How ‘Bryan’s Gunn’ has turned football phrases and stereotypes into social media gold

New York Times
9 Min Read

Football content creator Will Powell — better known by his social media pseudonym, Bryan’s Gunn — has always been fascinated by the linguistic quirks and tropes of football.

“It starts as a kid,” Powell tells The Athletic. “You know the word ‘aplomb’ before you should do, because you’re listening to commentators use it.”

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Many of us have similarly absorbed the cliches and language of football, but Powell found a way to turn it into comedy, in the form of videos he produces for the Bryan’s Gunn social accounts.

The videos feel like scavenger hunts of stereotypes and stock phrases and have been viewed millions of times. On X, he has 125,000 followers. On Bluesky, he has 25,000 followers. His content has been watched by players and managers and has appeared on BBC television.

Having established an audience, Powell is now using his deft editing to help others by partnering with anti-poverty charity Trussell to deliver a message about hunger in the UK to football fans.

“Our research tells us that 82 per cent of football fans agree that food banks should not have to exist,” says Ellie Lambert of Trussell, who work with a network of more than 1,400 food banks across the UK. “We know that this can be achieved if everyone plays their part and joins us in calling for the solutions needed to ensure everyone can afford the essentials.”

To launch the campaign, Powell attended a food bank as a volunteer to help launch Trussell’s Football vs Hunger campaign. The Athletic spoke to him about becoming part of the modern football landscape.

Bryan’s Gunn was born during the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020.

While looking after his infant son, Powell discovered a new pastime. “I ended up with spare time at strange times of day,” he explains. “Also, I wasn’t able to make any noise for fear of waking the baby.

“There was no football on, so I went into this big nostalgia hole and watched all the football matches that made me fall in love with the sport as a kid.”

The first game Powell put on was the 1987 FA Cup final between Coventry City and Tottenham Hotspur.

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“The first thing I noticed was obviously that the standard wasn’t as good as it was in my memory,” says Powell. “But because I was watching it with the sound off, I was hyper fixated on what I was seeing.

“And my main takeaway from it was Steve Ogrizovic, the Coventry goalkeeper — every time he got the ball, he just launched it up the pitch with all his might.

“He must have booted the ball 60 or 70 times. By the end of it, he was just shattered. It was like watching a baby giraffe trying to find his feet.

“I found it amusing. I thought, ‘I’ll just string a load of those together and throw in a few other classic goalkeepers from the 80s and put it out there, see what people think’. And people absolutely loved it.”

From there, Powell turned his focus to exploring the vernacular of the post-match interview; phrases such as “tough place to go”, “five-year plan” and “architects of our own downfall” have all come under the linguistic microscope of Bryan’s Gunn.

Compiling the clips can take considerable research. “I was really reliant on local reporters,” says Powell. “I’d find a report from a local newspaper about a Hull City game from 2016, and in the report they’d include a snippet of what Steve Bruce said after the game.

“So I’d know that on that particular date Steve Bruce had said, ‘We’ll be there or thereabouts at the end of the season’. I’d then jump over to YouTube try to find the interviews from around that time and just trawl around.

“At the beginning, it was really difficult, painstaking stuff. You’d think that would be the boring bit, but I found that quite relaxing. It was like doing a jigsaw, trying to find all the pieces.”

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It’s a world rich with cliches. “I think there’s just so much content around football,” explains Powell. “The poor managers have to do a half-an-hour chat before a ball’s even kicked. They need these verbal crutches to lean on just to get them through that time.”

“But these phrases aren’t just about laziness: they’re necessary. They are really succinct ways of describing something in football.

“For example, I recently made a video with the phrase used about goalkeepers, ‘he makes himself big’. You can visually see that. You don’t need to literally describe what he does with his arms or legs. These phrases serve a purpose.”

Powell’s videos have even earned recognition from some of their stars — including the former Manchester United, Coventry City and Aston Villa striker Dion Dublin, who Powell describes as the “accidental hero” of many of his edits.

In December 2023, Powell made a video based on the phrase “lost the dressing room”, with clips of Dublin in his post-playing guise as a presenter on Homes Under the Hammer looking for the room in question.

“I got a message from Dion out of the blue,” says Powell. “Obviously, he realised that I wasn’t taking the mickey or anything, it was all done in good spirit. He said he loved them.”

But then, Dublin went one better.

“I was just driving down to my brother-in-law’s, and my phone just started going crazy. I pulled the car over and saw all these messages: ‘Did you see what Dion just did on Football Focus?’”

The show opened with Dublin finally finding the dressing room.

“He’s a brilliant guy,” says Powell. “Great sense of humour. I couldn’t have picked a more perfect hero for the videos.”

Powell works in financial publishing and has never sought the limelight for being the man behind Bryan’s Gunn.

“I always said the only reason I would do it is if it was for a really good cause, and I could use the platform to make a difference and do something positive.”

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This is why he stepped out from behind the social media avatar when Trussell reached out.

“They had a brilliant idea of using the language of football, and the football community, to get across their message: that hunger is seen as a good thing on the football pitch, but that’s the only place it should ever be seen as a good thing.

“This campaign flips the script and makes us all rethink what hunger really means. No one should be struggling to afford the essentials in a country that loves the game so much.”

(Top photo: Will Powell helping out at Southwark Food Bank; courtesy of Trussell)

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