In this study football language is shown to consist largely of semi-fixed phrases with conventionalized functions. Superficially similar phrases have developed separate functions. The phrases under study are largely restricted to football and sports reporting, and therefore it is argued that they are register markers. As such, they both support social cohesion and social exclusion. The investigation comprises match reports, and, to a lesser extent, play-by-play commentary. The phrases typically have fixed cores and variable slots. The focus is on phrases containing the words net, minute(s) and whistle. Goal-scoring
phrases are based on metonymy (hit the back of the net) while time is usually expressed with metaphors (in the nth minute). This study uses an interface developed by Fletcher 2003/2004 to extract frequent phrases. The material comes from the British National Corpus, on which Fletcher’s database is based,
with additional material from The Independent on CD-ROM.