Wednesday, 25 March. World Waffle Day. Who could forget it?
Whether you like your waffle on a plate, or if you prefer a good old wordy waffle, it’s your day - we’ve looked at some of the best waffles from the mouths of people who perhaps ought to know better...
1: Chris Wilder’s traffic advice
Who can forget the Sheffield United waffling on and on and on about Norwich City’s coach being late for a game at Bramall Lane in September 2017?
“Dear me, where do you start?” he said, after his team lost 1-0 at home to the Canaries. “They put the team sheet in at 1.45pm, but was there a lot of traffic around Sheffield about 1pm?
“Well, get here a bit earlier then. What you do is get a coach driver to do his job and find out if you are in the city centre there might be a bit of traffic. There might be a bit of traffic around 1.30pm at a football stadium when about 28,000 are turning up.
“Do a little bit of homework and possibly set off 10 minutes earlier. There wasn’t a crash on the M1 or whatever, they came up on Friday night. Get to the game on time and show the opposition manager and captain and referee and fourth official and the assistant and the assessor a little bit of respect.”
Wilder and Farke have since kissed and made up and it’s hunky dorey...
2: Peter Grant’s marathon
It’s a few days after the Norwich City AGM of 2007. The mind-numbing shock is still settling in. Then-manager Peter Grant’s first answer lasted 18 minutes. Eighteen minutes!
I wrote at the time: “Grant, as you might expect, gave an impassioned defence of his own, ahem, passion - it took 18 minutes, but it was all there. Grant talks a lot, but he talks a lot of sense, although it was clear that his mid-meeting plea not to mention the N word (Nigel) would fall on deaf ears. There is no way this AGM was going to pass without someone asking why Nigel Worthington was not sacked before October 1. It looked at one stage as if the board would get away with it, but they reckoned without Keith Spanton, who popped up late on to score with what was always going to be a winner in front of a friendly home crowd.
3: Ian Abrahams AKA Moose and Talktripe
The Talksport host claimed in December 2018 if Norwich City were promoted it would be bad for English football ... because Daniel Farke is German and it would fail to increase the top-flight’s English managerial pool.
“The only way we are going to get more English coaches into the Premier League - we only have four right now (he was wrong, it was three) – I believe is for them to get their teams promoted. Therefore I think it is bad for English football that Norwich and Leeds are the top two in the Championship because they get promoted and that is two more spaces denied to English coaches to the Premier League.”
Not long in the usual waffle terms, but more than makes up for it with its utter lack of understanding of, er, football.
Gets added waffle points for saying City were “largely a bunch of foreign players” - forgetting English trio Todd Cantwell, Max Aarons and Ben Godfrey had all started the last game.
4: Chris Hughton... red in the face
After City lost 5-2 at home to Luis Suarez, sorry, Liverpool, in September, 2012, the City boss waffled on ...
“What you can’t afford to do is gift them chances and we knew beforehand that we were coming up against a Liverpool team in good form. They moved the ball well and you cannot give them the opportunities we did. They were clinical today, I have to say, and (Luis) Suarez was at his most clinical but you cannot give them that time and space to score. That is the disappointment. We have conceded pivotal goals that really hurt us. The first one, so early in the game, and the second and third either side of half-time. The only positive is we managed to score two goals when it became really open. That is the only positive.”
Lovely man. But that was waffle.
5: Paul Lambert – 16 ways not to leave your lover
January, 2010, and then City boss Paul Lambert is being linked with a move to Burnley. At a pre-match press conference, the media is warned not to ask him about it. First question: So what about the link with Burnley, Paul? Cue dark look. And waffle. In 16 different ways, Lambert said: “I’m staying put”.
“I love it here. I have got a great rapport with people and as I said at the time, this football club is a special place and the fans and the players have been absolutely terrific, so I am not going anywhere. I am not going, I am staying. I hear people saying I have not always stayed at clubs for a long time. I stayed at Wycombe for a couple of years, Colchester I left because I was told I could come and speak to Norwich. It is not to my own detrimental choice that I have left any club, it’s just things have happened, but I am certainly not going to leave this club, no.”
Lambert’s “I’m staying put” defence has since been established as real waffle.
6: Mick McCarthy’s volley
When Luke Chambers scored at Carrow Road in February 2018, then Ipswich boss Mick McCarthy gave it the old fist-pump (translated as up yours) followed by a couple of Anglo-Saxons words in the direction of the away fans. No argument, he gave them a right volley. But wait...
“It was a big moment for us, coming so late in the game. You can get carried away in situations like that,” said Mick. “To be honest I forgot the cameras were there and can capture every word now. You don’t think about that during the game. For those who were offended by my language, I apologise. I’d like to reiterate though that my comments were not aimed at anyone. It was just a reaction to the goal and what it meant at that time.”
Utter waffle. Utter, utter waffle.
7: Sing along if you know the words...
When Glenn Roeder was manager of Norwich City some people sang a song that went on and one and maybe even led to the use of the word waffle as we know it today
Glenn Roeder’s green army, NCFC,
Glenn Roeder’s green army, NCFC,
Glenn Roeder’s green army, NCFC,
Glenn Roeder’s green army, NCFC,
Glenn Roeder’s green army, NCFC,
Glenn Roeder’s green army, NCFC...
‘nuff said.
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