It is probably fair to say that the vast majority of football phrases are ones that are easy enough to work out, even if you’ve never heard them before.
In the case of ‘a pass to Dr. Griffin’, that is most definitely not the case. In fact, it is a phrase that has all but died out in modern usage, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t worth covering here, on account of the fact that some of the more old-school commentators and pundits still bring it out from time to time.
For younger people, the phrase will mean absolutely nothing, whilst to those that know the story of the Invisible Man by H. G. Wells, it will make complete sense, for reasons you’ll come to see.
A Pass to No One
Every now and then, a player will make a pass that makes complete sense to them in the moment, but that they deeply regret as soon as the ball has left their feet. That is because it ends up going to no one in particular, either ending up going out of play or else being seized upon by an opposition player who then looks to hurt them for their profligacy with the ball.
If you’re wondering what a pass into space that there is no player running into or a pass that ends up going out of play has to do with someone called Dr. Griffin, you have obviously never spent very long learning about novels written by H. G. Wells in 1897.
@klippedbyhz #hed #edmatthews #fyp #uk #edmatthewstokky ♬ PHONK BRASILEIRO FRESCO – DJ MOIGUS & DJ FKU
In The Invisible Man, the eponymous hero is Dr. Griffin, whose research into optics and changing the refractive index of a human body results in him being invisible. As a result, he puts on bandages and glasses in order to allow other people to see him. Arguably the most famous film version of it was made in 1933 when Claude Rains played Dr. Griffin, but numerous versions of it have been created over the years. None of them are particularly modern, however, which is why the majority of young people would have no idea what you were talking about. That, in turn, has led to the phrase largely dying out in the modern vernacular.
That being said, phrases come back into fashion just because someone particular has decided to use them, so don’t be shocked if one of the game’s big names says something like, “That was a pass to Dr. Griffin” and then suddenly everyone starts saying it. There was a new version of the film starring Elisabeth Moss that came out in 2020, but it didn’t really have the same impact on the cultural zeitgeist as the 1933 film, so nowadays most people will assume that you’re talking about a Family Guy sketch in which Peter Griffin plays a doctor for some reason. It is a fun little phrase, though, so it may well get a renaissance at some point.