Learn English Through Football Podcast: Non-League Football

In this football language podcast we look at some language from non-league football, including ‘capacity crowd’, as well as some football language from some of the recent 2026 World Cup qualifiers, including ‘turn the ball into the net‘. You can read the transcript for this podcast below, while you can also check out our glossary of footballing phrases here and visit our site to access all our previous posts and podcasts. If you have any suggestions or questions then you can contact us at admin@languagecaster.com.

Non-League Football

DF: You’re listening to the Learn English Through Football podcast.

Hello everyone and welcome to the show for all those who love the beautiful game of football and who want to improve their English. My name is Damian and I am based in London where the weather has been not too bad recently – we really are in Autumn as the leaves are changing colour and the temperature is quite cool here! What’s the weather like where you are?

Now, apologies for the delay in posting this podcast – I have been really busy at work; as indeed has Damon, the other member of the Learn English Through Football Podcast team. And he, of course, is based in Tokyo, Japan. And we’ll be hearing from Damon later on in the show as he talks about the recent (2026) World Cup qualification match between Japan and Australia, while I will be talking about some language linked to non-league football here in the UK, which also includes a short interview with another non-league fan.

Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in Japanese)

DF: That message was in Japanese and we’ll have some more stingers or messages from different fans around the world throughout today’s show. Try and guess what languages they are.

Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in Vietnamese)

Non-League

DF: OK, let’s talk about non-league football and to help us; here are a couple of words that might be useful with understanding:



* Football Pyramid: This describes the football structure in British football with the best teams playing at the top (that’s the Premier League), the next best teams in the Championship and so on right the way down to level nine. So, in total there are hundreds of different teams around the country.

* Amateur football: This is football in which the players are not paid to play – they…they do it completely for fun.

* Tiers: The name for the different levels of football (and divisions is another name for this). That’s tiers, T-I-E-R_S.



DF: Right, let’s talk a little about non-league football. First of all, I will explain a little about what is meant by non-league football before a short interview with a Walthamstow FC fan and finally I will be looking at some language from a recent game that I went to in the seventh tier or level of English football.

So, what do we mean when we talk about non-league football here in England? The top division is, of course, the Premier League and then there are three more divisions below that; namely, the Championship, League One and League Two.