This Week: The Magic of the FA Cup

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

In This Week, we’ve got lots of interesting words and phrases to help you talk about football in English.

If you are listening to this podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify you can also visit the Premier Skills English website at britishcouncil.org/premierskillsenglish where you’ll be able to download the podcast.

This week, I want to talk about a match that was played between the National League team Wrexham A.F.C and the Championship side Sheffield United. This was an exciting fixture for Wrexham because they play in the fifth tier of English football. Well, they are a Welsh team, but they play in the English league.

Anyhow, that’s all a bit complicated. The point is, Sheffield United were recently in the Premier League. Bramall Lane has a capacity of over 30,000. They are a proper big team in English football and Wrexham, well ... They have a long history, but they haven’t ever played in the top tiers and have been in the fifth tier for over ten years so this was a big match for them. It was also special because the club has an unusual fan base.

Football phrase

But before I get to this week’s story, there were two football phrases for you to guess last week. I’m going to give you one more chance to guess them both now.

The first football phrase last week was just a word. The word was *********. This describes a shot or a pass that hits or is lightly touched by another player just enough to change the direction that the ball is heading in. If a shot is *********, it’s almost bounced off someone or something, only instead of bouncing back towards the person who kicked it’s ********* and changes direction.

The second football phrase last week was a really easy one. It was the word for a goal that puts the scores level. If your team is behind, it’s a great feeling when someone scores an *********. It brings the whole game to life again and fills fans with hope.

Congratulations to Denis2000 from Belarus, Taha Gashout from Libya, Fabs17 from Italy, Cezario Abrantes from Brazil, Hasan from Turkey, MK_dir98 from Iran, Chen Meng Tso from Taiwan, Hiracky16 from Japan, Eduardo Caicedo from Ecuador, Vietnguyenngo from Vietnam and RObackpaker from Romania. You all manage to work out one or both of the football phrases that were deflected and equaliser.

It was great to read your answers to the tasks last week. Hasan, you really were the hero in your story when you saved that woman and child and Cezario, you must have been relieved when your friends finally came to your rescue when you nearly drowned. My wife nearly drowned when she was young so we have made sure both our boys have learnt to swim.

I liked your story Fabs17 about your friend who nearly gave up on her dream career. Especially because she found her way back to her dream. When people are young, they can be fragile. A simple word of encouragement, especially if it’s out of the blue and unexpected can have a powerful impact. At the same time, being dismissive or discouraging can crush a young person’s dreams.

One last thing before the story. Cezario, you asked what I meant when I said ‘if you are driving way out in the country’. This is a good question. T think this use of way out is a shortened form of a long way out. We also say way off for a long way off. So if you are driving in the country, but you’re only a few miles from town, you are in the country. If you are 10 miles from town, you are out in the country and if you are 20 miles from town, you are way out in the country. I hope that makes sense.

Now it’s time for me to get on with this week’s story. The words and phrases from the story that I want you to listen out for are: Magical, regional, opponents, to mean, to scrape a victory, media coverage, to generate publicity, responsibility and to be invested in something.

The Magic of the FA Cup

The FA Cup is an annual football competition that is open to clubs from the top 9 tiers of English football from the Premier League down to the regional leagues. The cup is the oldest national football competition in the world and was first held in 1871 with 15 clubs competing for the title. Today, over 700 clubs compete in the competition in six rounds of qualifying matches followed by five rounds of the main competition. Clubs from the EFL leagues and Championship join the competition in the first rounds of the main competition and the Premier League teams only join for the last three rounds.

The FA Cup is an opportunity for clubs to play opponents that they would never normally get to play against. Sometimes this means smaller clubs get to compete against the giants of English football. The qualifying rounds are staged so that the level 9 clubs play first and in each round, they get to play clubs at higher levels so that it’s possible that a very small club could battle their way through to face a Premier League team. However, that doesn’t really happen, but each year, clubs do get to play their way through the competition. So for example, this year Bury A.F.C, who play in the North West Counties League made it as far as the fourth qualifying round and eventually got knocked out by York City who play in a league four levels above them. 32 teams that play in the qualifying rounds go through to the first round of the main competition where they get to play bigger teams.

This year, there has been a lot of excitement around Wrexham A.F.C who play in the National League which is the fifth level of English football. Wrexham qualified for the main competition and won in the first round against Oldham Athletic, in the second round against Farnborough, and in the third round they scraped a victory against Coventry City who play in the Championship. Yesterday, the Red Dragons faced Sheffield United who are also in the Championship but were in the Premier League last season. And the Dragons almost won.

The match last night ended in a 3-3 draw so they will meet again for a replay. The winner of that match will face Spurs so if Wrexham pull it off, it really will be magical for players and fans.

Wrexham A.F.C matches have had more media coverage than you might have expected from a fifth tier club and the club has drawn an unusual number of followers from across the globe. This is mostly down to the efforts of the new club owners. In November 2020, the Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds and the American Actor Rob McElhenney bought the club and this has generated a lot of publicity for the Welsh side. The new owners made a TV series about the club and their experiences as they learnt what football means to the town and about their responsibilities to their new community.

This morning on twitter, Ryan Reynolds shared some pictures of himself at the match and there were thousands of replies from Americans and Canadians who have been captivated by Wrexham’s story. One tweet was from a woman quoting her sister saying:

“I do not understand how I could be SO completely invested in a game in a league I don’t watch, in a country I haven’t even been to!”

Wrexham will now have to face Sheffield United at Bramall Lane. This will be the biggest match of most of the players’ careers and will be watched live by fans of the teams and the FA Cup from all over the world who will be excited and delighted by the magic of the FA Cup.

There are 9 words and phrases from this story that I want to talk about. The words and phrases are: magical, regional, opponents, to mean, to scrape a victory, media coverage, to generate publicity, responsibility and to be invested in something.

Word number 1: Magical
The word magic is normally used to talk about impossible powers and acts that are performed by witches and wizards or by supernatural creatures. But the word is also used to describe things that are special and exciting, that are not ordinary. So people talk about the magic of christmas, meaning that special quality that makes people, especially children so excited, even when there’s no supernatural meaning. If something has magic or is magical then it has a special quality that’s hard to describe. It makes you feel more excited and is more special than normal.

Word number 2: Regional
A region is an area, usually of a country. We normally talk about regions if there is something from that area that is not from anywhere else. So you might hear someone say: this region is famous for a type of cheese. The adjective regional is used to describe things from a region. This adjective is often use in contrast with national which refers to a country. So the regional leagues in English football can be contrasted with the national leagues.

Word number 3: Opponents
If you take part in a competition, the other people or teams in the competition that you play or perform against are your opponents. We also use the word opponent to talk about people who are against an idea or political programme. People who oppose an idea are opponents of the idea. In the FA Cup, the teams that are playing against a particular club are their opponents.

Word number 4: To mean
The verb mean is fascinating. It’s at the heart of lots of philosophy and is used in different ways. Normally, your teacher will tell you what words mean, what the meaning of words are. But actions can mean things as well. When we say that and action means something, we mean ... er ... we are saying that it will have a result. It’s similar to a gesture, though that’s still a type of language. So when the refers points to the spot, that means there will be a penalty. You could also say that a foul in the box means there’s going to be a penalty. The penalty is the result of the foul in the box. You could say that dark clouds mean it’s going to rain. I said that as the FA Cup is open to clubs from nine levels of English football, this means that smaller clubs have the chance to play against clubs from higher levels.

Phrase number 5: To scrape a victory
To scrape something, normally means to drag a sharp, usually thin object over the surface of something. So if you have ice on your car windscreen in the morning, you have to scrape it off. If you have mud on your shoes, you may want to scrape it off before you go in the house. Some houses in the UK actually have boot scrapers outside the front door. If you are driving and you drive too close to a wall, you might scrape your car against the wall. This is less than crashing, it probably just damages the paint on your car. You do hit the wall, but only just. And I think that’s similar to the meaning of scrape in the phrase to scrape a victory. It means to win, but only just. If a team scrapes a victory, normally, they get a goal at the last moment. It’s like the opposite of a resounding victory, while still being a win.

Phrase number 6: Media coverage
The media means the TV, newspapers, magazines, radio and the internet. When something happens, it is reported on these channels. Another word for reported is covered. So you might hear someone ask if the BBC are covering the next Wrexham match. The noun form coverage, refers to all the reporting and is used to talk about how much reporting there is on all the different media channels for a specific event or for a person or team. So normally, I don’t think a fifth tier Welsh football team would get much media coverage in the USA, but because of the Netflix series and the team’s celebrity owners, Wrexham is getting a lot of media coverage.

Phrase number 7: To generate publicity
To generate normally means to make something exist. I think it’s most commonly used to talk about electricity. Electricity is generated in power stations. Wind turbines can be used to generate electricity. Publicity is very similar to media coverage but it also includes how much people are talking about something. If an event generates publicity, it gets media coverage and makes people talk about it.

Word number 8: Responsibility
Your responsibilities are the things you are responsible for. These are things that you have a moral or professional duty to care for or that require you to do certain tasks. So if you’re at work, the things that you have to do as part of your job are your work responsibilities. If you have a pet, you have a responsibility to look after the animal. If you have kids, then you have lots of responsibilities. When Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney bought Wrexham A.F.C they may not have appreciated the importance of Wrexham football club to the community in Wrexham. If you are a club owner, you have a responsibility to the fans and the community to make sure that the club survives.

Phrase number 9: (and the last phrase I want to talk about today is) to be invested in something
Normally, people invest in businesses. This means they give the business some money to help the business grow and they hope that when it does, they will be repaid more money than they originally invested. However, you can invest more than money. You can invest your time in a project. If you spend a long time working on something, then you are investing your time in a project and you probably hope to see some reward in the future. We use the adjective invested to say that someone really cares about a project, as if they have invested a lot of time or money in the project. So if you are invested in something, like the fortunes of a football club, you spend a lot of time thinking and worrying about the club and so you will be very happy if they succeed.

OK - that’s 9 words and phrases today. The words and phrases are: magical, regional, opponents, to mean, to scrape a victory, media coverage, to generate publicity, responsibility and to be invested in something.

Listen to the story again to hear the words and phrases in context.

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Language Challenge

Right, now it’s time for you to think about the language again.

Your challenge this week is to complete the gaps in the following sentences with the correct form of the words from the podcast. I have taken these examples directly from news websites and blogs and edited them slightly to make them clearer.

Number 1. The team has been unlucky not to have won more matches this season and some of that is down to players getting injured, but the overall _____________ for the performance of the team lies with the manager.

Number 2. Donald Trump was Joe Biden’s ___________ in the 2020 USA Presidential election.

Number 3. Working from home doesn’t _______ you have to spend all your time in your bedroom or working from the kitchen table.

Number 4. The actor is complaining about having been cancelled and is finding it much harder to get __________________ after his latest corruption scandal.

Number 5. The winning candidate looked relieved when the vote count was read out and she realised she’d ______________ by only a few hundred votes.

Number 6. The walk through the village in winter was __________. The cobbled streets and pretty cottages looked like something out of a fairy tale.

Number 7. The rise of social media has changed traditional advertising with national advertising agencies being hit much harder than _________ advertising agencies.

Number 8. If a manager becomes too _________ in a particular player, it can be hard to sack or sell them if they are not playing well enough.

Number 9. A competition with a valuable prize is a good way to _____________.

Leave your answers to the language challenge in the comments section on the Premier Skills English website.

Task

Your task this week is to think about the magic of the FA Cup. I really like the idea that some places or events are somehow more special than they should be because they are somehow magical. Can you share with me and the rest of the listeners an experience, perhaps a place or event from your country that is magical?

Share your ideas in the comments section on the Premier Skills English website.

Football Phrase

Now it’s time for this week's football phrase.

This week’s football phrase is to *** ******* ***. This is a passive phrase that means that a team has been beaten in a club competition and is no longer in the competition. I used this phrase when I spoke about how far Bury got in the qualifying rounds of this year’s FA Cup.

If you know the answer, be sure to leave it in a comment on the page for this podcast on Premier Skills English.

And that’s all I have time for today. Before I finish, I just wanted to say that I hope you found this podcast useful, and I hope all of you stay fit and healthy and safe.

Bye for now and enjoy your football.