Football as a sport has a wealth of weird and wonderful phrases associated with it, but perhaps none of them tick both of those boxes quite like the idea of Squeaky Bum Time.
Elsewhere on this site, you can read about ‘Fergie Time’, which was a phrase used to explain the period at the end of games that often saw Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United team score late on. This is another phrase associated with the Scot, although this time he actually coined it himself rather than had it used to describe him or his team.
The question is, what on earth is it a reference to?
When Things Get Tense
It was back in 2003 when Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United were involved in a title race with Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal that was going right to the wire. There was barely any room to separate the two sides as the Gunners prepared to host the Scot’s team at Highbury, with Ferguson hoping that the Gunners’ progression in the FA Cup would make the fixture pile-up too much for them to cope with. Speaking with the media, he said:
“They have a replay against Chelsea and if they win it they would face a semi-final three days before playing us in the league. But then they did say they were going to win the treble, didn’t they? It’s squeaky bum time and we’ve got the experience now to cope.”
It was a reference to the sense of pressure felt by someone sitting in a leather or plastic chair, squirming around and making the chair squeak as a result. That feeling of being incredibly tense as the conclusion to something is approaching, shifting around relentlessly to the point that the movement is making squeaking noises.
@nocontext_footballSqueeky bum time♬ original sound – No Context Dion Dublin
It became such a commonly used phrase, in fact, that the English Oxford Dictionary eventually added it to the British lexicon. In 2012, the Irish golfer Christy O’Connor Jr. wrote an autobiography in which he used the term to describe his own nervousness around waiting to find out whether or not he’d made the Ryder Cup team for Europe.
For football fans, the phrase tends to come into play as the end of a season approaches, when supporters are feeling on edge about the conclusion to the campaign, whether that be because of the fact that they are hoping that their team will be able to win the title or else they are looking to avoid relegation. Regardless, the idea is that thousands of people will be so nervous about how the game is going to go that they’re shifting on the plastic chairs in the stadium their team is playing in to such an extent that the chairs squeak from the pressure.