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Newspaper Headline: Sick as a Parrott

Sick as a parrotIn this football language post we explain a newspaper headline from the Guardian from March 5th 2020 which reports on the 5th round FA Cup defeat for Tottenham against Norwich City. 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: Sick as a Parrot

One of the most famous football cliches is the phrase ‘as sick as a parrot‘ which means that a player (or fan) is really disappointed or sad about something to do with football – usually a result that has not gone their way. This cliche is not used as often as before when players seemed to say it all the time during interviews but now they will use other phrases such as gutted to show their disappointment.A  The phrase has also become a little ‘tired’ and maybe even a little old-fashioned or even …cliched!

In this week’s FA Cup 5th round tie between Tottenham and Norwich City, the home side Spurs were beaten on penalties by Norwich which meant that players and fans were really disappointed at the end of the game. The newspaper headline from the Guardian has used the phrase ‘Sick as a Parrott’ because one of the Tottenham player’s to miss a penalty in the shoot out is Troy Parrot so he – and Spurs – are Sick as parrots. In the sub-heading the paper goes on to say that ‘Tottenham pay the penalty…’ and this phrase is often used to describe a situation when a team is beaten in a football game either on penalties or because of a missed penlaty.

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Learn English Through Football Podcast
Learn English Through Football Podcast
Damian Fitzpatrick

Learn English Through Football Podcast: A show for football fans to improve their English language skills

Welcome to the website that helps students interested in football improve their English language skills. Soccer fans can enhance these skills with lots of free language resources: a weekly podcast, football phrases, explanations of football vocabulary, football cliches, worksheets, quizzes and much more at languagecaster.com.

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