.
Does your team play long ball football? Do they sometimes go route one? When should a defender just lump the ball upfield? We all like skilful, quick passing football, but sometimes a bit of old-school football can be effective too.
And that brings us to the end of today’s short podcast. Follow us on all the usual social media sites. Leave comments and questions via our forum at languagecaster.com. And, if you have any ideas for football phrases, any questions, predictions, comments, just let us know.
Thanks for listening and enjoy all the football. Ta-ra!
Learn English Through Football Podcast: A show for football fans to improve their English language skills
