With apologies to those uninterested in football, I’ve found it impossible not to draw references from Sunday’s game.
I found this something of a test – not in the same league as the Italian football team – but a test nevertheless. 13 minutes ticked by until I finished with the second of the two long down clues.
Quite a few of the down clues are really very clever.
Definitions are underlined.
| Across | |
| 1 | Annoyed with nation’s sport (5-7) |
| CROSS-COUNTRY – annoyed (CROSS), nation (COUNTRY). Well, that’ll be England then. | |
| 8 | The French lay back for break (3-2) |
| LET-UP – ‘the’ in French (LE), lay – put – backwards (TUP). After the first 30 minutes, the Italians didn’t – let-up that is. | |
| 9 | Is youngster up to finding restaurant? (7) |
| CANTEEN – is youngester up to (CAN TEEN). The youngsters of the English team couldn’t – beat the huge Italian keeper in the shoot out. | |
| 10 | Letter from abroad from Charlie with greeting (3) |
| CHI – Charlie (C), with greeting (HI). 22nd letter of the Greek alphabet (x). I rather stupidly toyed with hic for a while. | |
| 11 | Unacceptable ruling about backing up (9) |
| REPUGNANT – ruling (REGNANT) around up backwards (PU). To be fair, I thought the ref did a great job with no unacceptable rulings (although I thought Sterling had a decent penalty claim). | |
| 13 | Backward-looking group of reporters with a bygone style (5) |
| RETRO – inside the clue (a group of letters running backwards inside) rep(ORTER)s. Well hidden. Ah – the bygone style of 66. | |
| 14 | Miserable person, head down to go to be sick (5) |
| RETCH – head or first letter down/to go/missing from miserable person w(RETCH). Quite an accurate description of me during the penalty shoot out. | |
| 16 | I’m nervous about being infested (9) |
| VERMINOUS – anagram (about) of IM NERVOUS. And I was! | |
| 17 | Short paragraph’s given backing for criminal charge (3) |
| RAP – short paragraph – par – backwards (RAP). Poor Gareth will take the rap for those late subs not working out as hoped. | |
| 19 | Practical program deliberately gave wrong answer (7) |
| APPLIED – program (APP), deliberately gave wrong answer (LIED). Think applied maths. | |
| 21 | Not appropriate to sleep inside it (5) |
| INAPT – sleep (NAP) inside it (IT). | |
| 22 | Girl with nipper is a mean individual (5-7) |
| PENNY-PINCHER – girl (PENNY), nipper (PINCHER). | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Gut feeling commanding officer is over defeat mostly (5) |
| COLIC – commanding officer (CO) on top of (over) defeat mostly (LIC)k. I suppose I’m now over the defeat (mostly) – better to lose in a final than a semi. | |
| 2 | Clothes shop known to have better suiting? (9) |
| OUTFITTER – known (OUT), better suiting (FITTER). | |
| 3 | Being on top of exceptionally good job (13) |
| SUPERPOSITION – exceptionally good (SUPER), job (POSITION). Well, we were, and then we weren’t. | |
| 4 | People regularly touchy about trophy (6) |
| OCCUPY – t(O)u(C)h(Y) around trophy (CUP). A country is peopled by the group of people who live there. Regularly touchy about not having a trophy for so long – us? | |
| 5 | Peaceful response son earns going around (3-10) |
| NON-AGGRESSION – anagram (around) of SON EARNS GOING. Peaceful=non-aggressive, does peaceful response=non-aggression? Happily the game was played in a good spirit all round. | |
| 6 | Regret starting running up Everest (3) |
| RUE – (R)inning (U)p (E)verest. Well, plenty to rue, I suppose. | |
| 7 | Steal tin at church (6) |
| SNATCH – tin (SN – chemical symbol), at (AT), church (CH). The Italians snatched the win at the end. | |
| 12 | Later consequences of getting me that far drunk (9) |
| AFTERMATH – anagram (drunk) of ME THAT FAR. Maybe the less I say here the better – but Monday got off to a slow start. | |
| 13 | Show soldiers meat from farm animal (6) |
| REVEAL – soldiers (RE), meat from farm animal (VEAL). | |
| 15 | Part of ship finished in stoppage (4-2) |
| HOLD-UP – part of ship (HOLD), finished (UP – the game’s up). Stoppage time makes allowance for any hold-ups and is always held up on a board. | |
| 18 | Piper, perhaps noble, keeping time (5) |
| PETER – noble (PEER) keeping time (T). Peter Piper – or Shilton or Crouch. | |
| 20 | A little pasty? One must get stuck into exercises (3) |
| PIE – one (I) stuck into exercises (PE). Half time necessity! | |
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