Listen With Others

This was an interestingly themed puzzle – thanks Awinger!  Might we assume you to be a Wigan Athletic fan?  Or perhaps an Arsenal fan wanting to remind us of their ‘more than any other’ 13 successes?  Given it was almost written by AWenger I’d guess the latter.  Or sponsored by Nobby’s Tiles?  Sorry, losing my thread a bit … 😉

The teams were neatly concealed in the nine clashing cells and after a while these helped with some of the later solves – e.g. something related to F1 that begins PORTSMO* can only be MOTORSPORT, that sort of thing.  It took quite some time to sort out the last couple – in my case these were MAN CITY and ARSENAL.

I liked how the location of the ball was at the same point in the goal ‘frame’ as the actual scored by Ben Watson all those years ago, a nice touch in more ways than one.  The Down message hidden as split words rather than the usual technique was good to see, too.  My only reservation was what appears to be an ambiguity in how to mark the ball with a ‘cross’: from what I recall from old Spot The Ball competitions this was normally done with an X – though I may be wrong.  However, the Globe in the title seemed to encourage us as Solvers to use the cross in its + form within the circle, so forming the old symbol for Earth.  I can’t imagine either being marked wrong but I decided, given the title, to go with the latter.

In the clues I particularly liked 48ac’s use of EDMUND SPENSER in a subtractive anagram: 
{ EDMUND SPENSER}* and {MENDED + SPURNES}*.  Delightful!

Overall, great fun!  Thanks once again to Awinger for a tricky puzzle.

Cheers & keep safe all,  

Tim / Encota