Motivation Quote by Ron Atkinson

"He must be lightning slow" lands because it’s a deliberately wrong phrase that still delivers the right verdict. Ron Atkinson, speaking from the quick-fire culture of football commentary, flips a stock compliment ("lightning fast") into a verbal own goal that becomes instantly memorable. The intent isn’t to craft poetry; it’s to register a brutal, blink-and-you-miss-it assessment of a player’s pace - with the kind of deadpan humor that lets criticism slip through without sounding like a courtroom sentence.

The subtext is pure terrace logic: speed is currency in modern football, and lacking it isn’t a minor flaw, it’s a tactical liability. By welding "lightning" to "slow", Atkinson captures a familiar sports truth - that fans and pundits often talk in extremes because the game rewards extremes. You’re not just slow; you’re catastrophically, comically slow, slow in a way that changes what the manager can risk and what opponents will target.

Context matters: this comes from the era of personality-driven British punditry, where commentary is part analysis, part entertainment, and the best lines travel further than the match itself. Atkinson’s phrase operates like a meme before memes: compact, repeatable, and slightly absurd. It also reveals the power dynamic of televised sport: a player’s body becomes a public text, and one tossed-off quip can outlive ninety minutes, turning performance into punchline.