LearnEnglish _ British Council _ Coventry City Football Team

13/4/2014 LearnEnglish | British Council | Coventry City football team

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Coventry City football team

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Check out when Neil started his love affair with the Coventry City football team.

Transcript

I wanna talk about supporting Coventry City, the team Ive supported since I was a young boy at school. Coventry City are a team from the West Midlands nearBirmingham where I grew up and just to give a bit of background on the club, it was founded back in 1883 and we were founding members of the Premier League.But in 2001, after thirty-four consecutive years in the top division, we were finally relegated and since that year, weve been in the Championship or the second tier ofthe English FootballLeagues.

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 AstonVilla, the local team or Liverpool, the team that won everything at the time. I didnt really want to support the same as everybody else, so I wanted to choose a differentteam, so after a school trip to Coventry one day, I felt, well, Ill support Coventry City then. It was the FA Cup win that cemented my support for them. I rememberlistening 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.

Empeople ask why I dont support one of the big teams. Well, in England, people either support the team that always wins, and we call them glory hunters or ateam 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 alwaysremember beating Manchester United one cold Boxing Day when we score two goals in the last minute to beat them 3-2 and even last season we went to OldTrafford and beat Manchester United 2-nil. Also playing in the Championship is surprisingly a better league I think than playing in the Premier League. Every teamcan beat each other, its much more exciting, every team has got a chance to getting promoted or there is always the threat of relegation. Every season, theres newteams to visits and its much more interesting than the Premier League which is pretty much the same every year.

Supporting a teams like being part of family, you cant just choose to leave the family if theres some disappointments. And being part of that family means that youshare the same dreams and the same desires and the same disappointments. This season I think weve got a good chance of promotion - weve got a goodmanager, Chris Coleman who used to be in charge of Fulham, and weve got an outside chance I think of making the playoffs. Last season we were very nearlyrelegated but this season I think we'll have a much better season.

Instructions

We suggest you do the preparation exercises before you listen to the recording. Match the words with the definitions.

(http://gamedata.bcdev.org.uk/d/Matching_NTIyMg==.xml)

Preparation Task



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Print and do activities on paper (76KB) (http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/sites/podcasts/files/WannaTalk-Coventry-City.pdf)

Total votes: 358

COMMENTS

nguyen thi phuong (/en/users/nguyen-thi-phuong) replied on 4 March, 2014 - 09:13 Vietnam PERMALINK(/EN/COMMENT/56906#COMMENT-56906)

hi everybodyi am really love english but my english is very bad.i need you help me.thanks of all.

Kirk (/en/users/kirk) replied on 4 March, 2014 - 11:50 Spain PERMALINK (/EN/COMMENT/56914#COMMENT-56914)

Hi nguyen thi phuong,

Different people prefer different methods, but in general it's important to make a consistent effort. It's more effective to spend 20 minutes every day studyingor working on English than it is to spend 5 hours just one day per week. Many people also find it useful to commit themselves to a schedule for a period oftime.

I'd suggest you look at the Elementary Podcasts (http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/elementary-podcasts) series 3. Start at episode 1(http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/elementary-podcasts/series-03-episode-01). If you don't understand everything at first, don'tworry! Listen to one section of it several times, and use the transcript to help you understand it as you listen. It might take you several days to listen to all ofthe episode and to complete the exercises, but that's fine. You should also write down new words and expressions so that you can study them.

If at the end of this work, you feel you've learned something, then continue with this method for episode 2, and so on. If it's too difficult or if you need somehelp, please write to us and we'll do our best to help you.

111Like



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Good luck!

Best wishes,

KirkThe LearnEnglish Team

ibserver (/en/user/351901) replied on 23 March, 2013 - 06:38 Russia PERMALINK (/EN/COMMENT/44509#COMMENT-44509)

Why not Russian Language?

AdamJK (/en/users/adamjk) replied on 23 March, 2013 - 19:49 Poland PERMALINK(/EN/COMMENT/44531#COMMENT-44531)

Hello,Are you asking why there isn't a Russian version of LearnEnglish?I think my colleagues at British Council Russia are working are one, but it's quite a big job and they're quite a small team.Best wishes,AdamThe LearnEnglish Team

Odilson (/en/user/351676) replied on 22 March, 2013 - 08:56 Madagascar PERMALINK(/EN/COMMENT/44484#COMMENT-44484)

Hi there!Need some helps!!!I want to visualize(listen 2) the video in here(watch and listen), and I can't. I cant even download them.Would somebody text me how to get them?By the way, "LearnEnglish, BritishCouncil" is a great site!!!( I m new here!!!)Cheers!!!

AdamJK (/en/users/adamjk) replied on 22 March, 2013 - 17:20 Poland PERMALINK(/EN/COMMENT/44499#COMMENT-44499)

Hi Odilson,We're happy to hear that you like LearnEnglish! There isn't any video on this page - only audio.Best wishes,AdamThe LearnEnglish Team

asifbox1 (/en/users/asifbox1) replied on 20 March, 2013 - 22:46 Pakistan PERMALINK(/EN/COMMENT/44398#COMMENT-44398)

HiI have a big problems which i want to share you people and hope so you will provide a right solution for me. When i try to reed some things then its look that i dotnow nothing so the some time my mind memorizing words which decrease my capabilities because i remembered when i was in school we people justmemorized the essay even we did not the meaing of that easy.So same problems still i am facing here.can you help me that i can avoid and prevent myself by just memorized the sentences.

Jeremy Bee (/en/users/jeremy-bee) replied on 22 March, 2013 - 03:20 Taiwan PERMALINK(/EN/COMMENT/44472#COMMENT-44472)

Hello asifbox1! Thanks for sharing your thoughts, here and below. First off, you're not alone having trouble with writing! Many of my students here in Taiwan also had tomemorise sentences and essays when they were in school, even if they didn't always understand them. To avoid just using memorised sentences, you need to find different ways to practice your writing. My students like to keep diaries to practice - differentthings happen every day, so it's hard to rely on memorisation! You can write answers to the discussion questions here on LearnEnglish

(http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org); you won't have memorised possible answers to all the questions!

Also, try to read as much as you can in English. This will help your vocabulary and grammar without you noticing - and we have plenty of material here on



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LearnEnglish. Hope that helps, and good luck! Regards Jeremy BeeThe LearnEnglish Team

asifbox1 (/en/users/asifbox1) replied on 20 March, 2013 - 22:26 Pakistan PERMALINK(/EN/COMMENT/44397#COMMENT-44397)

Greeting to every one who using this wonderful and amazing website to improve their English by doing a bit hard work but with a great fun and joy.I am so gladthat i got full score this time even though i was think that might be i could not get the full but its astonishing for me.well most of people i have seen in UK likes to watch or play football because its a great game which keeps and make people emotional than cricket.i remembered when i was in school i used to play football with my friends in break time but often time we used to play cricket because in Asia the most peoplelike cricket.But if I compare both games to each other then obviously i can say that football is much better game because its take much less time to finish and getthe result that who win or lost but in cricket you have to wait for 5 days to see who going to win but i think most of time the test cricket end with out wining by anyside.But nowadays mostly people like to watch Twenty cricket because every player try to play and hit ball in right direction and make maximum score as hecan.it also takes less time to finish and give quick result .the main features in this game which every body can see is that who is going to make fast score byplaying less balls.thus why as compare the oneday match most players hit 6s or fours.Every player form both side try to play very well by facing the less numberof balls.In the end its my deep request to teams that after receding my short essay which i try to explain as much as i can do can tell me that at which level i am? Andwhat do you people advice me to get the quick fluency especially in writing because when i try to write some thing then all i cant find any suitable words in mymemory and also some time i cant make proper phrase.

Tharish (/en/user/338937) replied on 21 February, 2013 - 07:39 India PERMALINK (/EN/COMMENT/43013#COMMENT-43013)

I have lived in Coventry for 2 years.I have completed my Masters in Computer science in Coventry Uni.I love Coventry its calm city.I had a job in Banbury.I have a small request to British Council.We Indians have many doubt about England Cricket team.Can you make one Podcast about the English Cricket?I amnot so interested in football.The Indians believe that Cricket is a very popular game in England but in my experience I felt like British people are not interested in Cricket ,instead they lovefootball.I have asked some British people about it but many of them do not even know how play it.Please kindly make a video about the English Cricket team

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LearnEnglish _ British Council _ Coventry City Football Team