The greatest goal ever scored (very funny)

15

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.

I make that sixteen stories so far.

Four more and Jimmy Hill ve ve ve will want to rank them, 1-2-3, for a prize of £100 of premium bonds

They are all masterpieces that will be discovered and published long after you are dead man.

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

So they're gone

I think I should put these back...

Best goal ever is between two, in the 1984/5 season, both by Paul Walsh for Liverpool and both against Manchester United.

Great in terms of execution? No.
Great in terms of importance? Better, but no.
Great in terms of sheer farce? Could be...

The first was in a league game at Old Trafford. I believe the goal was to be the equaliser and bear in mind that this was the Liverpool side in which Ian Rush had gained the nickname "Dixie" because of his habit of scoring against Everton and his girlfriend's habit of asking him to join her "deep south" with his nose and the spluttering tongue that would drown no end of autograph seekers post-game. He would make her wetter than a mermaid's brassiere and the bonus would be that she couldn't see his face.

Picture the scene - a goalmouth scramble, Graeme Hogg is on the line and the ball falls to him to "skilfully pass out of defence" to some cunt on Warwick Road waiting for the 4.17 to Altrincham. This he tries to do. However, Walsh in trying to close him down, stumbles, rolls, tumbles and essentially falls into Hogg's intended flight path (NASA would contend "orbit"). The ball strikes the side of Walsh's head, rebounds the 18 inches backwards across the line to equalise, bursts the rear of the net thus obeying the laws of ballistics and leaves a four feet deep divot in the ground from which the groundskeeper retrieves the ball with a spade, a terrier and a small piece of Wensleydale, we know not why.

1-1. Walsh scores and reads all about it in the Anfield programme three weeks later when he comes around. He has had fourteen transfused pints of blood in the interim, is now partially deaf and has no idea what to do with 47 bunches of grapes brought him by Jim Beglin who has been visiting at least twice a day.

The second one is in the semifinal of the FA Cup at Goodison Park. In the other semi, Everton are roundly beating Luton for being cunts with a fake pitch and an away fans ban, even though this hasn't happened yet. However, Manchester United lead two-one after 121 minutes - the clock has gone off, Fat Ron's blood pressure if you add systolic and diastiolic together comes to 370 and he has the pulse rate of a humming bird on a bad reaction to ecstasy and Ronnie Whelan has the ball. Mindful of how the Irish fucker has a habit of curling one from three quarters of a mile out against his club (something he had done to forge the Overtime, as Malcolm Glazer would say, 34 minutes previously, and had done at Wembley the year before in front of Neil fucking Kinnock, no doubt), Ron was torn between bawling, pointing, closing his eyes, racial abuse and calling a cab. Whelan twats it to the far post, Rush is on the end of it, Uri Geller ensures the curse that would not be lifted for another eight years stands firm and pushes it on to the bar while Rush shouts "fuck" and the ensuing spit blinds all 17 members of the United squad whose surname is Gibson. The ball drops on the line near the far post, bounces, and there is Walsh. Too low to head, too high for his tiny frame to get a foot over, he raises his arms and bundles it over the line with whatever he can that isn't his hand. Brian Moore selects the word "midriff". Motty goes for "aha, bellend". No-one picks the ball out of the net because after the Old Trafford fiasco earlier in the season, the ball now has Paul Walsh's cockprint on it. 2-2.

No fairy tale ending, however. They lose one nil in the replay. Paul Walsh's cock can only get you so far.

The Lineker hat trick, Monterey 1986

England have shit it. Kenny Sansom fucks about on the touchline gives the ball to a bloke who whips it over to a bloke who looks somewhere between a bloke who sells newspapers in a Tom Cruise vehicle and an inner-city school geography teacher on extended sick leave for stress because he keeps getting called a "baldy gay tached twat". Cunt of a headmaster who'd do that to his own staff but then he is running a school in a district whose local councillor party is "Liberal Rioters". They look about as likely to score as The Hunchback of Notre Dame coming out of a clap clinic carrying a brown paper bag.

They then play a team who at kick off shout "I give you draw, sixty dirham" who are playing with only nine men as two have consumed eight grammes of marijuana in the half hour preceding kick off. They aren't stoned but have bad munchies and are man marking the bloke behind the goal selling macadamia nuts. After a short period, England's captain leaves the fray having fallen over and dislocated his shoulder despite the bra he had made to keep it in place. His injury was original caused when he ran into a generator so his vision sklls may not have been a help anyway. The next bloke takes the captain's band, kicks the ball away, gets booked, picks it up and showing his legendary distribution, throws it towards the referee and despite a million square feet of turf to throw the ball safely into, he hits the two feet of the ref. Here, crab features, have a red to go with it. Bobby Robson says "sixty dirham, you say?" The two munchies blokes peel away from the nut seller to start laughing at him. They eventually stop in 1993. Game ends up nil-nil and England look as likely to score as Quasimodo in a Scream mask.

The third game, Bobby Robson, having gone completely grey overnight, decides the introduction of Quasimodo into the side might help. He doesn't know where he gets the inspiration from. Beardsley plays, breaks his jaw, only he doesn't, he's just that ugly, and England win three nil.

The goals are all scored by Gary Winston Lineker. Here is their sublimity in full.

Cross, met it, four yards.
Cross, met it, three yards.
Picked ball up from centre circle, forced myself around two challenges, jinked wide of the keeper, twatted it home. Sorry, that was Michael owen against Argentina in 1998.
OK, OK. Corner, 'keeper, unchallenged, dropped it, twatted it into the roof of the net with exacting precision. Two yards.

Think that it was easy? A hat trick with a total distance that Bob Beamon could jump further than? Yes, well just remember, I did it all with a gay Michael Jackson bandage on one hand. AND I won the Golden Boot that year. Total distance, fourteen yards and missing against Argentina from six inches. I least none went in off my cock. Or did one against Paraguay...?

ROGER OSBORNE

Ipswich were the underdogs in the 1978 FA Cup Final. Arsenal were brimming with international talent which included English and Scottish internationals as well as their legendary Irish contingent that was the second greatest concentration of Emerald Islanders in England in one place after the holding cells of Birmingham Police Station. They could score goals through Malcolm MacDonald, Frank Stapleton, Alan Sunderland and if it wasn't going right, they could always threaten you with Graham Rix who was on the bench and looking at your daughter. Ipswich meanwhile were managed by Bobby Robson, whose grey hair was still waiting for him eight years away in Mexico. They also had their Irishman in Allan Hunter but rather than have the silky skills of Chippy Brady, he actually looked like a gas fitter who worked for the nationalised firm but decided to go it alone in the private sector - "it's been hard, but I'm managing". Elsewhere in the side, however, they had a mixture of home grown talent in Clive Woods, a man who was seven inches shorter after a haircut, Brian Talbot, who worked the pubs and clubs of Ipswich as an Emlyn Hughes lookalike, squeaky voice and lurex suit and all and skipper Mick Mills, who was from Surrey but claimed honorary citizenship of Suffolk through his historic inbreeding. Don't believe me?



The camera never lies.

The daddy of the home grown collection, however, was Roger Osborne. He only trained with Ipswich two days a week as for the rest of the week he would get lost trying to find his way home. He was born in a village in Suffolk that doesn't exist according to Ordnance Survey and was in the side mainly because his dad owned a truck he could get the entire side in for away games providing they didn't mind the potato dust. Put in midfield, his job was defined as "pinball bumper" - they'd hit the ball at him and hope the deflections carried out to the wings where Woods or David Geddis (northern pretty boy) would try and plunder.

On paper, Arsenal were vastly superior. On the park it was a different story. John Wark, the only bulldog ever to play professional football, hit the post twice as the net was too scared to accept a ball from his slavering chops. Geddis also hit the post while Sammy Nelson was distracted by his beauty and showing him his arse. Actually, it might have been Talbot but you can't mention Sammy "Show Us Your Arse" Nelson without referring to him showing you his arse.

It's a seventies thing.

Anyway, domination wasn't translating into goals until the last quarter of an hour. A parried shot comes loose in the box and falls to Roger Osborne, who twats it home. The world is stunned, not least the press who don't know whether to add a "U" to his surname "just to be on the safe side". But most stunned of all is Osborne. In the middle of the Wembley turf, he scores, realises he's scored, checks the scoreboard to see he's scored, feels a bit warm, checks the scoreboard again, sees the clock showing 4.30pm and realises that he has to be back in Ipswich in an hour and a half to milk the cows. He collapses, Robson brings on Mick Lambert which means he has three wingers playing out the tie on two wings but almost no-one gives a shit, least of all Ray Wood who is still looking for his wallet. The exception is Roger. "The cows, the cows" he moans. Robson sedates him with a pint of Tolly Cobbold and the news that he left Laurie Sivell to look after his livestock - "he wasn't happy but he can't save penalties like Paul Cooper..." Osborne, head in Robson's lap, announces he feels good and promptly sleeps for seventeen hours. He rarely turns out for Ipswich again afterwards as he opens a paintballing franchise on some spare land he has behind the dairy and it takes up the rest of his waking hours. In typical Suffolk fashion, this is agreed by mutual consent and a lot of mooing.

John Barnes. Maracana



Second by second:
0:01 - "Fuck me, is that Mark Hateley?"
0:03 - "Fuck me, is that Mark Hateley and he's made space for himself?"
0:06 - "Fuck me, is that Mark Hateley and he's made space for himself, brought the ball down and is going to play it off the floor?"
0:07 - "FM, ITMHMSFHBTBDAIGTPIOTF to a body?"
0:08 - "Shit, to Barnes"
0:09 - "Ha, bellend, standing off him"
0:13 - "Ha, bellend, standing off him" x2
0:14 - "Ha, bellend, neither of you tackle him, you're just going to watch too"
0:15 - "Now the keeper's ignored the white thing, he'll just keep going"
0:15 (x2) - "And why the left back tried to put the fucking thing in the back of the net I will never know"
0:22 - "How gay is that kit. Fucking 80s. Nice mullet"
0:36 to end - "Fuck me, it really happened. Hair by Clive Woods"

Additional note: Kids, remember - in the real world Mark Hateley and John Barnes can't walk through Brazil's defence in the same way the Tufty Club can't overthrow the democratically elected government of Guatemala. Drugs are for losers.

Fucking masterpieces...too good for this place!!

DAVID NUGENT v ANDORRA, 2007

Nugent made his England debut and played eleven minutes in this clash of the titans. The last Preston player to represent England was Sir Tom Finney nearly fifty years earlier. Nugent, strangely, has yet to be knighted for his efforts.

The game in the bag and with the clock on 93 minutes, Jermain Defoe pushes the ball past the keeper and towards the net, open and inviting like a fecund womb. However, as it goes to slowly roll over the line, Nugent comes in like a Chief Executive on someone else's bright idea and twats it over the line from an inch and a half. And like the Chief Executive, everyone thinks him a cunt and no-one thinks he's funny. Defoe sets fire to his coat after the game but it just reminds Nugent of his Huyton upbringing. England reward him by never capping him again and taking Defoe to the World Cup. At Lancaster Gate, a plaque is there to all England scorers. Nugent's reads as follows

Played 1, Goals scored 1. Against an Andorran team that had within it three postmen (how fucking big is Andorra? It doesn't need three postmen) and a bloke who was that old he can remember Franco taking power in Spain in the thirties. Big fucking wow. We're never going to cap you again, you know that, don't you? That way the world can remember you as the bloke whose only goal was after 93 minutes against a team who had to take a half day off work to play and which was an inch out and going in anyway, you greedy twat. You'd never have got away with that at one time. Stan Mortensen would have had your bollocks, you shitbag.

Signed: Sir Tom Finney 2008

SCOTLAND '78 - THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE DOWNRIGHT FUCKING UGLY

Ally McLeod had big plans for Mexico '86 - he intended to qualify as retaining holders. Such hubris, such confidence and consequently, such a short term as full time manager of Scotland.

Start the journey a month or two earlier - Wembley, the European Cup final and Bruges spring the offside trap. Except they forget two things - one is that Kenneth Mathieson Dalglish has, in twelve months, elevated himself from King of Scotland to Emperor of Europe incorporating King of England on the way. A big money transfer from Celtic to Liverpool is such a success that he scores on his debut for Liverpool at Middlesbrough while still on the coach approaching the ground. While sat in the window seat. Asleep. The second is that when you spring the trap, make sure that the passer is a bit shit so he can fall into it along with the runner.

Yeah, the passer was Graeme Souness. Souness was a bizarre character, slow as a boat but with a fantastic football brain and a cultured touch which he used in equal parts to marshal games and also wreak maximum damage on an opponent by intensely accurate kicking, the odd shoulder barge and on one memorable occasion, a right cross that broke the jaw of Chewbacca who was playing up front for Bucharest Secret Police. Ever controversial, he once got Jimmy Case booked for "putting the front of his shirt into my hand so that I could hold something while I punched him". He was at Boro at the time (when Jack Charlton had built that team who all had facial hair and looked like they were serial killers or childbeating Victorian poorhouse owners) but you got the impression he'd do it if you were on the same side, brothers and he owed you a lot of money.

The goal that ensued from this failed offside trap involved Dalglish turning the line as Souness played a weight-perfect through ball for God to run on to. He did, Jensen came out and basically lay down in the middle of Brent with no-one near him as Kelly's dad lifted the ball over him and into the net. Go find it on Youtube if you've forgotten, it's perfection, like watching over again the first time you ever had sex and didn't come in nine seconds. Although in watching it, you'll probably come in nine seconds. I did. Twice.

There's your background - two players at the peak of their powers, standing astride Europe (Dalglish even jumped over an advertising hoarding on scoring and then ran to my Dad. Well, at least where he was standing. I don't think he scored and went "where's Bert's Dad?" although he is God, he knows). And they are both Scottish. The mighty Dutch would be without Johann Cruyff, who had declared himself unavailable for the World Cup on the grounds that his family had been subject to a kidnap attempt the year before and as they were going to Argentina, it was bad enough watching people disappear through state abduction without allowing private enterprise a go. They'd be queuing up outside the house FFS (they say the order was "autograph, autograph, kidnapper, autograph, secret police, military police, Dutch tv reporter after a quick word, autograph, Ernst Happel"). Did they have a squeak? Well, for every world class ballkicking genius you have the equivalent Partick Thistle goalkeeper. And so goal one:

TEDDY CUBILLAS
Yes, his name is Teofilio, but he became such a household name in the second half of the first game that the British press called him Ted and had him on Parkinson with Anita Harris and Billy Cunting Connolly AGAIN. Just for good measure, he nutmegged Connolly as well - it never leaves you...

At half time, mind, he was "number 10". Half an hour later, he'd beaten Alan Rough twice (this wasn't a rarity for Rough - he played for Partick, as we have shown) with a twenty-five yarder that Rough admired so much he was still reviewing its flight six minutes later when Cubillas had a free kick at the edge of the box. He twatted it round the wall and at that point Alan Rough had an epiphany and decided to retire and open a pub called the Palm Inn. All because of Ted. Inspirational. At this point you may laugh at Willie Johnston. I'll tell you why later. As an aside, the Peruvian town of Cubillas is twinned with the Scottish village of Masson for its efforts in fucking up Scottish football. Do we blame Don Masson for missing a penalty? Yes, we do. Because while he was on the pitch, Souness wasn't. McLeod had given him the important job of "growing out his moustache and looking Latino" to dissuade kidnappers, secret police and thieves off the field. And then they get mugged by eleven Peruvians...

For their sublimity, those goals, as seen in the title, are the "Good".

The next goal will follow after these messages:

Take two pills into the shower? Not me. I took three of these, twice a day and fuck me, I failed a drugs test in that game. Hi, I'm Willie Johnston and you might remember me from any of my world record twenty-two career sendings off which given the era I played in, to be sent off required you kicking the ref up the arse, so I once kicked the ref up the arse. In was sent home in disgrace but given that I had to eat a full back's arm to get sent off at the time, you couldn't really disgrace me as I was already shameless.

SCOTLAND 2 (HOW MUCH WOULD THEY HAVE LIKED TO HAVE SEEN THAT IN REALITY?)

THE BAD.

Iran next. Eskandarian of Iran lashes one home from about twelve yards into an empty, open goal and where is Alan Rough? Well, he's a hundred yards away. In a rare failure to interpret the rules with any sort of view towards natural law, the Iranian defender went what is known as "ginger kilt" for a couple of seconds and nonchalantly twatted one into the Iranian target while surrounded by his colleagues. You wouldn't see a similar assault on Iranian interests for another two years when the SAS knocked at the front door and got no answer at the Embassy in London. There was a drainpipe, they had grenades and the budget to use them. They even took John Wayne off the telly so we could watch live. He didn't mind though - he was dead. It was like the Scotland campaign all over again. A bloke walking away slowly in a dark top and an explosion going off somewhere nearby but he was nowhere near it. All it needed was the window frame to be slightly palmed by Alan Rough

Remember the name Dani Fahr? Danaifar? Danayfar? Same bloke all three, but he's that big on the world stage (See ROGER OSBO(U)RNE) that they can't agree on a spelling. Yeah, he's the Iranian powerhouse (or baby milk factory if an UN weapons inspector is passing by) who turned this game on its head. The Iranians come forward, a tactic later adopted when trying to take the Shatt Al Arab from Iraq. The ball ends up on the left with the bloke who sounds like he's shagged Les Ferdinand. The difference between the Shatt Al-Arab and this, though, is that Iraq didn't try and shepherd Iran into the corner but fail. Amanda De Cadenet, no, Terry Christian, no, Danikaye gets all but to the byline and shoots. Rough, at the peak of his powers and mindful of palming Cubillas's second into the net last out, palms this fucking one in as well. You can't blame him, he's in Argentina and he's expecting the drayman today. And he'd low on mixers too. Not sure if he's paid the crisp bill either, come to think of it. He hopes Janice will see to it because he can't phone from here, it's Argentina and he's a Scot. Anyway. The angle of shot is so impossible would make Stephen Hawking get someone to scratch his head. But then it is impossible to consider they're playing without Souness in the fucking side again. On the plus side, the bags and kit are all safe and no-one has been held at gunpoint, so at least his presence is having some effect. 1-1. Never mind, if they beat the last side in the group by three, they go through. What do you fucking mean, the Dutch? How fucking hard is this group, you've seen the quality of South America's fifth best and a first time qualifier from a continent whose national sports usually involve horseback and ritual death? And we've got to play Europe's finest and fuck them by three? Nice

SCOTLAND 3 (ACCURATE AS WELL) - THE DOWNRIGHT FUCKING UGLY

After feeling right at home in the last game (crowd of eight thousand, shit to watch) the Scots had to go like Big Johnny Holmes (90 minutes and a sackful) to get through and as we have seen from the sleight of hand of Alan Rough, there were goals of note in both games so far - Teddy's brace and the own goal are legendary. However they pale into insignificance before the goal we visit now. Downright fucking ugly? No. The scorer? Oh fuck aye.



Few could have imagine the impact that Scotland's own Ewok would have on this game.

Poor Ally had been wondering why the Argentinians had stationed a Junta copper on them permanently - "there's a bloke over there with a big moustache and hot temper by our kit". He asked a FIFA official who explained that he was in fact Graeme Souness and he would like to know whether he could put the basket down, he needed to comb his tache. McLeod read his squad, this time without his thumb over the names further down the list and realised he could in fact play this bloke. The bags would have to look after themselves for ninety minutes or until he gets sent off, whichever comes first.

So the game gets underway and the Dutch score first from the spot. Never a penalty. The Ewok is booked for protesting but that only serves to make him sharpen his arrows and prepare to take on the evil Empire. God scores. It's disallowed. The Ewok gets out his poison pouch and tips his arrows. Midfield is like a war zone but when you've fielded a silky-skilled visionary hooligan basket case and a fully-armed Ewok, you're not going down without taking a few stormtroopers with you. They now need four, though, and have less than an hour. God pulls one back just on half time. They go in for oranges. McLeod rallies his troops and tells them to do it for Scotland, he mightn't be able to watch the second half from pitchside - he had to look into something about the bags having gone missing?

Almost immediately, the Scots rush over the ridge and FREEDOM! win a penalty. The Ewok stabs it past the keeper and stabs him for good measure. Two more. Then, the only moment in history that tops the orgasm of a junkie unwittingly fucking a schoolgirl - the Ewok picks a loose ball up on the right wing. He skips one tackle and jinks right. He nutmegs one defender and being the Ewok he is, goes under rather than round as well. A fluke? Fuck off, says the Ewok and 'megs the next bloke too. For good measure, he beats God even though he's on the same side and then lifts it over the 'keeper who admittedly is feeling a little woozy what with that poison just beginning to hit his nervous system. One more. Fuck me, could they do it?

No. The Dutch kick off and Johnny Rep twats one from forty yards. Rough, needless to say, gets a fucking cunting hand to it but it goes in anyway. He must have mitts like a Henry Moore sculpture. "Careful, I have to use hand with on the new cask pump we have", thinks Alan. Aye, but you'll drop the fucking glass while you're pulling it, Partick. They now need three again in the last 20 minutes against a team who can shoot from anywhere and therefore from evidence seen, fucking score from anywhere.

Not going to happen, then, but the Ewok is pumped up, so is Souey because (i) he's awake and (ii) someone has stolen his washbag. In honour of Willie Johnston they just kick fuck out of everything that moves for the last twenty minutes. Alan Rough is therefore the only player who comes out unscathed.

The bags are found in 1994 when a cargo plane crashes in the Andes. Sixteen years on, the thieves still haven't had the nerve to open Souey's washbag as "he'll fucking find them"

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.

"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.