What is 'shithousery'? And why it's the World Cup's biggest problem

It’s become the talking point of the tournament but where does the term come from? And what are its worst examples?

Shithousery is a fairly nebulous term, taking in as it does pretty much all the dark arts employed on a football pitch – everything from diving to headbutting via haranguing the referee and time-wasting. Generally, in its most simple guise, shithousery is an attempt to gain an advantage by unfair means and therefore it has existed around football for a long time.

But from where does the phrase originate? Well, it has been around for a long time. Tony Crowley’s Liverpool English Dictionary traces the term back to scouse slang used in the 1960s. The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang has an entry for “shithouse”, with definitions “an extremely unpleasant individual” and “a coward”.

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