This Week: Keepy-Uppy

Introduction  

Jack: Hello my name’s Jack and welcome to our weekly round-up section called ‘This Week’ on Premier Skills English.

Rich: Hi there. I’m Rich. We’ve got lots of interesting words and phrases to help you talk about football in English.

Jack: Before we start this episode, we just wanted to wish all of our listeners well.

Rich: It can be difficult to stay at home and not go and see friends or relatives. My family and I have been at home for 10 days now. 

Jack: Yes, we are also self-isolating at our house. We just wanted to say hello and ask how all of you are and also give a big thank you to all the nurses and doctors and others helping to keep all of us safe.

Rich: Yes, I agree with that 100% a big thank you to all of you and a big thank you to everyone staying at home, too. Right, This Week, there has been no Premier League football of course but we are still here and we still want to help you with your English.

Jack: In this week’s show, we’re going to look at more light-hearted, humourous, funny stories involving Premier League players and clubs.

Rich: But we’ve still got lots of vocabulary for you to learn.

Jack: Yes, we have and we want you to use and practise these words and phrases by interacting with Premier League fans from around the world in our comments section.

Rich: If you listen to us on Apple Podcasts, you can leave your comments in the review section. We do read all the reviews and would love to hear from you.

Jack: You can find all our latest content on the Premier Skills English homepage or the Premier Skills-British Council Facebook page. 

Rich: Don’t forget that we also have our weekly Premier Skills English Podcast that is released every Friday. Every week we help you with some different vocabulary or an aspect of grammar.

Jack: Our latest podcast is called Learning Vocabulary: Working from home. We look at words and phrases connected to working from home such as productivity, distractions and disturbances. You can find the lesson on the Premier Skills English homepage, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and most other podcast platforms now. 

Rich: But now, as always, we want you to listen to our headlines.

Headlines

Jack: Milner keeping busy.

Rich: James Milner may not be on the pitch for Liverpool but he’s been busy around his home while in self-isolation. Some of his jobs have included sharpening pencils in preparation for homeschooling his kids, cutting the grass with scissors to make sure each blade is the correct length and rationing his teabags in case he runs out of tea. Milner loves parodying the ‘boring’ stereotype he’s been labelled with.

Jack: Premier League stars take on toilet roll challenge.

Rich: With many footballers confined to their homes, like everyone else they’ve been wondering what to do. Well, Premier League stars past and present have been challenging each other to a game of keepie-uppie with rolls of toilet roll. Ex-Manchester United and Liverpool stars Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher can be seen on Twitter with woeful efforts whereas Chelsea’s Mason Mount and Barcelona’s Lionel Messi make it look easy.

Jack: Watford’s Troy Deeney loves his mum.

Rich: It was Mother’s Day in the UK last Sunday and many Premier League players were talking about their mums. Manchester United’s Marcus Rashford thanked his rock for every hug, laugh, bit of encouragement, belief and sacrifice and Watford captain Troy Deeney wrote his mum a poem and thanked her for working three jobs to make ends meet when he was a boy.

Jack: The poem is really heartfelt. We’ll try to put a link to Troy Deeney reading the poem on the page for this show on the Premier Skills English website if you want to have a listen - it’s got subtitles to make it easier.

Vocabulary alert

Rich: In our vocabulary alert, we look at some words and phrases that we used in the headlines.

Jack: Our six words and phrases this week are: to run out of something, to be labelled with, confined to, keepie-uppie, sacrifice and to make ends meet.

Rich: Let’s start by talking about James Milner. He’s been trying to keep his fans entertained on Twitter.

Jack: Yes, I think it’s nice. Milner has been called the model professional - he trains well and eats well and always does the right things. 

Rich: And many people called him boring for this. Well, he’s the 34-year-old who is a champions league winner and nearly a Premier League winner with Liverpool.

Jack: Anyway, Milner plays on this boring image or stereotype he has been given. In the headlines, we said that he’s been labelled with this boring stereotype.

Rich: To label someone means to describe them in a specific way - usually unfairly. At school, a child is sometimes labelled as problematic or not very academic. These labels are nearly always very unfair.

Jack: James Milner has been labelled with being boring but his funny parodies of himself shows that this is very unfair.

Rich: In one of Milner’s Tweets, he’s worried about running out of tea. To run out of is a phrasal verb which means to finish a supply of something. 

Jack: You car might run out of petrol or I might need to go to the shops because I’ve run out of milk.

Rich: In the next headline, we spoke about the toilet roll challenge.

Jack: This involves playing keepie-uppie with a toilet roll. Keepie-uppie is a game that all kids play when they have a ball. 

Rich: It’s basically the game of keeping the ball in the air with your legs, feet, shoulders, head and chest - anything but your hands and arms.

Jack: Each time you touch the ball is called a kick up.

Rich: Last week you said I could only do two kick-ups!

Jack: Have you improved since last week? Maybe you can do three. 

Rich: I’ll challenge you to a game of keepie-uppie later.

Jack: You’re on! We said that footballers have been playing keepie-uppie because they’ve been confined to their homes. 

Rich: To confine something or someone means to keep something or someone within specific limits of something.

Jack: We often use the preposition ‘to’ when we describe these limits. People have been confined to their homes or sick people might be confined to their beds for example.

Rich: Let’s move on to our third headline. We were speaking about Mother’s Day. Manchester United’s Marcus Rashford was sending lots of love to his mum.

Jack: And lots of thanks too. He thanked her for all the sacrifices she had made for him. 

Rich: A sacrifice is giving up something important or valuable for something else that you see as more important. I can imagine Marcus Rashford’s mum gave up a lot of her time to take him to training and things like that when he was younger.

Jack: Yes, parents often sacrifice a lot for their children. A common collocation is to make a sacrifice. Parents make lots of sacrifices for their children.

Rich: Our final phrase this week is to make ends meet. We said that Troy Deeney’s mum had three different jobs to make ends meet for her family.

Jack: To make ends meet is an idiom which means to make just enough money to be able to buy the essential things you need to survive.

Rich: If you are just making ends meet, you are just earning enough to pay for basic things like food, energy and rent. Troy Deeney’s mum had to make a lot of sacrifices for her family.

Jack: Now listen again to our headlines. Listen for the six words we have been speaking about. Here are the six words and phrases.

Rich: The six words and phrases this week are:  to run out of something, to be labelled with, confined to, keepie-uppie, sacrifice and to make ends meet.

Headlines

Jack: Milner keeping busy.

Rich: James Milner may not be on the pitch for Liverpool but he’s been busy around his home while in self-isolation. Some of his jobs have included sharpening pencils in preparation for homeschooling his kids, cutting the grass with scissors to make sure each blade is the correct length and rationing his teabags in case he runs out of tea. Milner loves parodying the ‘boring’ stereotype he’s been labelled with.

Jack: Premier League stars take on toilet roll challenge.

Rich: With many footballers confined to their homes, like everyone else they’ve been wondering what to do. Well, Premier League stars past and present have been challenging each other to a game of keepie-uppie with rolls of toilet roll. Ex-Manchester United and Liverpool stars Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher can be seen on Twitter with woeful efforts whereas Chelsea’s Mason Mount and Barcelona’s Lionel Messi make it look easy.

Jack: Watford’s Troy Deeney loves his mum.

Rich: It was Mother’s Day in the UK last Sunday and many Premier League players were talking about their mums. Manchester United’s Marcus Rashford thanked his rock for every hug, laugh, bit of encouragement, belief and sacrifice and Watford captain Troy Deeney wrote his mum a poem and thanked her for working three jobs to make ends meet when he was a boy.

Toilet roll challenge

Rich: Right, Jack. You say I can’t do kick-ups. Well, I’m ready for the toilet roll challenge.

Jack: You’ve got a toilet roll.

Rich: I’ve got a toilet roll.

Jack: You’ve got your kit on.

Rich: Well, I’m in jeans and a t-shirt. I don’t need my kit for this. 

Jack: OK, let’s see if you can do 10. Let’s play keepy-uppy.

Rich: Right. Let’s go. One, two, hold on. Give me another go. I’m in my socks, aren't I? Here we go. One, two, three, oh god - it’s more difficult than I thought!

Jack: One more go? Come on you can get 10.

Rich: Let’s go. One more time. I’ve got my socks on so it’s more difficult. I’m not used to doing kick-ups in my socks.

Jack: You’ll be blaming the ball next.

Rich: Yeah, I’m not exactly used to playing football with a toilet roll! Here we go one, two, three …. Six! Is that good enough?

Jack: Not good enough, Rich!

Rich: Now, it’s your turn.

Jack: I can’t. I ran out of loo roll days ago!

Rich: Coward! I’m sure all of you can do better than me. I’m going to have another go and I’ll get my son to film it and then I’ll put it on the website and the Premier Skills Facebook page so you can have a laugh at me.

Jack: Or if you think you can do better, you can tell us how many kick-ups you did with a toilet roll or even upload your videos to Facebook or Twitter and tag us in your message!

Language Challenge

Rich: To finish up the show we’ve got a quick language challenge for you which is connected to this week’s vocabulary.

Jack: We want you to listen to three sentences and tell us which sentence is correct.

Rich: Jack can’t do the toilet roll challenge because he’s run off with the loo roll.

Rich: Jack can’t do the toilet roll challenge because he ran out of loo roll and needs to get more from the shops.

Rich: Jack can’t do the toilet roll challenge because he ran over the loo roll when unpacking the supermarket shopping last night.

Jack: OK, we want you to write the correct answer on the Premier Skills English website where we have some more questions and activities connected to this week’s show for you.

Rich: Or write your answer on Apple Podcasts if that’s where you listen to us. We want you to use the correct phrasal verb. Write: Jack can’t do the toilet roll challenge because he ran _____  loo roll!

Jack: Before we finish we just wanted to say that we hope you found this lesson useful and we hope that all of you stay healthy and we’ll all be back watching Premier League football very soon.

Rich: Bye for now and enjoy your football.