Why is it called a “Nutmeg” when you kick a soccer ball through the legs of an opponent? (Yes, there would appear to be an obvious answer to this, but that would imply that the player is always male, and who the hell is Meg, anyway?). I’ve a theory it’s somethng to do with the Dutch East India spice trade, but have only one frail lead on this…I AM told, however, by experts, that the trick is to call it before you actually do it!
Three theories:
1: Nuts = Testicles
2: Nutmeg is rather dubious cockney rhyming slang for leg
3: Nutmeg is an abbreviation of “not my legs!”
I don’t know whether any are right, but I’m going for the middle one.
… so to speak 
This question is very tentatively answered about half way down this page. They suggest theories one and two may be correct.
According to the OED research assistant, they’re DRAFTING A DEFINTION FOR INCLUSION
…oops! But that the earliest use of it in a book is from 1968, author/footballer Rodney Marsh’s “Shooting to the Top,” in which there is no mention of cockney rhyming slang, and the word is written like this: Nut Meg. But I’ve discovereda a much older lead! http://www.duyfken.com/original/spice-islands.html
Now, before sexism is written into the history books, what the cockney rhyme slang for women kicking balls through opponent’s legs!?
If you’ve ever seen a whole,unground nutmeg , it is definitely foot-ball shaped . Maybe that’s partly where the expression comes from.
A football is spherical, while a nutmeg is, come to think of it, pretty much testicle-shaped.
Yes, BUT, I think if you break it open, it is spherical-- you might check its illustration on the website I mentioned. Thank you for all your help in this! I’m staying up late nights now coming up w/ the female cockney slang & spice equivalents for female soccer players, or, at least one where we’re on equal footie! Sofar I’m messing about with: “Parsley!” “Kibble and Bits!” and even the more internal reference: “Sausage and eggs!”, though that last one would be difficult to shout whilst actually doing the thing. OK so none of it is a spice, but something out to be shouted through the legs of a woman! …Maybe I better stop here…
I dunno, it looks pretty ovoid/testicloid in that illustration - exactly like the nutmegs in my kitchen in fact.
A possible unisex spice, if you move the focust of attention just a couple of inches: “anise!” 
I dunno, it looks pretty ovoid/testicloid in that illustration - exactly like the nutmegs in my kitchen in fact.
A possible unisex spice, if you move the focus of attention just a couple of inches: “anise!”
Don’t make me post it again!!
er- sorry-- it takes so long to respond I thought my computer was on the fritz-- I think I must have pounded “send!” impatiently. But I’m too stunned by the hummers post to do that now.
OK I just went to Madison Square Garden for the first time last night and kept muttering things like “diving header,” when I shouldn’t have. BUT, what would be the basketball equivalent of a nutmeg? Thanks.