It means - as you can imagine - that one is not too happy with life. (Thompson had committed a foul which led to Forest being given a penalty, which won them the game.) The opposite is "Over the moon", which was also a popular phrase with footballers and football managers.
No one is entirely sure where the phrase came from in the first place. Several origins are suggested, which I won't bore you with here. And these days Premier League footballers seem fonder of using racist abuse than eccentric catchphrases.
But I think if anyone can be said truly to look as sick as a parrot, it is these disgruntled parakeets in my garden this afternoon.
It's very cold here for London - it was -5C when I went out first thing this morning and we're expecting snow tonight. So the garden is full of birds hanging around, waiting to fill up at the bird feeders.
Ring-necked parakeets are naturalised all over south-west London - there are loads of them, and they like to flock together. So it's not uncommon to see four or five sitting in a tree, or screeching overhead, or gobbling up the food in the feeders as fast as I can fill them.
