Millen And His Terminology

[Dolman Block B]

I'm enjoying Alan's attempt to guess SC_Red's name. We've had at least two attempts already.

I know his name but stays well under the hat

[Monkeh]

Ok who is 'sitsonthebenchearning14grandaweekcosheisshite'?

i was going to say aka Nicky Hunt.....but he doesn't make the bench

[Murraysrightplum]

I don't understand what the problem is with the phrase target man anyway. Anyone remember Alan Shearer?

[awbb]

I don't understand what the problem is with the phrase target man anyway. Anyone remember Alan Shearer?

Yeah, of course. He knocked us out of the World Cup in '98 thanks to his target-man elbows.

[BCFC_Dan]

Ah an interesting question. For me a target is something you just hit. I will go for link-man.

There is 'Trequartista', though that usually refers to someone with guile more than brawn it does not exclusively have to mean a small player. I would say someone like Teddy Sheringham would be a good example.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trequartista#Second_striker

[Murraysrightplum]

i was going to say aka Nicky Hunt.....but he doesn't make the bench

Yeah that's true!

[CliftonCliff]

Years ago people with learning difficulties were labled very differently, but now that derogatory term is no longer in use. Same with the word 'geriatric'. Another term no longer commonly in use. Alcoholic - yet another term not used by health care professionals because of the negative impact of the word. There are endless examples of words/terms going out of use because the world has moved on.

As for 'target man' - why use it at all? All it does is stir up an imagine which many fans don't want to see any longer in our game.

Simple 'striker' is fine.

It's somewhat off-topic and not strictly football related, but as you've raised it in a football context, the problem with changing terminology in the way you mention is that you tend to have to keep doing it periodically, because if you examine this issue from a historical perspective you find that it's the negative perception of the people to whom a name applies that devalues the word itself and makes it, in time, a term of abuse - as opposed to the other way around i.e. the word denigrating the people.

The best example of this I know is the one you mention yourself. In my time, I have personally seen in current usage at least two other terms for what we now call learning difficulty (or three, if you count the variant 'learning disability'). They were, in chronological order, 'mental subnormality' and 'mental handicap'. I'm not suggesting it's a bad thing in itself to alter these names to different ones that people with the conditions they refer to find less offensive. However, it's worth noting that as recently as the middle of the 20th century the words 'moron' and 'cretin', among others, were in common use by doctors and others involved in the care of severly disabled people. These words were originally technical terms and carried no judgemental intent. (I forget the corresponding IQ brackets that applied to each, but it was along the lines of anyone with an IQ between 20 and 40 was classified as a cretin, someone with a score of 40 - 60 was a moron and so on.) Imbecile was another term that came into being in the same way: they were all intended for use in a purely descriptive, diagnostic or classificatory way, but we all know how they were subsequently adopted as insults. It's not the word that denigrates the social group; it's the way the social group is negatively valued that results in the degradation of the word.

So changing the name is at least in part just an exercise in political correctness, unless it's accompanied by an improvement in the way we regard our disabled fellow citizens.

Putting it back in a football context, the relevance for the far less important and more mundane issue of certain types of player is that you can call them what you like: if they are under-appreciated, you can be sure that the name you give them becomes in time tainted, as in, say, 'Oh, he's just another... " (fill in your own term of choice - say, journeyman, for instance).

[BCFC_Dan]

(I forget the corresponding IQ brackets that applied to each, but it was along the lines of anyone with an IQ between 20 and 40 was classified as a cretin, someone with a score of 40 - 60 was a moron and so on.)

A complete digression here, but I always thought the term cretin related to someone with a thyroid problem?

[Murraysrightplum]

It's somewhat off-topic and not strictly football related, but as you've raised it in a football context, the problem with changing terminology in the way you mention is that you tend to have to keep doing it periodically, because if you examine this issue from a historical perspective you find that it's the negative perception of the people to whom a name applies that devalues the word itself and makes it, in time, a term of abuse - as opposed to the other way around i.e. the word denigrating the people.

The best example of this I know is the one you mention yourself. In my time, I have personally seen in current usage at least two other terms for what we now call learning difficulty (or three, if you count the variant 'learning disability'). They were, in chronological order, 'mental subnormality' and 'mental handicap'. I'm not suggesting it's a bad thing in itself to alter these names to different ones that people with the conditions they refer to find less offensive. However, it's worth noting that as recently as the middle of the 20th century the words 'moron' and 'cretin', among others, were in common use by doctors and others involved in the care of severly disabled people. These words were originally technical terms and carried no judgemental intent. (I forget the corresponding IQ brackets that applied to each, but it was along the lines of anyone with an IQ between 20 and 40 was classified as a cretin, someone with a score of 40 - 60 was a moron and so on.) Imbecile was another term that came into being in the same way: they were all intended for use in a purely descriptive, diagnostic or classificatory way, but we all know how they were subsequently adopted as insults. It's not the word that denigrates the social group; it's the way the social group is negatively valued that results in the degradation of the word.

So changing the name is at least in part just an exercise in political correctness, unless it's accompanied by an improvement in the way we regard our disabled fellow citizens.

Putting it back in a football context, the relevance for the far less important and more mundane issue of certain types of player is that you can call them what you like: if they are under-appreciated, you can be sure that the name you give them becomes in time tainted, as in, say, 'Oh, he's just another... " (fill in your own term of choice - say, journeyman, for instance).

Well I'm all for Target Men's rights. We should lobby MPs to get their name changed to Retards...

[Monkeh]

Just to clear up,

my idea of a target man is some one who can hold up the ball and bring others into play,

Thats not always controlling a ball over the top and heading it on, but also passing the ball to the strikers feet and him having it stick to him while another player moves into a attacking postion and thus carrying on the attack,

So Stead for example is my idea of a target it man as you can play the ball to him and he holds on to it and brings others into play,

for me it doesn't automaticaly mean whoosh every 30 seconds,

[CliftonCliff]

A complete digression here, but I always thought the term cretin related to someone with a thyroid problem?

New one on me, but you may well be right. I'd have to look it up when I've got time.

Meanwhile, I should just add in passing that my old lady has suffered from a thyroid problem. I'll let her know: she'll be most appreciative of you bringing that to her attention. (You might want to don a hard hat, if you've got one handy).

[The Bard]

As far as I know the modern word for a target man is, er, target man. Which is unfortunate when it's been corrupted to constitute a derogatory term meaning slow, immobile, unskillful, low-scoring small gorilla in football kit whose sole purpose is to act as the intended end point for a ceaseless stream of aimless passes from sub-standard defenders and midfield players, playing a style of football that would shame a Downs League side, whilst simultaeously elbowing as many opponents as possible before getting sent off. By definition, you cannot be a target man and still be any good.

Target men, if ever they were any good, which of course they aren't - we have that on the highest authority - would hold the ball up with back to goal and under pressure from burly defenders; they would take a lot of the physical stick for players of slighter build and help to create space for them in doing so; they would be a focal point for the attack ('lead the line', to use the old-fashioned phrase); link the play and bring others into the game. Oh, and score perhaps a dozen or so goals a season themselves, as well.

In otherwords, absolutely bloody useless and a complete waste of space.

Footballers who perform somewhat similar functions, but in a midfield area, are often termed 'holding' players. Perhaps if we dropped the name target man and called them link-men or focal forwrads or any other daft term we'd care to invent, we'd actually have a bit more time for them. Or alternatively, we could just pay a bit more attention to what they actually do on the field of play (which is to say a lot of hard and by no means unskillful work that tends to go unappreciated) instead of clinging to prejudicial stereotypes about 'old-fashioned center forwards'.

Only trouble with that idea is we'd be left with nothing to argue about on internet forums.

Best just stick with target man, then.

Great post. As a 'focal forward' myself, I've noticed that those players who didn't understand my role, knew little about the game, players who thought about football in individual terms. Inconsistent and frustrating , hit and miss. The more knowledgeble looked to build play through me when they realised that they would get the ball back. I suspect those who think about the T phrase negatively play little football or when they do are frustrating headless chickens.

I think most of us would agree that Norwich played some of the best football in the Championship last year. What was Grant Holt if he wasn't a target man?

[CliftonCliff]

Just to clear up,

my idea of a target man is some one who can hold up the ball and bring others into play,

Thats not always controlling a ball over the top and heading it on, but also passing the ball to the strikers feet and him having it stick to him while another player moves into a attacking postion and thus carrying on the attack,

So Stead for example is my idea of a target it man as you can play the ball to him and he holds on to it and brings others into play,

for me it doesn't automaticaly mean whoosh every 30 seconds,

Precisely. Agree with you entirely, as do a lot of other posters on this topic.

[BCFC_Dan]

New one on me, but you may well be right. I'd have to look it up when I've got time.

Meanwhile, I should just add in passing that my old lady has suffered from a thyroid problem. I'll let her know: she'll be most appreciative of you bringing that to her attention. (You might want to don a hard hat, if you've got one handy).

Sorry Mrs Cliff!

[CliftonCliff]

Great post. As a 'focal forward' myself, I've noticed that those players who didn't understand my role, knew little about the game, players who thought about football in individual terms. Inconsistent and frustrating , hit and miss. The more knowledgeble looked to build play through me when they realised that they would get the ball back. I suspect those who think about the T phrase negatively play little football or when they do are frustrating headless chickens.

I think most of us would agree that Norwich played some of the best football in the Championship last year.

What was Grant Holt if he wasn't a target man?

Er, a target man. And a very annoyingly effective one at that - in fact, so much so that we tried unsuccessfully to sign him some years back. He was in L1 at the time. Look where he is now.

[CliftonCliff]

Sorry Mrs Cliff!

No offence taken. (Because I didn't actually tell her, in the interests of self-preservation).

[Guest]

It's somewhat off-topic and not strictly football related, but as you've raised it in a football context, the problem with changing terminology in the way you mention is that you tend to have to keep doing it periodically, because if you examine this issue from a historical perspective you find that it's the negative perception of the people to whom a name applies that devalues the word itself and makes it, in time, a term of abuse - as opposed to the other way around i.e. the word denigrating the people.

The best example of this I know is the one you mention yourself. In my time, I have personally seen in current usage at least two other terms for what we now call learning difficulty (or three, if you count the variant 'learning disability'). They were, in chronological order, 'mental subnormality' and 'mental handicap'. I'm not suggesting it's a bad thing in itself to alter these names to different ones that people with the conditions they refer to find less offensive. However, it's worth noting that as recently as the middle of the 20th century the words 'moron' and 'cretin', among others, were in common use by doctors and others involved in the care of severly disabled people. These words were originally technical terms and carried no judgemental intent. (I forget the corresponding IQ brackets that applied to each, but it was along the lines of anyone with an IQ between 20 and 40 was classified as a cretin, someone with a score of 40 - 60 was a moron and so on.) Imbecile was another term that came into being in the same way: they were all intended for use in a purely descriptive, diagnostic or classificatory way, but we all know how they were subsequently adopted as insults. It's not the word that denigrates the social group; it's the way the social group is negatively valued that results in the degradation of the word.

So changing the name is at least in part just an exercise in political correctness, unless it's accompanied by an improvement in the way we regard our disabled fellow citizens.

Putting it back in a football context, the relevance for the far less important and more mundane issue of certain types of player is that you can call them what you like: if they are under-appreciated, you can be sure that the name you give them becomes in time tainted, as in, say, 'Oh, he's just another... " (fill in your own term of choice - say, journeyman, for instance).

I sometimes think I've walked into a Lunatic Asylum when viewing OTIB

[Monkeh]

I sometimes think I've walked into a Lunatic Asylum when viewing OTIB

don't talk such rollocks Tom,

A Lunatic Asylum would make alot more sense

[CliftonCliff]

I sometimes think I've walked into a Lunatic Asylum when viewing OTIB

It's when the lunatics take over the asylum that you have to worry. As happens all too often on OTIB...

[Guest]

don't talk such rollocks Tom,

A Lunatic Asylum would make alot more sense

True although there is clear signs of Institutionalisation around here

[Rudolf Hucker]

Here's a thought.

As one could reasonably expect to find a "Targetman" loitering in the middle of the forward line, let's refer to them as a "Centre Forward". The striker who plays off of the "Centre Forward" can then be termed an "Inside Forward".

Got a ring to it don't you think?

[InCider]

RR, I think you are being excessively anal about the term 'target man' and its implications. Here was Xavi's view on signing a targetman in Ibra ...

http://www.fcbarcelonanews.com/xavi-on-ibrahimovic-and-atletico/

Even he talks about options for long balls into the box. I doubt you would have called any Barca tactics that season as 'route one'!

[CliftonCliff]

RR, I think you are being excessively anal about the term 'target man' and its implications. Here was Xavi's view on signing a targetman in Ibra ...

http://www.fcbarcelo...c-and-atletico/

Even he talks about options for long balls into the box. I doubt you would have called any Barca tactics that season as 'route one'!

Well spotted and thanks for the link. Makes the point that many of us have been trying to argue.

Even teams with an extreme purist footballing philosophy can sometimes make use of a strong front player who can hold and link. Horses for courses. And some of these guys can play a bit in their own right, too (though if I'm honest I've never quite seen why this particular individual has attracted such huge transfer fees in various European countries - but that's another debate). And as somebody else has said, if you want another example, Spurs are an attractive side to watch whether Crouch is in the team or not.

I've crossed swords with RR over this question in the past. While I'm often broadly in agreement with much of what he has to say, on this issue he seems to have a bit of a fixation on the anti-TM stance and a belief that it inevitably produces lousy football. Not necessarily true, too simplistic a view, is my take on it and always has been.

[Esmond Million's Bung]

There is an easy solution to this problem RR has with Millen's terminology, we need to start a campaign for RR to either be Millen's speech writer or for Millen to have his speeches passed as fit for transmission by RR.

[WellRedPhil]

Well, we all see Robbo's point, Phil. It's just that a lot of us don't accept it and quite a few on this thread have already very cogently explained why.

I'm probably one of the few who tend to agree with quite a bit of what he posts, but he's like a dog with a bone on this issue and it does get bloody tedious, which is I suppose why some people have suggested (probably correctly) that he just does it as a wind-up - which in itself is also tedious.

Robbo's stance is to absolutely, relentlessly insist on equating the presence of a certain type of forward with what he likes to decry as "hoofball". The argument is that if you put a so-called target man in the side, it automatically results in ugly football as sure as night follows day. Many of us regard this as a lot of old male genitalia, if you catch my drift.

In this thread, he's introduced a variation on a very old theme by claiming, when confronted by a well-argued refutation of this central point, that it was actually Millen's use of language he was objecting to, as if that had anything to do with anything. It's actually Robbo's terminology you want to watch out for. Note, for example, how tall forwards he disapproves of become "lumps", target man by implication becomes a term of abuse, any pass that travels 40 yards and bypasses the midfield is an example of hoofball and, in another context, any potential signing by which he's unimpressed of a player who happens to have played for a number of clubs is downgraded by the use of the tag "journeyman", which in the Robbored dictionary is again a subtly derogatory term. Thus, Stead, who's height, assumed playing style and previous scoring record did not cut much ice with our man, was dismissed as a journeyman before he got here, though it all went very quiet on that front in a certain quarter when it turned out the bloke is, by common consent, clearly a more than decent player.

Don't fall for it. Robbo's an old hand at this game and a past master at shifting the ground of the discussion when somebody's posted a response that drives a coach and horses through the holes in his argument. I quite like him, actually. He's usually got something interesting to say, You just have to spot when he's leading you up the garden path and either laugh it off or ignore it.

Robbo, you've long since been rumbled, mate, and not just by me. See above.

I'm not really sure why you've decided to write such a long and detailed essay about something so simple. I too find RR quite amusing and clearly realise he's a wind up merchant. I say clearly but many on this forum still do not seem to understand this and RR's constant digging is not half as irritating as the many people who are so quick to bite and shoot him down, it actually makes them look rather foolish.

The original point he made, while I don't agree as I previously explained, is one I can understand someone making. And if someone else had made this point you can bet your ass this thread would be nowhere near as full of replies/insults as it is.

So thanks for the advice Cliff but next time just a sentence or two on the matter will do the job...as would none at all.

[chowie]

Can we have thread highlights so we don't have to read all this Crap. A quick browse is something like this (I think)

OP - oh no Millen wants to play longball

Replies- we need that sometimes, different club in the bag etc.

OP- No we don't look at swansea

Replies- Target Man term is not what it used to be

OP- Yeah tanks Dave but I don't like the term

Replies- This place is mental

Did it take 3 pages to debate the above or have I missed something.

[Esmond Million's Bung]

What I find incredible is that 2 of the people calling for more use of the ban button are 2 of the most abusive posters on the forum.

[spudski]

A 'Target man' doesn't necessarily mean route one football.

Having someone who can hold the ball up with their back to goal, is something we haven't had for a while. It enables the Midfield to build up play, and play off the 'Target man'. Perhaps KM is looking to play more through the midfield as well as just the wings. It should certainly help our posession.

The only time i see a 'Target man' as unproductive, is when the ball is hopefully pumped forward, for it to be flicked on to the supporting attacker. A tactic, that is rarely successful in this day and age, which relies on a lot of luck, and often losses posession straight away.

One of the best we had for doing this in the lower leagues was Nicky Morgan...anyone remember him?

[Esmond Million's Bung]

A 'Target man' doesn't necessarily mean route one football.

Having someone who can hold the ball up with their back to goal, is something we haven't had for a while. It enables the Midfield to build up play, and play off the 'Target man'. Perhaps KM is looking to play more through the midfield as well as just the wings. It should certainly help our posession.

The only time i see a 'Target man' as unproductive, is when the ball is hopefully pumped forward, for it to be flicked on to the supporting attacker. A tactic, that is rarely successful in this day and age, which relies on a lot of luck, and often losses posession straight away.

One of the best we had for doing this in the lower leagues was Nicky Morgan...anyone remember him?

Great shout, probably one of the most underrated, under appreciated strikers ever to play for BCFC. Lacked pace, but not many stronger than Nicky and a great football brain, not the sort of guy defenders enjoyed 90 minutes against.

[Ian M]

Have we decided that there is actually nothing wrong with the description "target man" moreover the problem is the bigoted understanding of the term by certain people?