Excitable Ron’s description of a popular football skill, usually performed by a ‘tricky’ winger. National Institute of Commentating scholars were long convinced that this Ronglish classic owed something to the lollipop stick/trick Cockney rhyming slang staple, but when pressed on the matter, Ron blew this theory out of the water.

“That’s not a bad shout. I wish I’d known that – but no, it doesn’t. It is a trick, though. It was the only trick I had. I don’t know why it’s called a lollipop, though! But you can’t say ‘The Brazilian, Denilson, has put his right foot over the ball, then his left foot and he’s taken it away with his right’ – because the game would be over. So I say ‘He’s done a lollipop.’

Fair enough.

In any case, in Ron’s eyes the lollipop involved the trickster waving one or both feet over a stationary football, much to the bemusement of the onlooking Lee Dixon.

Ron has said:

Denilson’s given it about twenty lollipops there, Clive.

Mrs Ron might say:

Tough day Ron. I’ve gone down the local for a swift G&T, and what do you know, I’ve forgot me wallet. So I’ve gone up there, given the barman a double lollipop and nipped out the tradesman’s entrance. Diamond.