This Week: Premier League Restart

Introduction

Laura: Hello my name’s Laura 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: And I’m Jack and we hope you are all staying well whether you are staying home or still going to work.

Laura: We’ve looked high and low for three news stories that we want to share with you.

Rich: This week, we talk about the return of Premier League football, the best-ever Premier League match and a Premier Skills English success story.

Jack: We have chosen these stories because they are topical or fun and also so we can focus on some interesting bits of vocabulary that we think are useful to learn.

Laura: 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. 

Laura: 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.

Rich: Our latest podcast is called Learning Vocabulary: Starting a business. 

Jack: In the roleplay, Rich is planning a business. He wants to open a cafe. A Liverpool FC themed cafe. I don’t think he has the best business plan in the world.

Laura: We look at lots of language connected to business and finance. You can find the lesson on the homepage on the Premier Skills English website. 

Rich: You’re now going to hear our three headlines. After each headline, we’ll have a little discussion and look at some vocabulary. The words and phrases we are looking at this week are: fixtures, a game in hand, to put a team in front, to come from behind, to hit top spot and to be riding high. 

Jack: After the headlines, we’ll have another fitness challenge and a language challenge for you to have a go at.

Headline 1

Rich: New kick-off dates announced.

Jack: The Premier League will provisionally re-start on the 17th of June. The first fixtures to be played will be Manchester City against Arsenal and Aston Villa against Sheffield United as these clubs all have games in hand to be played. This will be followed by a full round of Premier League fixtures on the weekend beginning the 19th of June.

Laura: Less than three weeks to go. I can’t wait for the football to kick off again even if it will be played behind closed doors.

Rich: Yes, and from what I’ve seen of the fixtures there are going to be matches played nearly every day for a month. Wall-to-wall football!

Jack: Wall-to-wall football. That’s an interesting expression. We say something is wall-to-wall when something is continuous - when you can see something all the time. 

Laura: We usually use it for things that are on television. Wall-to-wall news coverage or wall-to-wall sports. Let’s look at a couple of useful football phrases from the headline.

Rich: The first is fixtures. We said the first fixture to be played will be Manchester City against Arsenal.

Jack: A fixture is an officially arranged event and is often used for sports events and football matches.

Laura: When we talk about the matches in a whole season we talk about the fixture list and we can all talk about the weekend fixtures and midweek fixtures.

Rich: The other football phrase we want to take a look at from the headline is a game in hand. We spoke about four teams that have a game in hand so they will play these fixtures first.

Jack: A game in hand is a phrase we use to describe a team that has played one match fewer than its rivals. When these four teams have played their games in hand everyone will have played 29 fixtures. Let’s move on to our next headline.

Headline 2

Laura: Liverpool beat Newcastle in Premier League thriller.

Rich: An amazing match at Anfield saw the Reds come from behind to beat Premier League leaders, Newcastle. Robbie Fowler gave Liverpool an early lead but Les Ferdinand soon equalised for the Magpies and David Ginola put them in front. Fowler’s second made it two each but Faustino Asprilla put Newcastle ahead again. Stan Collymore then became the Liverpool hero with a third equaliser and a dramatic injury-time winner.

Jack: You might wonder why we are talking about a match from 1996 … well it’s because this game has been voted the best-ever Premier League match on the BBC.

Laura: Rich why don’t you tell us a bit more about it for those of us who are too young to remember like me!

Rich: It was a brilliant match. Kevin Keegan’s brilliant attacking team were chasing the title. They had David Ginola who was wonderful and the brilliant Colombian - Faustino Asprilla - they just wanted to attack. The problem was that they couldn’t defend that well.

Jack: Yeah, they never did win the title but they were one of the best-ever attacking teams even if they lost this game, too!

Laura: Let’s look at a couple of football phrases from the headline. We said the Reds came from behind to beat Newcastle.

Rich: To come from behind means to turn a losing position into a winning position.

Jack: Liverpool were losing 3-2 but they won 4-3. They came from behind to win.

Laura: The other phrase is to put a team in front. David Ginola put Newcastle in front. We also said Robbie Fowler gave Liverpool the lead. 

Rich: Both these phrases, to put a team in front and to give a team the lead mean the same. They mean a team has gone into a winning position.

Jack: We often use the name of the goalscorer to say who put a team in front or gave a team the lead. Let’s look at our third and final headline.

Headline 3

Rich: Premier Skills English goes global - thank you all for listening.

Laura: The Learn English with the British Council and Premier League podcast has recently hit top spot in the podcast charts in Vietnam, Indonesia, Egypt, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka and the Philippines and is riding high in Japan, Hong Kong, India, Saudi Arabia and Chile.  We just wanted to say a big thank you to all our listeners. Thanks for listening.

Jack: Yes, yes, yes - thank you to all of you wherever you are listening to us. We know that our podcasts are listened to all over the world in many different ways. We are very happy that you find them fun and they are helping you with your English studies.

Rich: Two more phrases from that headline to help everyone are to hit top spot and to ride high.

Laura: We said that our podcast has hit top spot in the podcast charts. This means it has reached first place. We could say that Liverpool hit top spot early in the season and they are still there now.

Jack: We said the podcast is riding high in lots of charts in lots of countries. To be riding high or to be flying high both mean to be successful.

Rich: You could say that Leicester City and Sheffield United are riding high in the Premier League table this season.

Laura: OK.  We’ve looked at three stories and six bits of vocabulary in our headlines. The words and phrases we’ve looked at are: fixtures, a game in hand, to put a team in front, to come from behind, to hit top spot and to be riding high.

Jack: Have a listen to the headlines again and see if you understand the vocabulary we’ve looked at. 

TASK - Fitness Challenge

Rich: Each week we’re trying to set you a fitness challenge and this week’s challenge comes from Andreas Kormnayer.

Laura: Andreas is head of fitness and conditioning at Liverpool football club.

Jack: For this challenge, the only thin you need is a towel or a tea towel which is what Andreas uses in the video.

Rich: The exercises focus on your upper body and he speaks nice and slowly so it’s good practice for your English skills as well as your physical fitness!

Laura: The link to the video is on the lesson page for this podcast on the Premier Skills English website. Let us know if you do the exercises in the comments section.

Language Challenge

Jack: To finish up the show we’ve got a quick language challenge connected to this week’s vocabulary.

Rich: It’s often difficult to know what preposition to use in English and it’s important to practise so that’s what we want to do now.

Laura: Here are three phrases from this week’s vocabulary. What is the preposition in each sentence?

Jack: Alexandre Lacazette put Arsenal ____ front in the second half.

Rich: United came ______ behind to win 2-1.

Laura: Liverpool could win the Premier League title if City don’t win their game ____ hand.

Jack: We want you to write the correct answers 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. Just write the answers in the review section and say hi.

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

Jack: Bye for now and enjoy your football.