unmarked nuclear warheads presents:Football Commentator Cliché Bingo
There are really two reasons (not counting just wanting more JavaScript practice) why I decided to create this silly little game. For one thing this was just crying out to be made, because sports (especially but not exclusively football) commentators compose such a large proportion of their speech from clichés, whether they are the truly awful sort sent up by Urban75, or the more creative sort who invent their own language but then manage to turn their neologisms into clichés by using them so intensively. At the same time I see people who are not interested in football but have been subjected to it (usually by a significant other) get horribly bored during games. Considering the almost complete impossibility of escaping from football during major tournaments I thought I'd make a little game to entertain people who aren't interested in what's actually going on on the field.
The game could hardly be simpler: Each time you reload this page it fills in the 16 boxes below with a different randomly selected list of my favourite football commentator clichés (please feel free to contribute your own - just email me), so if you just reload the page and print once per player you should get a varied set of bingo cards. Simply listen more carefully than is normally justified to the commentators, and each time one of the phrases on your card is uttered tick that box. As soon as you have a line of 4 ticked boxes, straight or diagonal, jump up and down, shout "bingo!" very loud and annoy all of the actual football fans around you as much as possible by celebrating at a time completely irrelevant to the match. Ideally there should be some sort of prize for winning a card, but also a competition across the game. Here are some suggestions:
Although the odds are certainly in favour of this happening, I can not guarantee that commentators will utter enough clichés in any particular match for this game to be winnable. I accept no responsibility for mental anguish caused by football fans' inability to understand why you can't take their beloved game serious. I accept no responsibility for football fans' reactions to inappropriately timed celebrations, nor for the trauma caused to nearby fans by such celebrations. Always tell your mummy before you go out somewhere and, of course, please drive safely.
I haven't had the chance to test this in multiple browsers, but as far as I know it should work on any browser that supports JavaScript, and look decent on any that has reasonable CSS support. If it doesn't seem to be working on your system, or if it just looks terrible, please contact me, giving as much detail as possible about what you are seeing and what software & hardware you are using. |