It isn't only metaphors, but clichés. Every time a soccer ball bounces off a post or crossbar and the commentator tells us that 'he has hit the woodwork', I wish he might hit the French or the Applied Mathematics or the Religious Education for a change. I don't think, anyhow, that the goals have actually been made of wood for years.

A metaphor that greatly irritates my wife Emma is the information that a player or team has/have "put in a good shift".

~Michael~