Hi,
The term ‘to bottle’ is something new to me. What does each of that two guys mean?
Thank you.
"Garth Crooks on Final Score “The way this is going, Man City are going to need snookers. City are going to need Blackburn to do them a mighty, mighty favour on Monday.” “Man City are well and truly bottling it.”
A bit later (Man City are still trailing by two goals):
"From Anthoney in Scarborough: “Manchester City have discovered mineral water under the Etihad. They’re bottling it.”
to bottle it
or
to lose your bottle
is to give up.
It can also mean to back out of something (withdraw a commitment from something) or to lose courage.
It’s a fairly modern informal colloquial phrase, so I’m not surprised you haven’t come across it before.
In this case “bottle it” means to fail to do something because of lack of courage. The second quote is a joke based on punning the “lack of courage” meaning with the “put a liquid in a bottle” meaning.
(overlapped with Beeesneees)