Jokes, stories quotes about soccer

In this section we feature football jokes, quotes and strange but true stories. The flea can jump 350 times its body length.  It's like a human jumping the length of a football field.

Soccer Origin

The word soccer is derived from an abbreviation of association as in - Association Football.  In 1890 it was spelt variously as socca and socker.   One day Charles Wreford-Brown was leaving his digs, dressed in sporting togs, when his friend enquired ' where are you off?' I'm off to play football' Charles said. 'Association or Rugger' the friend asked. 'Why Soccer of course' , said Charles Wreford-Brown as jogged off to the game. Bear in mind that in this era upper class sportsman had a fad of adding 'er' to everything.  Rugby became rugger and socca became soccer.  Incidentally, my favourite example of this patois is Pragger Wagger, a slang word for the Prince of Wales (Later Edward VII).

Here are examples from our football pages

Players Quotes

• ' I've had 14 bookings this season - 8 of which were my fault, but 9 of which were disputable. ' Paul Gascoigne

• 'I can see the carrot at the end of the tunnel. ' Stuart Pearce

• ' I'd like to play for an Italian club, like Barcelona. ' Mark Draper

• ' If you don't

  concede any goals you' ll win more games than you lose. ' Wayne Bridge

• ' I've never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body' (Winston Bennett)

• See more players Quotes

Footballer's Nicknames

Franz Beckenbauer = The Kaiser (Led West Germany and Bayern Munich to many triumphs. A skilful and thoughtful player) Stuart Pearce = Psycho (Would run through a brick wall for his team) See more nicknames

Commentary to look out for:

• ' He dribbles a lot and the opposition don't like it - you can see it all over their faces' - Ron Atkinson

• When Ian Rush transferred from Chester to Liverpool he said, 'It was like moving to a foreign country' .  People only took notice of Ian's views when he said a similar thing after he moved from Liverpool to Juventus. 'I could not settle, it was like being in a foreign country' .
• ' Hodge scored for Forest after 22 seconds - totally against the run of play' (Peter Lorenzo)
• ' What will you do when you leave football, Jack - will you stay in football?' STUART HALL, Radio 5 Live