The Hole

The Gaffer continues to explain footballing terms:

The hole is an area of the pitch that was first discovered by Steve McManaman in the mid 90s when he was hanging out trying to look shaggy and avoid being passed to. However, on receiving the ball from Rob Jones during a Coca Cola Cup tie in 1997 McManaman found himself in acres of space (NB football acre = 3 metres square) and decided that the hole could actually be used to help win matches, rather than simply slack off in.


McManaman’s tactic proved so successful that over the next few years Liverpool were elevated from their position as the fourth best team in England to the third best. It soon spread and before long most of the Premier League’s most talented players were employed in the hole, including John Spencer, Mark Draper, Marcus Gayle and – in a misjudged piece of management from Ruud Gullit – Ed De Goey.

The hole became so popular in the late 90s that it was voted position of the decade in Time magazine and was famously employed by Noel Gallagher when playing football in the garden of 10 Downing Street during the halcyon days of early New Labour.

It even spawned a Hollywood horror movie of the same name. However, by the time the film reached the screens in 2001, studio interference and numerous rewrites meant it was now about an actual hole, and not a mercurial player who savagely kills opposition sweepers when they intercept his measured through balls.

In the 21st century the hole fell out of favour after Claude Makelele ruined everyone’s fun by inventing the holding position. He is currently on trial at the Fifa Court of Player Rights for crimes against flair.