Do you know what Ron Atkinson means when he dismisses an ostensibly talented player as an ‘amusement arcade’? Do you scratch your head when Ray Wilkins ‘puts the hammer into Luton’s coffin’ or Kevin Keegan discovers ‘a mole on the wall of the dressing-room’? Do you wince when you hear Glenn Hoddle encourage an injured player
to ‘do some running on his groin’?

Remember David Pleat telling us that ‘for such a small man, Maradona gets great elevation on his balls’. How we laughed when Big Ron worried about the player who ‘dribbles a lot and the opposition don’t like it – you can see it all over their faces’. And fair play to sensitive beanpole Irishman Niall Quinn, who had kind words for the infertile referee who ‘. . . when he makes a decision, there’s no arms thrown into the air and no gestating’.

There’s plenty more of that kind of thing in this book, a definitive study of the timeless art of what we like to call ‘guff ’ – a neat umbrella term for the lingo, gaffes and general foolishness so prevalent in football today.

There are 18 Gaffta Awards in total including:

BEST GAFFER AWARD
QUEEN’S ENGLISH AWARD
PLAYERS’ AWARD
BEST SUPPORTING COMMENTATOR AWARD
RADIO GA-GA AWARD
CARRY-ON-COMMENTATING AWARD
JOHNNY FOREIGNER AWARD
GREEN GUFF AWARD

And special achievement awards go to guff legends:

RON ATKINSON
BILL SHANKLY
DAVID COLEMAN

In each section, our panel of guffological
experts have chosen a winner who, in their estimation, has simply produced the greatest quantity or quality of nonsense in that field.

As well as handing out the gongs and honourable nominations, all of the game’s leading ‘guff merchants’ are dissected. And as well as charting their finest guff moments, along the way, we try to establish just what makes them tick.

We know, for starters, that some are simply show-offs. Why would Ally McCoist or Rodney Marsh restrict the audience for their age-old routine of cast-off Kenneth Williams gags to a half-empty golf clubhouse in Marbella, when they can ‘perform’ for half of Britain every week instead?

We look, too, at the McDonald’s, Coca-
Cola and Microsoft of punditry - Gray, Hansen and Lawrenson, a trio whom you suspect have long stopped caring where their ingredients come from or whether their source code is secure.

Read the book from cover to cover, if you will. Or dive in and select an awards category, reading in sequence all about the also-rans, nominees and the winner. Or maybe you’d like to skip straight to one of your favourites? Perhaps take a lesson from the Word of Hod? Or find out where John Motson’s commentaries usually come unstuck?

As everyone knows, football punditry is the new rock ’n’ roll. Roll out the red carpet. Let the Gafftas begin.

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