Podcast 29

Rich: Hello my name’s Rich and welcome to this week’s Premier Skills English podcast.

Jack: Hi everyone. I’m Jack and every week we talk about football and help you with your English.

Rich: This week, we’re going to talk about another crazy weekend in this season’s Premier League. Bournemouth beating Chelsea, Stoke beating Manchester City and Newcastle beating Liverpool were just some of the shock results last weekend.

Jack: That Bournemouth result was a real surprise and the language focus this week is on phrases we use when something is unexpected or surprising.

Rich: And later I’ll make another Premier League prediction. And, of course, you have another chance to win a Samsung Galaxy tablet in our ‘What’s my Team?’ competition.

Jack: What was the answer to last week’s riddle Rich?

Rich: Ah, yes. Last week it was Alison and I think it was a bit more difficult, her favourite Premier League team is Norwich City. If you were trying to find the answer the easiest thing Alison mentioned was the club’s nickname - she talked about the Canaries. And of course, Norwich City are the Premier League team called the Canaries.

Jack: I thought it was interesting what she said about Norwich City’s song ‘On the Ball City’ and Rema from Serbia pointed out that the song is actually older than the club - he found that it was written in 1860!

Rich: That is surprising! I think listening to and learning football songs and chants can be a nice way to learn more about your club and Premier League culture, and also to improve your English.

Jack: Yes, if you know any songs or chants from a Premier League club share them in the comments section. But be careful with some of the language you use - we might have to edit some of these comments!

Rich: I was just thinking about the difference between a song and a chant - ‘You’ll never walk alone’ sung by Liverpool fans is a song but a chant is much shorter and usually more repetitive like ‘United, United’ or ‘Come on Chelsea’ or ‘1-0 to the Arsenal’.

Jack: And of course these chants sound so much better when tens of thousands of fans are singing them and not just you, Rich.

Rich: Right, anyway, who is this week’s winner?

Jack: We have selected a winner at random from the correct answers and the eleventh winner of the What’s my team? competition is Grigor25 a Liverpool fan from Armenia. Congratulations Grigor25, we’ll be in contact with you this week.

Rich: Well done Grigor25! Later on in the podcast, you can listen to this week’s What’s my team riddle.

Rich: Jamie Vardy’s record goal scoring run stopped at 11 goals at the weekend when he failed to score in Leicester’s 3-0 win away to Swansea City.

Jack: Who would have thought it? It was the first time Vardy hadn’t scored in a Premier League match since August!

Rich: It didn’t stop Leicester going back to the top of the table, though. The Algerian winger Riyad Mahrez scored a hat-trick!

Jack: Last week we asked you if Vardy was the best player in the Premier League at the moment and a lot of you agreed with us.

Rich: Those that agreed that Jamie Vardy is the best player at the moment include: Mugemanyi from Rwanda, Nikosonris from Ukraine, Aragorn1986 and AleksandarR from Montenegro, RuslanJon from Uzbekistan, SalvaGh from Spain, Elghoul from Algeria, HakanUslu1881 from Turkey, Nyinyi from Myanmar, Abdallah from Kuwait, DejanZ from Macedonia and Antonio Contreras from Portugal.

Jack: But not all of you agreed. Polevoy2000 from Belarus, This week’s winner Grigor25 from Armenia, Amaral from Albania all think Vardy’s teammate Riyad Mahrez is the best on current form.  Anfat from Ukraine thinks it’s Man City’s Raheem Sterling, Okhilleus7 from Montenegro thinks it’s Mesut Ozil at Arsenal, and Heaton555 from Armenia thinks it’s Manchester City’s Kevin De Bruyne.

Rich: We also asked you about invitations last week and what gifts you take with you when invited to someone’s home.

Jack: Deyanet from Azerbaijan says it’s always a difficult decision but usually chooses something to eat or drink.

Rich: Ruslanjon from Uzbekistan often takes cake to a party and Heaton555 from Armenia goes for wine or chocolates.

Jack: Food and drink was definitely the most common gift. Aragorn1986, Gugo from Armenia, AleksandarR, Elghoul, Antonio Contreras, Okhilleus7, Drilol from Kosovo and Rafael24 from Ecuador were just some of you who take food and drink when invited to a party.

Rich: My favourite comment this week was from Nikosonris. He said when he asks what to take to a friend’s party they always say: ‘Nothing, just bring yourself.’

Jack: I’m never sure if people mean it when they say that. I don’t think people expect a gift but I think it would be impolite not to bring something.

Rich: ‘Expect’ is a useful word. It means to think or believe that something will happen or someone will do something. So people expect you to take something  to someone’s house.

Jack: And we use it in football a lot. Manchester Utd were expected to beat West Ham last weekend but they didn’t. 0-0 at home to West Ham was an unexpected result. And in the next section we’re going to speak a bit more about phrases we use when something is unexpected or surprising.

Rich: We’ve already spoken about Leicester going back to the top of the table. What else has been happening in the Premier League?

Jack: Like you said earlier, it was a crazy weekend in the Premier League. The biggest surprise had to be Bournemouth winning at Chelsea.

Rich: I really didn’t see that one coming.

Jack: No, I didn’t expect it either. Bournemouth’s manager, Eddie Howe, described the win as the biggest result in the club’s history.

Rich: Bournemouth have never been in the Premier League before so a win over the Champions is definitely a huge win for them.

Jack: This weekend was a great one for the underdogs.

Rich: Underdog is a great word. It’s used a lot in sport and describes the team or person that is not expected to win because they aren’t as strong or powerful.

Jack: Stoke against Manchester City was another example of the underdog winning against the favourite.

Rich: Stoke won 2-0 and they were fantastic. The front four of Stoke: Marko Arnautovic, Bojan Krkic, Xherdan Shaqiri and Ibrahim Afellay were amazing.

Jack: The result was not right out of the blue. Stoke beat Chelsea earlier this season and when you have Champions League winners like Shaqiri who won it with Bayern Munich and Afellay (Aff er lay)and Krkic (krik itch) who won it with Barcelona in your team are going to get results.

Rich: The other big upset of the weekend and the one that upset me the most was Newcastle’s 2-0 win against Liverpool.

Jack: Liverpool had won their last three away games against Premier League teams 3-1, 4-1 and 6-1 and Newcastle had only scored two goals in their last five matches and lost their last match 5-1.

Rich: It was a real bolt from the blue and a shock. I thought Liverpool’s season had turned the corner.

Jack: But this is what we love about the Premier League. It’s unpredictable. Anyone can beat anyone in the Premier League.

Rich: And everybody loves it when an underdog wins, unless it’s against your team of course!

Jack: Let’s go back and look at some of the words and phrases we just used to describe things that are unexpected.

Rich: To describe something that was unexpected we can use nouns like shock, surprise and upset.

Jack: So when an underdog beats a favourite like Bournemouth beating Chelsea, you can say it was a shock result or a surprise result.

Rich: Here we are using two nouns together - we call this a compound noun. The first noun surprise or shock is being used as an adjective to describe the second noun.

Jack: We can’t use upset like this. We say things like there was a big upset in the match between Liverpool and Newcastle.

Rich: We can also use all three of them as verbs. We could say Stoke shocked/upset/surprised Manchester City.

Jack: But remember here upset doesn’t mean to be sad or to make someone sad. We can say Rich was upset about Newcastle upsetting Liverpool which means Rich was sad about Newcastle surprising Liverpool.

Rich: Yes I was. We used some other expressions to describe things that were unexpected. We used the expression ‘a bolt from the blue’ or ‘to come out of the blue’.

Jack: I like the phrase ‘I didn’t see that one coming’. It’s quite obvious but sounds really nice.

Rich: We’d like to see all of you using some of these words and expressions in our comments section. Can you try to answer some of these questions? Number 1.Which match was the biggest upset last weekend?

Jack: Number 2: What are some shock results that you can remember?

Rich: Number 3: Can you tell us something in your life that happened out of the blue?

Jack: Right, I think it’s time for this week’s competition: ‘What’s my Team?’

Rich: Here is what you have to do. Listen to a Premier League fan, who will talk about their favourite team and then write the name of the team  in the comments section on the Premier Skills English website.

Jack: And for each of the 20 podcast competitions the lucky winner will receive a fantastic Samsung Galaxy Tablet. We wish you the best of luck!

Rich: Right, so this week, our Premier League fan is Michael. Listen to Michael’s riddle and try to work out what’s his team?

Michael: A former captain of ours, Danny Blanchflower said ‘The game is about glory. It’s about doing things in style, with a flourish, about going out and beating the other lot, not waiting for them to die of boredom." This sums up the way we like to play football. So come and watch us in action in the North-London derby against our biggest rivals, Arsenal.

Rich: Hey Jack! I think Michael might be making fun out of your team there. Can you remember the chant, ‘Boring, Boring Arsenal!’?

Jack: I remember, but I don’t think we’ve heard that chant for years! Time for your prediction Rich.

Rich: The Premier League, with upsets every week and underdogs beating favourites on a regular basis has made this season’s Premier League very unpredictable. But one thing that has been predictable is my prediction being wrong! This week’s big match is this season’s biggest surprise - Leicester City at home to last season’s Champions - Chelsea. This time last year Leicester were bottom of the table and Chelsea were top. How things change! Leicester are flying high and Chelsea are having problems at the wrong end of the table. It’s always nice to see an underdog spring a surprise so I’m going to go for a Chelsea win. Final score: Leicester City 1-2 Chelsea

Jack: A Chelsea win? I don’t think that would be a surprise result.

Rich: Maybe not.

Jack: That’s it for today - we’ve run out of time! Thanks for listening. And don’t forget to write your answers to the competition, your answers to our questions about upsets and surprises, your predictions and any questions you have about the website or football English in the comments below.

Rich: Don’t forget if you sign in, you can score points to see if you can get your club, your country and your name to the top of our leaderboard.

Jack: Bye for now and enjoy your football.