Coventry City F.C.
Do the preparation task first. Then listen to the audio and do the exercises.
Preparation
Transcript
I want to talk about supporting Coventry City, the team I've supported since I was a young boy at school. Coventry City are a team from the West Midlands near Birmingham, where I grew up. And just to give a bit of background on the club, it was founded back in 1883, and we were founder members of the Premier League. But in 2001, after 34 consecutive years in the top division, we were finally relegated. And since that year, we've been in the Championship or the second tier of the English Football Leagues.
Our only real honour was winning the FA Cup back in 1987. People often ask me why I support Coventry City. Well, in my school, everyone either supported Aston Villa, the local team, or Liverpool, the team that won everything at the time. I didn't really want to support the same as everybody else – I wanted to choose a different team. So after a school trip to Coventry one day, I thought, well, I'll support Coventry City, then. It was the FA Cup win that cemented my support for them. I remember listening to the radio commentary, listening to them beat, I think, Sheffield Wednesday in the semi-final and that was it. I was a City fan then.
Erm … people ask why I don't support one of the big teams. Well, in England, people either support a team that always wins, and we call them 'glory hunters', or a team near from where they were born. And there is a lot of joy in not supporting one of the big teams, especially when we get to play the big teams. I'll always remember beating Manchester United one cold Boxing Day, when we scored two goals in the last minute to beat them 3–2. And even last season we went to Old Trafford and beat Manchester United 2–0. Also, playing in the Championship is surprisingly a better league, I think, than playing in the Premier League. Every team can beat each other, it's much more exciting, every team has got a chance of getting promoted, or there is always the threat of relegation. Every season, there's new teams to visit and it's much more interesting than the Premier League, which is pretty much the same every year.
Supporting a team's like being part of a family: you can't just choose to leave the family if there's some disappointments. And being part of that family means that you share the same dreams and the same desires, and the same disappointments. This season I think we've got a good chance of promotion – we've got a good manager, Chris Coleman, who used to be in charge of Fulham. And we've got an outside chance, I think, of making the playoffs. Last season we were very nearly relegated, but this season I think we'll have a much better season.
I don’t support any football team. One reason might be that in my country there aren’t many strong teams. Our national team, despite having some good players now, is still not performing at the highest level.
I’m not saying we can win something like the FIFA World Cup, because that wouldn’t be realistic—my country has never achieved that in its history. I just think we could accomplish more than we do now, for example by being in the top 20 national teams in the world.
Additionally, I don’t really support or watch matches because I get too emotionally involved—I get too excited and sometimes even angry.
My husband is Italian and he is a big supporter of Inter and the national team. At the beginning of our relationship, it surprised me how important soccer is in Italy. In my case, I respected him, but I'm not a big fan of soccer.
Hello
I'm not a big fan of soccer, i really prefer rugby, but in the D1 french championship, I like Saint-Etienne. This club had many good seasons years ago et, then, I was younger and i supported them. Now I'm older and I think soccer is like a show more than a sport. Tha's why I prefer rugby
I'm from Egypt, so I support Al-Ahly club which is the greatest and the most successful club not only in Egypt but also in Africa & the middle east.
Al-Ahly won the largest number of championship in Egypt & in Africa. In addition, it participates every year in the world club cub as well it will participate in the next summer & will play the opening match. with the Miami team.
trough all his history, the players of Al-Ahly are the best players in Egypt & they represent the top players in the national teams in all games. Abo Trikka, the goal keeper Essam El-Hadary, Hossam Ghaly who played for Tottenham, El-Nasr & Feyenoord and Mahmoud El-khateeb who won the African golden ball award in 1983 are some of the famous player who played for Al-ahly.
Al-Ahly not only has a fan, it has people & a overwhelm popularity that extend to all the Arab world & its fans are educated, organized & aware of the issues that concern theire society. Also, they toke part in the January 25 revolution that was aginst the political corruption, injustice & tyranny.
I'm from Italy and my favourite team is AS Roma. I think Jose Mourhino is a great manager. I enjoyed the story about Coventry City F.C..
Hello, when i was in secondary school I'm excited to see the Spain's football teams playing because they played professionally. Now, i'm not a fan of none of football teams; i'm not really still in games!
I'm a fan of Arsenal. This season, we were about to win the Premier League after a long while but sadly, Manchester City won the title at last because of having many fabulous players. It was so shocking for us to lose the title. But I'm extremely hopeful to win the next season and be successful in the Champions League.
In my city, Criciuma, there is a team which carries the same name as the city, Criciuma. This year we are very optimistic about going on promotion to the first league. In 1991, it was our glory year, we won the Cup of Brazil. We are the only team in our State, Santa Catarina, which have won this Cup. https://www.criciuma.com.br/ . Just like Neil, I support the city team rather than a big team. I am proudly enough to invite you guys to come and watch a match in my town Criciuma.
Thanks for reading
Bruno Pavei Naspoline ( Rodinei's friend)
Dear Team,
does ''there's a lot of teams to visit'' sound correct, instead of ''there're a lot of teams to visit''? Why there's a syntax like that?
Many thanks to all of you,
Nikos
Hello Nikos,
I think 'are' is the standard choice here as we generally agree with the noun following 'a lot of' - there is with uncountable and there are with countable nouns. However, some people tend to use 'is' and I think there may be a dialectal variance at play here.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team