In this football language post we explain a newspaper headline from the Guardian newspaper (May 30th 2020) about the return of the Premier League. You can see more explanations of newspaper headlines here and don’t forget we have hundreds more explanations of football language in our football glossary. If you have questions or comments about this or any other phrase then email us at: admin@languagecaster.com.
Newspaper Headline: Ready for a reboot: Premier League set for 17 June restart with City v Arsenal first up.
This headline is taken from the Guardian newspaper (May 30th 2020) and focuses on the news that the Premier League will return to action on June 17th with two matches: Aston Villa against Sheffield United and Manchester City hosting Arsenal. Then on the following weekend a full set of fixtures will take place.
There are two parts to the headline. The main headline ‘Ready for a reboot‘ has not used a verb but instead focused on one key word ‘reboot‘ which means to restart – think about when you have to restart your computer; this is known as a reboot – but as the word boot is also linked to football this is a clever way of suggesting that it is a restart to playing football. The image in the article shows two Tottenham players in training and this is the reason they have used the word ‘ready for‘ as these players (and most of the other ones too!) want to return and play although it also refers to football fans who also want the Premier League to return. We could re-write this part of the headline as follows: ‘Players (and fans) are getting ready to restart playing (Premier League) football’.
The second part of the headline gives more specific information about when the season will begin again by including the date (‘June 17th’) and which game (‘City v Arsenal’) will be the first one to be played (‘first up’) – most football fans who follow the Premier League will know that City here refers to Manchester City. The main verb in this part of the headline is ‘set for‘ which means that something will start on a specific date or at a specific time (‘set for 17 June’).
Vocabulary
To reboot: To restart something
To be set for (date): An event will take place/start on this date
To be first up: The first one to take place; the initial one
