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Today’s football phrase is ‘Off the mark’.
- Find out more about this phrase by reading the transcript below.
- You can also find many more examples of soccer vocabulary by going to our football cliches page here and our huge football glossary here.
Off the Mark
This phrase means to get a first win or a first goal. Mark in this sense, means the start line of a race, so to get off the mark, means to start the race. Every season, strikers especially want to get off the mark and score their first goal. In a similar way, teams want to get there first win and get off the mark. The phrase is usually used with the verb ‘to get’, to get off the mark. If used with the phrase to be quick, to be quick off the mark, it has a different meaning – it means to be able to react quickly and run the first few metres very quickly, like a sprinter in a race.
- Example: Benteke scored or created 49% of Villa’s league goals last season and he got off the mark for this campaign with a close-range header.
- Example: (Headline) Harry Kane glad to silence ‘one-season wonder’ critics after getting off the mark in Tottenham victory over Manchester City.
