50 great footballing moments (Part 1)

After two sessions with the Salvadorians and envisaging sex between Colonel Gaddafi (how shit must he think himself if after six hundred years in absolute charge of Libya, he still hasn't made himself a Field Marshal?) and Leo Sayer (did you know he's got a cute way of walking?), I shall cross the border as a spy, dropped in by night in a deniable ops in an oversized corner suite in impact-softening Dralon that is a third of its original price for the Bank Holiday weekend only.

Yes, Honduras will follow...

8

They gave him free tickets for the games for his troubles, though, and a goat, which he gratefully accepted, fucked, slaughtered and ate.

Northern Ireland having scored through Cinderella's fairy godmother and Honduras equalising when the Irish defence froze in the face of the Gorgon Medusa as she snaked in at the far post

Maybe, but like the Spanish building sites they left behind, it would be twenty-eight years before it was realised.

And we're done. They were worthy of the Juice, they were too good for Cunters.

So they're gone

Weighing more than Micky Droy with chips and a side salad

El Salvador, out and playing for pride, kicked the shit out of Honduras for two and a half hours, having started an hour before kick off but somehow managed to lose by a single goal.

The streets of Tegucigalpa are awash with men pissed on cane spirit and chatting up goats.

Honduras, after four and a half hours of effort, scored less than the Chilean miners did

FRANK LAMPARD v GERMANY 2010

This goal has been removed by the Uruguayan Secret Police. Sepp Blatter's remarks include "it's amazing what you can do with video editing" and "I'm not Sepp Blatter - there he is over there" before turning and running to a nearby car with its engine running

ARIE HAAN v ITALY, 1978

Having seen off the Scots by losing 3-2 because the Scots put in stellar performances against Cuzco Wanderers and the Tehran Fire Brigade Seconds, the second group stage was equally eventful.

It's the last game of the group and the Italians, dull fucking shit cunts as they are, need a win against the Dutch to get to the final. In two group games, they've spent 90 minutes showing the world just how fucking dull European football is by drawing 0-0 with their WW2 allies, West Germany, and taking a single goal out of the rest of the Anschluss. What did it all mean? Well, a win for Italy would put them in the final providing the Hun didn't beat the Austrians. Since Hans Krankl would get his cock out and piss all over that dream with Austria already out (which oddly would not be reflected four years later when the Anschluss reformed to see off Algeria by playing out a tame 1-0 win where seventeen players sat in the crowd for the last hour), the win was enough. Any other, they make the 3rd/4th final against Argentina who need to beat Peru (haha) by four to make the final and that isn't going to happen...

Cue conversation in the Dutch camp

"Wim, these blue jellyfish cannot shcore gols"
"Then Ruud, we shall help them. We shall help them"

Twenty minutes in, a Dutch own goal doubles the multi-reversed gear tank drivers total in this stage in a ninth of the time. Dino Zoff, the purported best keeper in the world, is 70 minutes away from going to the World Cup final. He rubs his hands with glee, clearly having forgotten Alan Rough. All is fine in Dino's world - hair is sprayed on stiffer than Leslie Crowther's, he has a side in front of him playing 9-1-0 and he's swapped his gloves with his old pal OJ Simpson.

The Dutch, however, equalise, declaring the place in the final in the offing "shecshee". However, twenty minutes to go, Italy, past masters of shit football and shady fucking results, are still in it. Best gloves in the world, indisciplined Dutch tokers in opposition? You had to fancy their chances. If nerves get to the Dutch, they'll need a smoke, slow down and possibly even take it a little easy, guysh.

Until the Dutch get a free kick with fifteen left in what the Italians would recognise as "No Man's Land" if they ever advanced on a fucking battlefield with a flag that is other than white cross on a white background. Tapped to Arie Haan, he takes a couple of strides, sets himself, thinks "fuck it" and lets fly. The next thought to go through Dino Zoff's head was "Fool! You can't beat the great Dino from 40 yards carving across the face of goal from my right to my left, for I am the world's best keeper!"

That is a lovely sentiment until you read it back and see that the ball passes him and hits the back of the net via the post at the point he thinks "across the face of goal". As he picks himself off the turf in his favourite SS-grey top with leather elbow patches wondering what to blame for being beaten by a shot that was in the air longer than Richard fucking Branson's balloon, you can't help but think "and still, he doesn't need a comb". Alan Rough declares that "he'd have got a hand to that". How we laugh. Resigned to the 3/4 Final, Zoff thinks "At least I won't get beaten by a shot there that looks as if it was powered by three separate stages".

We know different now, though, don't we Dino?

To follow - Nelinho

THE FORGOTTEN GOAL

Nelinho, 3rd and 4th place final, WC 78.

Yes, I'll put a fucking link up. Jesus...

So we're in Argentina 1978. We've covered Scotland's attempt at disinformation, Italy's traditional rearguard action, The Dutch Shooting capacity and Dino Zoff's Harmony contract (Is he? Isn't he? He is, and it's creating its own hole in the ozone layer. I heard six cans...). Let's go on to Brazil.

Brazil were a bit useful. They would go through the tournament unbeaten, beating Austria in the first stage by a goal from Roberto Dinamite, the only professional footballer ever to be named after an explosive apart from Georgi Semtechs, a Euro 2004 winner with Greece, and the unforgettable Basque Arturo Fertiliserbomb. However, it all started to go wrong when, at a corner against Sweden, Clive "the book" Thomas blows the final whistle as the ball is in midair. Brazil score but the match has been finished. They protest, presumably in Portuguese but that isn't common in Treorchy and without access to the Welsh masonic phrase "look you, boy", everyone leaves the pitch. Thousands of Brazilian women in the crowd get their boobs out. This isn't a protest, they just are immensely proud of their titties.

The impact is that Brazil qualify in second place on goals scored; the latter groups are formed of an all European group (like in the 30s, Italy, Germany and Austria fail to stop the Dutch eventually triumphing - "Fascism might get you so far but for this tournament, suck my Allied cock, Axish shcum" - Ernst Happel, celebrated Austrian in charge of Netherlands, only by invitation and not like Adolf) and the other group is mainly South American (Argentina, Brazil, Peru and Poland, who qualified because they were still a great side Mexico were that shit that they had no bribes in place).

So the flair side against the hosts. They draw. If they both win the remaining games, it's goal difference for the final (making a change from having a death squad penalty shootout, the normal junta settling method). The last round of games is for some reason not played at the same time. Brazil win early on, scored six, +5. The future cunt invaders of sovereign British territory have scored two, +2. They need four minimum but can afford to concede one and pull their own fucking ball out of the bag when they draw lots...

They're playing Peru. Peru who drew with the Dutch, who twatted Scotland and single handedly saved Alan Rough's pub from going under and beat the makeweights in the first round (sorry, mentioned Scotland already, I mean Iran). Mighty Peru. Brazil took three off them Poland one. Argentina aren't of that calibre, aside from the Brazil game, they'd only conceded from Joe Jordan, who in all fairness is a foot taller than the plucky Lima-based pygmies, and an Iranian who scored after Peru had put three in and they were through and playing in bare feet with eight men to rest the ones who'd lied about their age and were ripped to the tits on peyote. Oh, and the current third-place '74 side.

No pushover and the Argies certainly couldn't get four. And they didn't. They got six, while Peru ended up -10, but with three fighter jets, forty tonnes of pampas beef, an aircraft carrier and a sack of animal porn, courtesy of the Argentinian government, no strings. "It's the South American way".

So the best side in the tourney get to play off for third. And they get Italy, playing the 9-1-0. Dino's hair is particularly bricklike today and his gloves look especially free of blood. And the side-swapping dull cunts who put England out in qualifying once again score first. The clock ticks down inexorably as the Italian back four plant a bench on the edge of the box in the second half. Dino, however, has yet to learn that pride is a sin. Patting his hair into shape with a hammer, once again, Dino waxes lyrical as the full back runs into another blind alley on the right wing. Nelinho pulls up and turns inside a pace, still out by the touchline. It appears he has seen his uncle Joao in the stand on the opposite side behind the goal. Uncle Joao has never liked Dino Zoff. Something about Grecian 2000 and swastika armbands. "I'll show him" thinks Nelinho.

Dino meanwhile has gone back into his pride mode. "Fool! You can't beat the great Dino from the touchline carving across the face of goal from my left to my right, for I am the world's best keeper oh fuck my luck he's done it as well!". Watch the video. Right after it goes in. Glares at the fucker who's just made a cunt out of him, armband is plain white. Not a grey hair, not a one out of place, it looks like Mike Brearley's bonnet and Uncle Joao has stolen the swastika too. This World Cup malarkey is making you look a bit of a prick, Dino...



And it all started with Emanuel Sanon...

MANNO SANON

The 1974 World Cup was a stand out because FIFA (motto - "Run by Germans, run for Germans) despite only having sixteen places, managed to get two Germanys to take part. In terms of congregating the world's best sides, along with making 12.5% of the sides German, FIFA managed to get Australia there despite the fact that qualification for the same at the time involved a home and away playoff with an American military runway on an island whose main export was bird shit. They managed to get Zaire, a country which no longer fucking exists and is unclear whether it ever existed, not unlike at least one of the Germanys in der historybooken of der winnerschaft, to qualify despite the fact that they couldn't provide a kit and turned out in eleven sets of aged 5 Ben10 pyjamas. They got Haiti to qualify by having the CONCACAF qualification tournament held in the Haitian FA chairman's shed in Port-au-Prince. Mexico accused them of voodoo, but only so that they could get another go at hosting in '86 after taking a Tunisian bumfucking in '78 and somehow contriving to fail to qualify in '82 letting through Honduras and El Salvador, despite the latter not scoring (a goal every four and a half hours) and Honduras drawing the last game against Mexico to put El Salvador through despite the fact that had Mexico said "1-0 and you can start bombing your cunt neighbours again", the Hondurans would have gone straight for the knife drawer. But enough about how shit Mexico are despite their false world ranking and the fact that they are the only country north of Venezuela where the 32-panelled football can be glimpsed in the wild... Yes, Scotland fucking made it there as well. Oh, and Chile qualified by virtue of a playoff against Russia where they drew 0-0 in Moscow, overthrew their legitimate government and then arranged the second leg in the Olympic Stadium where Pinochet had shot left wingers (retaining the Chilean Wayne Bridge, however) and left the Communist scum bastard fucking blood still on the seats. Russia, amazingly, told them to fuck off, we're not playing. "We're through" screamed the head of the Chilean Secret Police from his FA office.

So, footballing kangaroos, self-style leopards, two types of German and a two countries whose main interest when asked were "sacrificing chickens and gumbo" and "drinking Buckfast and fighting". Oh, and Yugoslavia were there as well, which on current levels would complete the fucking 32 required, never mind the 16.

IN THE SERBIAN OFFICE, BELGRADE
"It's Tuesday - I claim independence from Serbia!"
"Yes pal, there's a queue here, you know? Typical North Montenegrin."
"Did you say South Montenegrin?"
"No"
"Has number 7 been called yet?"
"No. Both Bosnia and Herzegovina were here before you. I want to get Bosnia out the way, the fucking cough out of him will kill us all."
"Slovenia here?"
"Came in and was out before we all got here, the sly fucker"

You get the picture

Anyhow, the draw was a bit strange. The pots were, in order
DEMOCRACIES
COMMIE FUCKERS
TINPOT DICTATORSHIPS
THE CRAP WE DIDN'T THINK THROUGH. Plus Sweden

Consequently, The two Germanys ended up playing each other in Germany - FIFA effectively sucking its own dick there, if they could have given four points, they would. This was the only game in World Cup history where the offside trap involved a strand of barbed wire and armed guards at the edge of the "D". It was also the first game in World Cup history where, rather than hope both sides ended up with eleven on the park, the hope was that it didn't end up as one side of 22 and and empty half while the phrase "I defect" rang around the stadium. Poor Australia, confused at qualifying, could not understand why after losing to Germany, four days later would have to play against Germany. They failed to qualify for the next 32 years and when they did, the tournament was in Germany. The chairman of FA Oz is still in therapy now. Forty years he did that job. The only word he can say now is "Germany" and then cry.

Brazil, having won the World Cup with a side of angels in carpet slippers four years previously, were completely confused this time around. They couldn't find any country of "Scot Land", they were completely confused by Yugoslavia as the map kept changing Harry Potter style every time they looked at it, and Zaire appeared to be dressed for bed. They all beat Zaire and drew with each other, starting a series of marvellous notes in Scottish World Cup history by their being knocked out unbeaten because they didn't score enough against Zaire because they left the opposition's Horlicks and copy of Winnie The Pooh at the team hotel and so had to play them fully alert despite it being a school night.

That's the support card by and large. Now, the main act. First game in the group, Italy v Haiti. Italy haven't conceded a goal in over 12 games and the Pope is taking credit. Even his Sunday blessings look like he's pointing out that "Rivera should be wider and what's that cunt Chinaglia doing?" Trouble is, they qualified in six of those games against the mighty Swiss, the mighty Turks and the mighty Luxembourgeois. Given that Luxembourg gave Turkey a fucking at home and Turkey still finished second to Italy, you see the level.

Nevertheless, Italy were buoyed by this record, having won at Wembley in the same spell where England camped out in the Italian half and lost 1-0, ultimately suckered when it was too late by that fucking Capello bloke. See nothing changes there, then.

Haiti, then. The first half is goalless. Second half starts and Haiti somehow break out of defence quickly. Cue Dino Zoff

"Fool! You can't beat the great Dino with your minnow skills. Dino has not conceded a goal in 1143 minutes! Your Haitian impudence amuses me but we will crush you and you will never - NEVER - beat the great Dino oh fuck he's around me and Haiti are winning 1-0".

Pope 0, Baron Samedi 1

Here's the goal. Dino's reaction at 0.36 plain to see. Forty-five minutes later, Italy win three-one but Manno's goal ultimately impacts on their goal difference and puts them out. Har fucking har.

Embedded Youtube link

"I'm sitting at a railway station, got a ticket to my destination..."

So wrote Paul Simon at Widnes station, or Warrington Bank Quay, or Ditton station (which to celebrate the fact, they shut down. If you've ever been there, you'd know why - it's shit, even for a godforsaken industrial not-quite-town, not-quite-suburb)



NOOOO!!! NOT DITTON!!! PLEEEEEASE!!! (Note the long jump from platform 2 to track. Suicide preventer, see)

Next stop is the cosmopolitan hotbed of sophistication that is Runcorn. We're not in Monte Carlo here.

Anyway, enough of the laboured rail metaphor and on to another.

The 70s was the heyday of the Football Special. And, in a Tommo-like link, nothing made football special like giant-killing acts (hey fellas, he's good!).

Not since the establishment of the Second Spanish Republic (look it up if you don't fucking believe me) had a side won the FA Cup from outside the top tier. This year was to be no different. Timeline: 1973 and the Cup Final was to be a repeat of the '72 final until Jeff Blockley fucked up enough for Arsenal fans to subsequently burn him in effigy. Never one to blame his players, Bertie Mee therefore paid him not to play for the next two years, calling him "his biggest mistake". Nice.

Still, Vic Halom's goal aside, Sunderland were to take their place in the final. However, it would be the biggest mismatch in recent FA Cup history as they were to play The Mighty Leeds United Of Don Revie In Really Big Letters. Allowing them on the same pitch was billed as the equivalent of putting a mild-mannered accountant convicted of tax fraud in a cell with a one-eared man named Turk who was eight years into a minimum fifteen stretch for killing a milkman and shagging his horse up the shitter.

Ninety minutes later, however, it would be the bookkeeper who would turn out to be Superman who would be astride Turk, making double entry and shouting "suffer baby, suffer" in the biggest shock ever seen until that fucking pile of shit dating show with the bloke out of Phoenix Nights who does the Victor Chandler adverts was commissioned for a second series. Yes, someone watched it and thought "we should do that AGAIN", FFS.

So what happened? Well, it was all down to the managers. Don Revie was a legend. He took Leeds to the '65 Cup Final and runners up in the league, he took them to the same league position the next season, and not content with being runners up in the league twice in succession, in '70, '71 and '72, he managed a treble of seconds. In '70, he also took them to the FA Cup Final and took them to the fairs Cup Final in 1967 too.

And lost the fucking lot.

They did win stuff as well - they were the current holders when taking on Sunderland, for example, and 11 days after they were to play Sunderland, they were to play AC Milan in the Cup Winner's Cup Final.

Yeah, they fucking lost that too. Revie. Useless cunt. Would turn up at a Royal Wedding and find himself holding the door open. Won an OBE when everyone else was getting a knighthood. Basically, the managerial equivalent of the ugly bird of two ("the tugboat") that someone has to entertain while one of you tries to shag the looker ("the liner"). Occasionally gets shagged by default, but most likely to find herself crying into a tub of Pringle-flavoured Ben and Jerry's, alone with a cat.

But who is on the other bench? Why, it's Bob Stokoe! Bob had a charmed life - despite playing for ten years and getting on for 300 games at Newcastle, he ended up managing Sunderland. This is of course the equivalent of Ian Paisley getting the job as the next Pope. After beating Graham Norton in a playoff. JFK was assassinated for less, yet this bloke who had he got the Brian Clough treatment would have been played on the big screen by Pete Postlethwaite (God rest his soul) was revered by both sets of fans. Rumour has it he could cure leprosy and raise the dead as well - let's face it, he won a fucking cup with Sunderland.

Stokoe had only been at Sunderland for six months - so short was his tenure at the time that he hadn't had a chance to take off his hat. By May, it was firmly wedged on his head and so he spent the entire final looking as if he was pretending to be a gangland killer about to be bumped off by the Krays. Revie looked across. Stokoe looked back and mouthed "Richie Pitt is going to fuck you". Revie, despite having a team that refused Peter Sutcliffe a place because he lacked ruthlessness and a killer instinct, blanched.

First blood Stokoe.

The game started and Leeds ran riot. They'd do that in Paris two years later but that's fuck all to do with football and more with tear gas and cheating refs. Nevertheless, they couldn't break through, partly because whenever they got close, Richie Pitt would kick fuck out of whoever was nearest. It was twenty minutes before he realised that the red-and-whites were on his side, by which time Billy Hughes was already crying. The change in tactics of only kicking opponents was a master stroke - ten minutes later, Sunderland would have a corner, it'd bounce about a bit and then David Coleman would bellow PORTERFIELD!

1-0. Only a matter of time until Leeds came back. Except Jim Montgomery had other ideas. A quiet, unassuming keeper, he once saved a schoolbus full of orphans from dying when a bridge collapsed in Colombia where he was doing imaginary missionary work that I've just made up. I only put that in the last sentence because even if it were true, he'd still just be remembered for the phrase "double save". Never mind the "Calle Jeem Montigomerri" in downtown Bogotá and the statue in front of the Cartagena town hall of a man in a green shirt and fucking godawful Slade haircut ("It's Christmaaaaas!") surrounded by happy children, no. He will forever be remembered as the bloke who, when Trevor Cherry goes for that diving header six yards out, had got his angles wrong, palmed out the effort that he should have held and when it fell to Peter Lorimer to slam home with a shot that could dent diamond from five yards, threw himself headlong in desperation only for the ball to deflect off him on to the bar, the stuffy fucker, and down to safety via the heel of the prostrate Trevor Cherry who had yet to get up, the lazy cunt.

Ha ha, fuck off, only joking, best double save ever, up your arse, Leeds. At that point, Leeds continued to lay waste to the Sunderland half but the gods had arrived at the time of the Montgomery save and decided they weren't going anywhere. Apparently Zeus still has a chuckle to himself now whenever he thinks of Allan Clarke.

"PORTERFIELD! All aboard who are coming aboard! Ah, Mr Rodrigues, we've been waiting for you..."

Spoiler:

SHEILA, SHEILA, SHOW US YOUR BOOBS!

So, in 1973, a side from outside the top tier won the FA Cup for the first time in over forty years (although that includes a few years when it was listed in the Charlie Buchan Football Annual as "Not Contetsted - Fucking Nazis"). Might be a bit of a wait for the next, then.

Well, to go back to the public transport metaphor, you wait for years and then two come along at once. Fulham failed two years after from outside the top flight while fielding Alan Mullery and Bobby Moore. Unfortunately, Moore spent ninety minutes trying to steal Billy Bonds's St. Christopher and was distracted enough to let Alan Taylor take the cup to West Ham, realise the ground was in East Ham and then think "fuck it" and open a newsagents.

So, 1976. We must go back a couple of years to the Relegation of Manchester United (I'm sure that's a Dalí painting...). In 75, they bounced back as champions of D2, while Tommy Docherty bounced on the back of his physio's wife ("Mary Brown you've got a lovely arse there..."). In '76, they ran a close third to Liverpool as champions and runners up QPR (no, really, I'm not taking the piss) and their rehabilitation was all but complete. The Cup run had given them a chance of completing their redemption, thus bringing joy to small children in Third World countries who had learnt the phrase "Bobbee Charlton!" and loved their adopted club as much as any other fucking fairweather cunt that follows them from anywhere beyond Salford.

They had reached the final without much of a hitch and knew that this year was a funny old year, as Jimmy Cunting Greaves would have it, as Tooting and Mitcham made the fourth round (confounding Jimmy Hill who thought they were two teams and kept saying they would have to replay at Mitcham's ground) and Crystal Palace sneaked into the semis from the Third Division having all hidden inside Mal Allison's fedora. It was theirs for the taking when the other semi opponent of Palace was Southampton Of Division Two Who Have Never Won A Trophy. Ever.

The Doc (as he was nickname by all except Laurie Brown, who knew him as "the cunt fucking my wife") therefore booked his suit fitting at Savile Row, a forty berth yacht which would tour the Azores for his triumphant team after they win and a diamond studded Rampant Rabbit for Mary - who told Laurie that it was a massager. Fuck me, the man was a physio and believed her. They even won the toss for the kit, which meant Southampton had to play in a shirt colour known as "sweetcorn vomit". The bookies, mindful of being fucked in every orifice on Wearside three years back, decided to recoup their losses in the biggest certainty since Leeds in '73 oh fuck fuck fuck...

It takes two teams to make a final, though. Mighty United might be a shoo-in but the programme manufacturers needed names for the other side of the back page. This caused problems.

"OK, Eddie, what's the team"
"It's Turner, Rodrigues..."
"The Welsh fella, looks like a cross between a waiter and a geography teacher you wouldn't leave your kids with? He's about sixty, fuck off..."
"No, says here he's 30ish - FUCK ME - that photo is his grandad then surely? Says he signed last year..."
"OK Ed, I'll believe it. Go again, I'll set the type."
"Turner, Rodrigues, Peach..."
"Peach?"
"Peach"
"The fruit"
"With the stone, yes. Peach"
"Fuck off"
"No, really (shows picture and bio)"
"Weirder and weirder. OK, go on."
"Where was I... Turner, Rodrigues, Peach, Holmes"
"Big Johnny!"
"What do you fucking think... Oh for fuck's sake, I asked you to think. NO. It's Nick Holmes, young kid, sideburns you could hide Billy Bremner in"
"Sorry. Go on, go again..."
"Right, Turner, Rodrigues, Peach, Holmes, Blyth (don't you fucking dare say Chay), Steele (or David, I'm fucking warning you), Gilchrist...
"Gilchrist? The one who looks like Leo Sayer?"
"Yes"
"Fucking hell, I hope he doesn't wear the clown makeup, they fucking terrify me"
"He looks like Leo Sayer, he isn't actually Leo fucking Sayer"
"Oh yeah... Go on"
"Right, it's Turner, Rodrigues, Peach, Holmes, Blyth, Steele, Gilchrist, Channon..."
"Love Mick, that arm thing he does. Very funny"
"For fuck's sake! Turner, Rodrigues, Peach, Holmes, Blyth, Steele, Gilchrist, Channon, (oh fucking hell...) Osgood"
"OZZY! Blue is the colour, let's have another, Ozzy?"
"Yes..."
"Didn't he retire to fuck up a clothes shop and drink?"
"No. He m..."
"...Moved to Southampton, didn't he? Put the box cutter down, I'm sorry, please don't cut me, I won't butt in again"
"RIGHT! Turner. Rodrigues. Peach. Holmes. Blyth. Steele. Gilchrist. Channon. Osgood. McCalliog - YES, THE SCOTTISH CUNT WHO PLAYED FOR SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY IN '66 WHO THE SCUM SIGNED TWO YEARS BACK AND WAS TOP SCORER FOR THEM HALFWAY THROUGH THE SEASON DESPITE HAVING ONLY PLAYED NINE MINUTES, THAT'S WHY THEY WERE RELEGATED! HE'S TURNING OUT AGAINST HIS PREVIOUS CLUB, YES, HIM!"
"Can't place him..."
"GaaaAAAAHHHHHH! Turner. Rodrigues. Peach. Holmes. Blyth. Steele. Gilchrist. Channon. Osgood. McCalliog. Stokes."
"Stokes? Little Bobby? Like him, local lad, hope he enjoys the day"
"And Hughie Fisher on the bench"
"Sorted. Manager's name?"
"Lawrie McMenemy"
"Can you spell that?"
"STUFF YOUR FUCKING PROGRAMME UP YOUR ARSE..."

The game will follow shortly. Please first enjoy this message from our sponsor

Hello, I'm Lawrie McMenemy. Have you tried this new Barbican? Brewed like an ordinary lager...and then they take all the alcohol out!

It’s great, man!

Now I'm off to get a drink-driving conviction and never get another advert again, ever.

Out on the Wembley turf, meanwhile

After 82 minutes of relentless Scum pressure, it looks like extra time. Southampton have weathered a fucking shitload here, they've been pummelled Audley-stylee and yet the BBC continue to show it... They can't do this for another thirty minutes, though. Ozzy can see that the towels are coming off the pumps down the Kings Road in about twenty and he'll be fucking off whether the game is over or not, Rodrigues is spent and surviving on Kendal Mint Cake that he has hidden in Nick Holmes's sideburns, Jim McCalliog is doing shagging moves at Laurie Brown and Tommy Docherty and laughing ("sell me cheap would you?") and has forgotten all about the game, and Bobby Stokes has run about so much that he is now only four foot six. It's only a matter of time.

Except...

Ozzy jumps one last time, having imagined in the sun that the ball was a bottle of pale ale over bitter, and knocked it down to Jim McCalliog, who had vacated the touchline because The Doc was threatening him with inserting what looks suspiciously like a diamond studded Rampant Rabbit. He launches it forward to the only bit of yellow he can see, little Bobby Stokes. Stokes runs on to the ball, taking four strides to everyone else's one as he has shrunk to four-fifths of his full height through heat and effort, and attempts a shot. It rolls down his tiny shin, off his size three boot and trickles along the floor. Alex Stepney laughs, dislocates his jaw and instead of diving, falls over and measures his height on the floor as the ball runs past him into the corner. Stokes celebrates by running away, jumping to his full height of three feet now and consequently nutting Mick Channon in the bollocks. A glinting dildo arches through the air on to the pitch and is picked up by Clive Thomas. It is not seen again and the incident does not appear in the referee's report but Mrs Thomas is seen shopping in Treorchy and walking like John Wayne for the next month. Tommy Docherty left soon after and through an administrative error went the Azores with Laurie Brown while Mary stayed at home, dildoless and without even a sympathetic backrub. Eight minutes after Stokes's goal, Peter Rodrigues became the only club captain to this day to lift the FA Cup with a St Johns blanket over him and taking oxygen.

STAGGY, STAGGY SHOW US YOUR BOOBS!

Two FA Cup wins from the second tier in four seasons? Amazing. So when in 1980, three years further on, West Ham United turned up at Wembley and even let Frank Lampard (the two-cap full back with the beard, not his fat feckless whoremonger of a fucking son) score in the semi to get them there - an event that is up there in terms of frequency with Brigadoon rising up out of the sea and giving angry pensioners an excuse to bitch by forming an Am-Dram club and playing politics. Or Emile Heskey scoring a brace - then Arsenal had to fancy their chances. As holders, having done their level best to give the fucking thing away in the last five minutes the year before until Permy Sunderland went down the other end and settled it, they were fucking red hot that season because they never got to cool down.

They played 42 league games, 7 League Cup games, 9 Cup Winner's Cup games, a Charity Shield and 11 games in the FA Cup, including a semi-final that ran to so many replays against Liverpool that they were so stuck for neutral grounds to go to, they played the decider two hours after the previous replay, where both sides jumped into vans, drove from Villa Park and in front of about 9 people at the all-seater fucking hole that was Highfield Road, Coventry, managed a result more down to sleep deprivation than football because the danger was any further replays would have to take place at Wembley on Final Day and the band would be told to fuck off. Arsenal would also finish third in the Boat Race, they also formed the England side who would draw the Second Test at Lord's (rain affected) and rain would also affect the Grand National, where Ben Nevis would scoot home, ably assisted by, yes, Brian Talbot. Even when I dropped an ice cream at Prestatyn Beach, a friendly stranger was there to dry my tears and buy me another. Arsenal were fucking everywhere that year, because the postscript to this story is the stranger who comforted me was Graham Rix. I was young, had longish hair and as I look back now, I bless the day that the gods went "fuck it, let him have the XY chromosomes" or otherwise it wouldn't have just been ice cream I was licking.

Add them up, though. They played 70 games that season. And bear in mind that at the time, players were consider unfit lazy fat cunts compared to the golden children of today. Yeah, play a game a day for 10 weeks solid and then moan, Junior. They played 8 in March, 10 in April and 7 in May, including two after they'd lost every fucking thing just to finish the season off. The last game, they were frankly bummed at Middlesbrough, 5-0, where Brian Talbot played alongside eight tackle dummies, a scarecrow and a bloke who won a second prize in a raffle named Alan who was supposed to be going as an all-expenses paid guest of the club but ended up at left back. Brian Talbot was an ever present and he was "working late" so often his wife left him in mid-April. She asked him "Is there anyone else?" and he replied "Terry Neill". She left him because she knew it was true - she'd been shagging Terry herself but he'd had less and less time for her lately...

So, the final. Arsenal started brightly but unfortunately that was back in August. Now in May and in game number sixty fucking seven with a European final coming up on Wednesday, they were surviving on Proplus, pig semen extracts and watching video footage of Jeremy Thorpe, which meant they'd never close their eyes again, the horror, the horror. So strained were Arsenal that the unthinkable happened. No, not West Ham scoring - that's implausible but reasonable. However, when Stuart Pearson's mishit shot went across the face of goal, Trevor Brooking crouched and headed the ball. This man had hair that would put Dino Zoff to shame and was known to make Leslie Crowther cry on sight and as we all know, he was a player who would be described by the media as a "cultured midfielder". That translates as "after ninety minutes in a typical February Burnden Park bog, his workrate will be such that he will not have a speck of mud on him and his hair, like the song "Werewolf of London" says, "was perfect". Glenn Hoddle would score the Cup Final winner two years later and take over the "cultured midfielder" mantle while Brooking was losing us the World Cup. With lovely hair. Mind you, there was even rumour that the "Werewolves of London" song was about Brooking - he is the only man in footballing history who could give the backs of Richard Keys's hand a run for their money, apparently.

That was that, then. Arsenal were too tired to raise their game and it stayed 1-0 - indeed, it would have been more were it not for a superb saving tackle by Willie Young, who, passed by the youngest player ever to grace a Wembley Cup Final, 17 year old Paul Allen, committed on the boy who was clean through what is now termed a professional foul by hacking him down, giving him a Chinese burn and stealing his dinner money and catapult.

A few minutes later, they were winners. Billy Bonds, a man whose age could only be counted by cutting off his leg and counting the rings, became the only winning captain to be a member of the undead (he'd been at West Ham long enough to remember the druid burial ground and before that, the Roman camp at the Boleyn Ground, where it's true, he once shagged Anne Boleyn) and raise the FA Cup. Trevor Brooking, when picking up his medal, bowed to the Duke of Kent who leaned forward at the same time and knocked himself out on Trev's perfect coiffure. The Queen laughed so much when she saw it on "Lizzie's Bloopers" that she knighted the lazy fucking "I used to play for West Haaaaaaaaaaaaaam" cunt. Don Revie OBE could have learnt something from this, except he's dead.

IT'S A VANITY THREAD, LET'S HAVE A BIT OF VANITY

I'll talk you through this one. It wasn't a Wembley classic, or one of the ten in the Real/Eintracht European Cup Final at Hampden. It wasn't even Sandy Brown's diving header in the Merseyside Derby for Liverpool, except he was playing for Everton.

No, this one was played out in front of no-one (no, it wasn't a West Ham Cup Winner's Cup tie either - they once played Castilla behind closed doors because they went to Madrid and by all accounts tried "to take it back with them or flatten it trying"). The reason it was played out in front of no-one is because it wasn't in the professional game - it was played in a field that is now probably owned by one of the Abramoviches, Maktoums, Aga Khans or Trumps of this world to be developed into a country club with golf course, tennis facilities and trainers called Andre who spend their days fucking housewives whose skin has been pulled back so far, it has been tied in a scrunchie and is holding a pony tail together. The closest we have in the UK is Graham Wylie entertaining town councillors' wives with cream cakes and whippet races, trained by a bloke called Aidan who looks like he needs a good mothering. My lovely.

Anyway, a walkthrough of the goal. You know the Wembley goal listed earlier? Turning the offside trap, weight-perfect through ball lifted over the keeper, instant orgasm? Set up by Attila the Hun, scored by the Anti-Hodgson? Well, it was similar...

What happened was the ball broke out of defence to a centre back with thighs that could hold up the Humber Bridge and if on a woman, could be considered a gimmick weapon in a Bond movie - slips in to stimulate the old clematis, Jana (yes, I named her) closes thighs, next shot is of mangled head but with a look of ecstasy on his deceased features. Forty-five yards out, he puts through a left-footed lob of such delicacy that the next player to touch the ball would put on three pounds in weight (I swear, it was so sweet, why it went straight to my ass). The centre forwad, at the right hand corner of the box, turns when played, watches the ball pitch behind his left shoulder, come over the same and he lines himself up to meet it right on the line of the edge of the box. The keeper is now six yards off his line and he has a choice - take the one-on-one or twat it as it is about to bounce a second time.

The striker, an argumentative cunt who relishes the outlandish and the unexpected, takes it at about knee height and in sheer fucking temerity, tries a first time lob with the inside of his foot. It sails over the keeper, drops on the line and bounces into the roof of the net. Eight seconds later, the striker has to change his shorts, he has macaronied the pair he is in because the lob was an impossibility, taken all but blind over the shoulder and with the inside of the foot? It's an affront to nature, an attempt at throwing a dart at the moon from a high bridge and hitting the little man in it who is made out of green cheese or however it is.

I was that striker. And to this day, whenever I can't get wood and I need the old man to attention, sharpish, whether I am about to engage in single, double or naked Twister congress, or I am just defending myself in a prison rape scenario (stay away or one of you gets THIS!!!), I go through, in order
(i) Kelly Brook
(ii) Laverne
(iii) Shirley
(iv) Laverne and Shirley threeway
(v) Winslet
(failure to rise at this point is at a less than 5% level - I had to have a break at this point, Winslet'll do that to you)
(vi) Sophie Howard
(vii) Trevor Howard
(viii) Frankie Howerd (oooOOOH)
(ix) Howard the Duck
(less than 1% at this point)
(x) I will apologise for ten, a mix-up with Stephen Milliganesque consequences. Ever seen Kira Reid? Well, someone put me on to her and I was looking at it wrong and reading about British former cycling legend Beryl Burton at the same time... yes, I ended up on Beryl Reid. Not content with that, however, somehow I dozed off and had a very erotic dream about Beryl on the camera filming me and Rita Webb going for it like dogs on polished lino. She even straps one on at one point. Thing is, you can't shift that sort of image but just about every time I thought of it, a diamond cutter popped up. TELL NO-ONE. Like Milligan, though, how do you explain it? "Well, I had too big a bit of an orange in my mouth and I fell into a bin bag... and I found I had a raging horn".

Anyway, this goal is at position eleven, Spinal Tap style, when even that fails. Because every time I think of it, it gives me the raging horn. Even now, after getting on for thirty years. Now I'm off for a cold beer to put on my severely inflamed parts.



THIS GOAL IS IN HONOUR OF RITA WEBB, BRITISH ACTRESS, EXPERT IN CHARACTERISATION AND THOUGH WE NEVER MET, THE BEST SEX I EVER HAD WITH ANOTHER PERSON.

This should be forum gold status

THE ROTHERHAM SUICIDE PACT

The year is 1973. The Division is the Third (that's the one after the first two for anyone who only discovered football After Sky). Rotherham United aren't having a stellar season, and a lot of it was put down to an incident in the 1972 close season.

Rotherham as a team went on a day trip and tour bonding session to the Terry's factory in York. In the gift shop after the tour, the entire squad of 19 bought a bag of misshapes at 6p a bag. What can I say, the lads were feeling flush. The bloke behind the till, however, took the squad to task as he was given £1.12 instead of £1.14. Was it a hangover and simple mistake from the decimalisation in February of the year before? Or were the lads trying it on because that two pence would work to buy some Nuttall's Chewing Nuts outside from Annie's Sweet Wagon? We can't be sure but what we can be sure of is this; the bloke on the till was the seventh son of a seventh son and he cursed the club of Rotherham United.

The trouble with a curse is it is only at its most influential if it is made in your area of expertise. Ron (for that was his name) worked for Terry's. He could curse the Rotherham lads to never enjoy a box of All Gold again but that would be counterproductive. He thought about raising a curse where their Chocolate Oranges didn't break into twenty different segments when you tapped and unwrapped them but that would be at best a festive side issue, at worst totally fucking pointless. "Pointless", he thought. What expertise do I have and reflects this situation? thought Ron. "Maths" he responded to himself because the Millers had gone, they were on the A1 (M) midway through their hour's drive home. "May they be fucked by arithmetic, numbers and all kinds of shit" thought Ron. Yes, he could juggle numbers like no-one's business but his English wasn't as expressive.

Rotherham found out about this curse through a short note the club received the week after sent from a York postmark and written on the back of a bag that once held Sherbet lemons. They failed to take it seriously - the current League title holders were Derby County, a side that had worn a gypsy curse for decades on their Baseball Ground home. They won the league in Majorca while eating ice cream. That's a curse you can live with.

Well, I'm not going to go throught the entire season, but I will go to the last three games. In a 46 game season, Rotherham had won 17 games, were on 41 points and could still reach the season midpoint (at two points for a win) of 46 still. Of course, they were still in with an outside chance of relegation too - points had been evenly spread this season but no side had ever been relegated with 41 points from any division, let alone more. They had three games left. OK, Blackburn and Oldham were still technically in with an outside chance of promotion but they were home for one of them and were home last game of the season. Nothing to concern themselves about.

First game they went to Blackburn on Good Friday. 7 of the squad bought a carton of Um Bongo and a Toffee Crisp before the game and were overcharged by a penny each. They had to push the coach for a half mile to a Mobil garage as the driver had miscalculated the fuel required to get to Ewood. Finally, when the right back got home, he would find his wife in tears as the gas had been cut off for non-payment. It seems a trainee meter reader from Doncaster had put up the wrong numbers and the bill hadn't been met in full. It would be rectified but not until the June of the same year and that's a lot of time to eat sandwiches and not shower. The Millers lost 2-1. No-one thought much of it, Blackburn were at home and playing for promotion after all... Rotherham were 17th, four places and four points clear of the drop with two to play. In a gift shop in York, incense burned...

Three days later, they played the first of two games that would close the season. Two days earlier, scores made them drop a place to 18th but no-one goes down with 41, there's nothing to worry about. Easter Monday caused its own problems. The squad went without newspapers because the bill hadn't been settled for a month, the club canteen put a half penny on the price of a bacon sandwich and two players were scalded in the showers because they'd set it on 7 instead of 5 and the water had caused nasty blistering on their shoulders. Finally, the Double Diamond in the club bar had gone flat. Someone had set the keg pressure incorrectly. The number incidents were mounting up and yet no-one was concerned.

Rotherham lost to Oldham 2-3. The players were despondent, not because of the score - no-one goes down with 41 - but because payroll had informed them that their continuity of contract had not been forwarded to the Inland Revenue and as such for the first two months of the fiscal year, they would be emergency coded until May when they'd be effectively readjusted to correct salary and tax. A huge interim blow in the high taxation years of the early 70s. 4th bottom Brentford lost as well so the pressure is off, they can't go past us.

Nevertheless slightly worried at this point, Rotherham employed the services of a secondary school maths teacher to check they were OK. Unfortunately, maths in Rotherham is not a strong suit and a harassed teacher looking for improved results at "O" and "A" level for his charges does not have his eye on any other ball. He professed their predicament "fine" and said to enjoy the last game of the season.

They were at home. And Ron was coming... Yes, they were to play York. York were on 39 points and could match their 41. No biggie, no-one goes down with 41. Scunny, down, Swansea, down, Brentford can't pass us and Halifax...

Oh fucking holy Christ, Halifax. The club hadn't seen this, the teacher wasn't looking for moonshot and no-one could have foreseen it.

With three to play, Rotherham were 14th, seven places clear of the drop. They'd concentrated on third and fourth bottom and assumed second bottom as down. Halifax had a worse goal average and were 8 points away but had four to play. They could mathematically [the sound of a man at a till in York cackling floated across the room] catch them. Hang on, though, they'd won 9 games all season. Millers have won 17. Stop worrying...

Except... Millers lost at Blackburn, next day Halifax won 3-0 v Charlton - faint hope maintained. Millers lose against Oldham, next day Halifax beat Southend 2-1, faint hope maintained. The numbers (sent on the sleeve of a box of Twilight with again a York postmark) were clear - York could win at Millmoor and if Halifax won their last two, Rotherham would end up on the same points as them both and "one of us would go down muhahahaha".

The Millers weren't worried. Despite the scenario given meaning that someone with 41 could go down, they'd comfortably outscored the other two and their goal average had knocked Halifax into a cocked hat all season. [The cackling was interrupted for a second or two by what sounded like a man ringing up a quarter of peppermint creams and choking on a hazelnut]

York won at Rotherham and with fixtures completed, stayed up. Rotherham were now in the spot above relegation. They were two points in front of Halifax who won again but scored two without response and now had an equal goal average to that of Rotherham. The Millers found an unexplained Chocolate Orange on each of their dressing room seats after the game and a bespoke chocolate horse head on the physio's couch.

The season boiled down to whether Halifax, after winning 9 from 42, could win 4 out of 4 to end the season. They would have to do so at Walsall. Terry's, Rowntree Mackintosh and Midlands behemoth Cadbury (incorporating the Fry Battalion) got together - you don't rob the chocolatiers of their pennies - and stuffed the Halifax dressing room with no end of cocoa-based treats. Buoyed on the caffeine and sugar buzz of unlimited chocolate, on May 1 1973, Halifax Town performed one of the greatest escapes ever by winning their fourth game on the spin, scoring 8, conceding 1 and bouncing their goal average up sufficiently to send down a side whose only route to relegation two weeks earlier was solely mathematical. At a meeting of Rotherham Council, the town's finest mathematical minds blamed each other for being fucking stupid and not reading the table right. Then the lights went out - they had calculated the wrong number of shillings for the meter. Rotherham Council passed every motion that night by candlelight.

In a room in York, a man tapped it, unwrapped it and picked any of the twenty segments that would represent the sides who weren't relegated from Division 3 that season. He called none of them Rotherham and laughed...

Rotherham United now order two gross of Chocolate Oranges for Christmas every October and have done since October 1974. They settle on order and ensure they overpay and Terry's refund the excess. The tradition has been maintained under Kraft.

And the year after, they got to meet Robin Friday...

Take the Robin Friday quiz!!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/quiz/2010/oct/01/robin-friday-football-quiz

Nine, Tone. Two thirds of the way through the book as well. Only started it the weekend

Great book isn't it?
He was born 2 years after me....I remember him well and loved him.
I also got 9 right.

Have I still got a few of these I haven't put back yet? I can't find my CONCACAF ones on here?

NotBert wrote:Have I still got a few of these I haven't put back yet? I can't find my CONCACAF ones on here?