I’ve been saying for years that there’s far too much football in the Indy, but no-one – least of all the editor and the setters – has been listening. It’s got to stop.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
cad clue as definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed
definitions are underlined
Across
1 Mate joining ace band pleased as Punch
COCK-A-HOOP
A simple charade to kick us off: of COCK, A and HOOP.
9 Stripped and sent, as ordered, to find water
BARENTS SEA
A charade of BARE and (SENT AS)*
10 Men spared being in this political party
LABOUR
A cd cum dd. For those of a certain age, do you remember this?
11/15/7 Reporter silent: Best sent off for holding midfielder
NORBERT PETER STILES
(REPORTER SILENT BEST)* The famous footballer formed from a clever anagram with a delightful surface reading. The boy (and I’m talking the setter here) done good. Norbert (Nobby) Stiles was a key part of England’s 1966 World Cup winning squad and played in all games, including the final against West Germany (we won 4-2, if you hadn’t heard already). Tenacious midfielder, dodgy teeth, all round good guy. Here’s the picture you’ll know him best from (if you’re into football, that is).
14 Wind, destructive at the outset, coming in closer
MEANDER
An insertion of D for the initial letter of ‘destructive’ in MEANER. One of the definitions of ‘close’ is being tight with money.
16 Fibre fine served with Scandinavian fish
FLAX
A charade of F and LAX (which you will have heard of in GRAVADLAX, perhaps).
17 Duty (and where it often lies)
ONUS
Another cd cum dd: responsibility often does lie on us.
18 The elegantly stylish 11 15 7?
NOBBY
A dd. The dictionary definition of NOBBY is ‘fashionable, stylish’; and of course no-one ever called 11/15/7 Norbert Peter. He was always Nobby Stiles.
20 Roll stuffed with old chicken
ROOSTER
An insertion of O in ROSTER.
21 Provides force with crossing when laying siege
AFFORDS
An insertion of F and FORD in AS for ‘when’. The insertion indicator is ‘laying siege’ in its sense of ‘surrounding’.
24 Boat captain initially lost authority
ORACLE
[C]ORACLE
26 Schedule this month one absolutely fixed
SET IN STONE
A charade of SET, INST and ONE. INST is a now extremely dated reference to the current month: We refer to your letter of the 4th inst and remain, sir, your most obedient servant …
27 Flavoured sausage regrettably returned with note
SALAMI
A charade of ALAS reversed and MI for the third note of the tonic sol-fa.
28 Patronised and offended in South Atlantic
SPONSORED
Took me the longest time to see this one. It’s SORE for ‘offended’ inserted into S POND, with the final element being a reference to us referring to the Atlantic as ‘the pond’, mainly when we describe the USA as being ‘across the pond’.
Down
1 Black sheep first sucked into company game
CRAMBO
This was a ‘when in doubt follow the instructions’ clue for me, and it’s Tees you want holding your hand when you do that. An insertion of RAM and B in CO. My Collins has:
crambo n (pl cramboes) a game in which one player gives a word to which another finds a rhyme
Its name is derived from the Latin for re-stewed cabbage and notable players have included Robert Burns, James Boswell and Karl Marx. Who knew?
2 Church leader out in Peru meeting Black Angel
CHERUB
A charade of CH, [P]ERU and B.
3 Drunk went inside almost respectable pub to start with port
ANTWERP
An insertion of (WENT)* in A, R and P for the first letters of ‘almost’, ‘respectable’ and ‘pub’. Also known as ANTWERPEN (Flemish) and ANVERS (French).
4 English flower in residence leaving hotel
OUSE
[H]OUSE
5 And another thing: change liturgical book
PSALTER
A charade of PS and ALTER.
6 Dandy fellow — or one whose contribution is vital
BLOOD DONOR
A charade of BLOOD for ‘a swaggering dandy about town’ (Collins), DON and OR.
8 Shocks draining energy from certain forces
SURPRISES
A charade of SUR[E] and PRISES.
11 Wicked cracking safe in court interior
NEFARIOUS
(SAFE IN [C]OUR[T])*
12 Work out to get fit — that’s making sense
REASONABLE
A charade of REASON and ABLE.
13 Opera singer somewhat fat? Enormous!
TENOR
Hidden in faT ENORmous.
14 Somehow blame Nellie’s peach dessert?
MELBA
(BLAME)* gives you Dame Nellie MELBA and the dessert, Peach MELBA, named after her.
18 Arch rival in Tyneside canteen, one gathered?
NEMESIS
A charade of NE and I inserted into MESS. Moriarty to Holmes, Voldemort to Harry Potter, Glenn McGrath to Michael Atherton.
19 Unusually frosty north: underwear needed
Y-FRONTS
(FROSTY N)*
22 Secretive person in the pink
OYSTER
A dd. ‘A pale greyish beige or pink’; ‘a secretive person’ (both from Collins).
23 Cursed mother to Scots hooligan
DAMNED
A charade of DAM and NED.
25 German fellow shows bum after stripping
OTTO
Those Germans have never been the same since we beat them in the World Cup (we won 4-2, did I mention that?) [B]OTTO[M]
Many thanks to the Teeser for this puzzle, and for all the other Indy crosswords he’s set for us in 2020. Always a pleasure.
Ah, I remember it well. I was in digs in Solihull at the time and remember jumping up and down on my armchair when Geoff Hurst scored that fourth goal. Back to the puzzle: excellent as always from Tees, no duff clues and completed as the last mouthful of toast entered my mouth. Thanks Tees and Pierre.
Excellent crossword and nice tribute to Nobby
Thanks to Tees and Pierre
Just what we needed after the Christmas days! An easy start for both of us separately, then we joined together to get the rest. Added to the list of things Alex learned today is ‘dam’, ‘barents sea’,’coracle’, ‘crambo’ and ‘inst’ (ok, Hannah didn’t know the last two either, though the parsing for crambo was fair and easy). Favourite answer was y-fronts. Neither of us knew the footballer, we’re definitely better at the fish 😉 (our running joke is how many fish we now know).
Thanks to Tees and Pierre!
Irritating to press Reveal All at the end to check the puzzle to discover I hadn’t filled in CRAMBO even though, as Pierre points out, you only have to do what the setter asks. I didn’t know the word so left it uncompleted with the intention of returning. NED for hooligan was another dnk.
That said, a very nice puzzle for a lazy Sunday morning with, in the main, nice surfaces and some clever ruses. I needed Pierre for POND in SPONSORED and OYSTER being pink. Favourites included AFFORDS, Y-FRONTS, BLOOD DONOR, NEMESIS and ORACLE. And, of course, clever to reference Nobby as crypticsue says.
Thanks Tees and Pierre
nice after-Christmas present.. first encounter with Norbert Peter Stiles in a cryptic for me..
thanks Tees n Pierre
Never heard of the footballer or the game, so it was unfortunate to have them intersect with such long anagram. A bit too much guesswork required.
I wonder if there are any complaints about UK GK re Nobby.
But the clue NOBBY is easily identified and the anagrind mix is pretty clear-only the die-hards would know his full name.
So the goal stands.
I thought this was rather adventurous for Tees and wondered if someone had dropped anything in his coffee
Thanks all for a non-boring puzzle.
And merry Crambo to all.
Who knows. Perhaps instead something was dropped in someone else’s Penfold Grange Shiraz.
NOBBY STILES was always my stock answer to any footballer related trivia question. I know nothing about football ! Good to see NED in there.( Non Educated Delinquent apparently ) … although the preferred term nowadays is BAM.
Took me a wee while to work out this one but on the whole it was very enjoyable.
Thanks to Tees and Pierre
Like IanSW3 I had never heard of the footballer or the game, and didn’t even know NOBBY, but I managed the anagram just by assuming it was a name, and just a few crossers narrowed down the possibilities enough to get it. No complaints from me.
I enjoyed this, and did better than I usually do at unpicking some of the parsings on the less obvious (to me) clues. Favourite was OUSE, purely because I was walking along the banks of one of GB’s Ouses earlier today, but liked many of the clues.
I enjoyed this. Some clever surfaces, with a good mix of relatively straightforward and less obvious clues. Strange to apply the modern term “holding midfielder” to Nobby, but accurate I suppose
Curiously, my memory of the 1966 World Cup final was listening to it on the radio in a tent on the bank of the River OUSE. I was at Scout camp. (It rained a lot that week in Yorkshire.)