[Football] What is your all time favorite football quote?

[happypig]

Cloughie, on coming into the dressing room at half time and finding the players smoking
"You can put those bloody fags out"
"but boss, you let us smoke last week"
"Last week you were winning"

I've always like this from Jimmy Armfield : “I’d like to have seen Tony Morley left on as a down-and-out winger.”

 

[Gwylan]

No mention of two famous non-English quotes.

Borge Lillilien's

"Vi er best i verden! Vi er best i verden! Vi har slått England 2–1 i fotball!! Det er aldeles utrolig! Vi har slått England! England, kjempers fødeland. Lord Nelson, Lord Beaverbrook, Sir Winston Churchill, Sir Anthony Eden, Clement Attlee, Henry Cooper, Lady Diana--vi har slått dem alle sammen. Vi har slått dem alle sammen."Maggie Thatcher can you hear me? Maggie Thatcher, jeg har et budskap til deg midt under valgkampen. Jeg har et budskap til deg: Vi har slått England ut av Verdensmesterskapet i fotball. Maggie Thatcher, som de sier på ditt sprog i boksebarene rundt Madison Square Garden i New York: Your boys took a hell of a beating! Your boys took a hell of a beating!"

Your boys took a hell of the beating, crops up time and time again.

and Herbert Zimmermann's "
Schaefer nach innen geflankt... Kopfball... Abgewehrt. Aus dem Hintergrund müßte Rahn schießen... Rahn schießt! Tor! Tor! Tor! Tor! ...
Tor für Deutschland! Drei zu zwei führt Deutschland. Halten Sie mich für verrückt, halten Sie mich für übergeschnappt!"

I sometimes use the "call me crazy, call me bonkers" part. It's a quote used to memorable effect at the end of Fassbinder's film, The Marriage of Maria von Braun.

 

[Brok]

My favourite was from last week, it went something like...

"f***ing get in there Solly, my boy!"

The quote was from myself, but, unfortunately, nobody else actually heard it.

 

[drew]

The quote wasn't intended to be taken seriously when he said it. He was parodying himself. In a post retirement interview, he had explained that he had given everything to the game and was asked whether he regretted it. He said he did because his family had suffered and then explained how obsessive he had been using the famous line. Nobody really thinks its more important than life, it was just a typically dry and clever way to explain that we can all take it too seriously.

Really? I think at the time he said it he definitely meant it as he was that obsessed with the game. He back tracked later in life once he had retired and had his eyes opened by what he had missed with his family and what he had put them through. And no, I don't think any reasonable person does think football is more important than life.

 

[hampshirebrightonboy]

"Stoooooooooooooooooooooorer. Stuart Storer!"

"The stuff of dreams, the stuff of champions!"

"And we've only got ten men!"

I’m I watching Brighton or Barcelona

 

[Official Old Man]

Anything Clough said. Post #5 came to mind as soon as I saw the thread.

 

[Brok]

Anything Clough said. Post #5 came to mind as soon as I saw the thread.

Yeah, pretty much anything he said was quotable. Bless him.

 

[Eeyore]

'I am a firm believer that if you score one goal the other team have to score two to win.'

Attributed to the late Howard Wilkinson.

 

[Phoenix011]

 

[Questions]

“It’s time we stuck in that bloody net”
My dad from 1968 to 1971 every home game,

 

[Questions]

Or Danny Blanchflower,s “We intend to equaliser before the other team score first.”

 

[Wrong-Direction]

"It's absolute bedlam behind the goal!"

 

[Frankworthington]

Bobby Robson on Gazza
"George Best without a brain"!

 

[jessiejames]

Spent most of my money on birds and booze, the rest i just Wasted. George Best

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

The quote wasn't intended to be taken seriously when he said it. He was parodying himself. In a post retirement interview, he had explained that he had given everything to the game and was asked whether he regretted it. He said he did because his family had suffered and then explained how obsessive he had been using the famous line. Nobody really thinks its more important than life, it was just a typically dry and clever way to explain that we can all take it too seriously.

Really? I think at the time he said it he definitely meant it as he was that obsessed with the game. He back tracked later in life once he had retired and had his eyes opened by what he had missed with his family and what he had put them through. And no, I don't think any reasonable person does think football is more important than life.

He apparently said it to a journalist when he was still managing, see the first 20seconds of this interview

As a remark to sum up what football means to people, I think it stands up.
But yes, he did regret it later:


I'd have pretty much anything Shankly and Clough said on my "favourite football quotes" list.

 

[Happy Exile]

​

“What is a club in any case? Not the buildings or the directors or the people who are paid to represent it. It’s not the television contracts, get-out clauses, marketing departments or executive boxes. It’s the noise, the passion, the feeling of belonging, the pride in your city. It’s a small boy clambering up stadium steps for the very first time, gripping his father’s hand, gawping at that hallowed stretch of turf beneath him and, without being able to do a thing about it, falling in love.”​

Bobby Robson's quote really hits me. I remember vividly climbing up to the East Terrace of the Goldstone, the stool to stand on in my hand, gazing at pitch below me. And there, in that shabby stadium, the air perfumed by the fragrance of a multitude of Player's No 6, on that cold winter afternoon, I thought I'd found paradise.

That feeling remains so strong: didn't we all demonstrate when we fought so hard to save the club? That was the feeling of belonging, the pride in our city, the love of the club.

I can't think of anything that sums up that love for a club than Sir Bobby's statement.

You beat me to it. Mini-Exile had a Brighton game at the Amex as her first ever game and with this quote in my mind we paused together for a moment and halted the excited chat before she got a first view of the pitch so I could make sure she really got the thrill of the noise of the crowd and the perfect green in front of her. I loved seeing her do the same as a more football experienced 9 year old to her younger nephew a few years later and the look on his face mirroring the awe she'd had on hers that time a few years previously.

I've mentioned in other threads how most of the football fans in my family are Newcastle supporting Geordies. Bobby Robson was known personally by one of them, by all accounts a great man even more so than his reputation.

 

[HangletonGull]

Still when i either hear Storerrrrrrrrrrr
Or it’s the stuff of dreams it’s the stuff of champions
Still brings a tingle

 

[kojak]

For those of you watching in black and white
Tottenham are playing in the yellow shirts

John Motson

 

[ElectricNaz]

So many great quotes, some I'd heard but many that I hadn't.
I wish, 'He must have a foot like a traction engine' was a real commentator's quote, can you imagine sitting down to MOTD, only to hear that!

And another!!!

 

[The Optimist]

"They are basically on the ball, nearly as good as Manchester City. I don't know where they have come from. Over the last couple of years, they have become an unbelievable team.’’
Michail Antonio talking ahead of tomorrow’s game. Got it from an article on the BBC.