That “dudes can just sit around and name old sports players” is a time-honoured social media meme. In football, this is especially true. Such wistful recollections can bring together all types of people.
A couple of seasons ago, on a Saturday night train back to London from reporting for the Guardian a match between Nottingham Forest and Crystal Palace, I thought I had landed in the sanctuary of an abandoned carriage on the train home.
I thought wrong. Just as the station guard’s whistle sounded for the train to depart, the carriage was suddenly filled with loud, boisterous and visibly refreshed young Palace fans. Occasionally, these situations can turn nasty but after a couple of songs dedicated to their beloved Eagles, the leader of this cheerful group started up a guessing game.
Reading off Wikipedia on his phone, he bellowed out a series of clubs, challenging his pals to guess the player who had played for them. Within a few turns, most of the carriage was involved. Surrounded, I’d kept my cap down over my eyes, hoping to go unnoticed, but couldn’t resist when the Palace fans started to struggle with “Millwall, Blackburn, West Ham, Galatasaray, Al Jazira …”
“Lucas Neill,” I said out loud, greeted by approval. The rest of the journey passed quickly in a blizzard of football trivia and chat. As we disembarked at London’s St Pancras, the young Eagles even invited me to a rave in Croydon. I politely declined.
And that’s the essence of the Guardian’s first daily football game, On the ball. The rules are simple: guess the Premier League player, past or present, with the fewest clues possible, and impress your pals – and yourself – by doing so.
It’s up to you whether you choose to start with a player’s country, the three clubs they have played for the most, when they made their Premier League debut, their age, the number of Premier League appearances or titles they have to their name, or how many different countries they have been based. The aim is to guess the player with the fewest clues, with points deducted for every clue used up, and to land a score as close to 100 points as possible.
Each day will see a new player to guess. Can you remember who else Mohamed Salah played for? Which midfielder has played for Tottenham, Leicester and Norwich? Go on: test yourself. And your friends.
after newsletter promotion
