Great Footballing Moments No 4
Arthur Thacker
Great footballing moments are reserved for great football matches, games
involving great players and in great competitions, at the very highest level
and with the highest stakes possible at stake. Bollocks. You can keep your
World Cup Final penalty shoot-outs, where some overpaid international star
makes a cunt of himself by skying the ball into the crowd; you can have your
European Cup Final last-gasp winners scored by bum Norwegian substitutes;
and you can stuff your FA Cup Final last-minute-of-extra-time headers scored
by has-been baldy centre-backs who shouldn't even be on the field. You can
keep them all, because they're all crap.
A true great footballing moment came just a couple of years ago, involving
two sides not known for their class, fame, fortune, wealth and international
standing. In fact, it involved two sides hardly known apart from by their
own loyal fans. When Carlisle United met Scarborough on the very last day of
the season, the only thing resting on the result was which of the two clubs
would have the honour of staying in the Football League. The winners would
stay up; the losers would go down. Tough tits for one of them; unbridled
glory for the other. Probably. Actually, a draw would of been good enough
for Scarborough, the Yorkshire bastards. But a win for Carlisle would of
kept them in the Football League.
The tension was unbearable. I can't remember what score it was, but all I
remember is that, with just a couple of minutes left, Carlisle needed a goal
to save their sorry arses from slipping into the inglorious oblivion of the
Conference. Scarborough had defended manfully, with every one of their
players performing heroics and keeping the shit Cumbrian side at bay.
Carlisle, realising that they must score to secure League football for
another season at...er...wherever it is they play these days, threw
everything forward. At one point, with just a minute to go, even their
manager came onto the pitch and went up for a late corner. So did the
assistant manager, coach, trainer, ball boys and even the bloke with the
bucket and sponge. When Carlisle's money-grabbing spoiler of a chairman
Michael Knighton came on kitted out and tried to take on the Scarborough
defence single-handed, the referee ordered them all off and added on twelve
minutes for time-wasting. It was this twelve minutes that would prove to be
crucial for the future of Carlisle UNited Football Club.
Jimmy Glass was a crap goalkeeper. A graduate of the Dave Beasant
Goalkeeping Academy, he had for years tried in vain to earn a crust playing
for any old piece of shite team that would have him. In desperation, and
because their five other first-team 'keepers had all been injured in a freak
waterfalling accident, Carlisle had signed Glass on a three-month loan
period. "When the call came for me to join Carlisle," says Glass, 34, "I was
made up. I'd always been a fan of the back-country border club that everyone
thinks is in Scotland. It was a dream come true for me, so I snatched their
hands off. Naturally, I only thought I'd be playing the odd game. I never
thought I would have a starring role in one of the most astonishing football
moments ever. If someone had told me then that I'd be Number 4 in Arthur
Thacker's Great Footballing Moments, I'd have pissed myself."
But football is, as some drunken baggy-arsed Cockney pundit once said, a
funny old game. Its heroes are not always the great and fine, the skilful
and the majestically artistic; sometimes, just sometimes, a football hero
can be some washed-up cunt that no-one has ever heard of before. And so it
came to be on that memorable May Afternoon of about three years ago.
For almost half an hour Scarborough, the bastards, had played keep-ball in
an attempt to defy Carlisle. They passed the ball around as if in a practice
match, taking the ball upfield and then back down again, finally to the
goalkeeper, in a manner that would have shamed even the great LIverpool
sides of the past. Like when Alan Hansen used to do it constantly for ninety
minutes amid cheers from an appreciative Kop. But then, eleven minutes deep
into added time, Carlisle got a corner when a Scarborough defender fell on
his arse and kicked the ball behind. They had to score. They had to throw
everything forward in one last, desperate attempt on goal.
Jimmy Glass described the vital moment later, in his autobiography, 'Once
SCored A Goal And It Was A Gas'. "We knew we had to score. Our strikers were
fucked after trying to get the ball off Scarborough, the bastards, for the
best part of half an hour. The manager signalled for me to go up for the
corner. I didn't want to because I'm a goalkeeper and I can't kick a ball
properly, but I thought why not?"
When the ball was fired across the goal by some unknown Carlisle winger, the
defenders, distracted by a sudden darkening of the skies, much in the
biblical manner and like in some horror film, missed it completely. The only
man who saw the ball was Carlisle 'keeper Glass. He pounced on it and, with
the referee inhaling to blow on his whistle and end the season, pulled back
his leg to kick for goal.
"In that split-second," recalls Glass tearfully, "I glanced over at the ref.
I could see the whistle in his mouth and him sucking in his cheeks ready to
blow. Then, as I connected with the ball, I saw him blow. I could even see
the pea inside the whistle as it moved, ready to rattle about and sound for
time. But my shot was just too hard and, before the pea could make that
sound, the ball was in the back of the net. I still wank off about that
moment even now, all these years on."
Indeed. Even as the ball bolted into the back of the Scarborough, the
bastards, net, the referee's whistle did make that shrill sound to end the
game, and the season. Carlisle had scored and their status as a Football
League club was preserved for at least another twelve months. They would be
back the following May to scrape their sorry hides out of the shit again,
but for now they were safe. And it was all thanks to the right boot of an
on-loan goalkeeper by the name of Jimmy Glass. As unlikely a footballing
hero as you're ever likely to find. Like as not.
Glass, naturally, was feted as a hero by the Carlisle fans. He was chaired
from the pitch and awarded a specially-made medal for saving the club from
relegation. A journeyman goalkeeper without a club to call his own, his
future now seemed secure because of this one great moment of footballing
fluke. Sadly, it was not to be. Cash-strapped Carlisle could not offer him a
contract, not even a few measly quid a week. Having promised Glass a
permanent deal, tight-fisted bastard chairman Michael Knighton realised he
needed a new pair of cufflinks and told him to fuck off and find somewhere
else.
"It was great to score that goal," says Glass, "but it soon turned out to be
a pain in the ass. Seemed like the real thing, only to pass. Then they let
me go and I had to find another club. No-one wanted me, so I ended up going
back to bricklaying and scrounging off the dole. Oo-oo-oo-woe-o."
Among the Maradonas, the Renaldos, the Beckenbauers, Charltons, Bests,
Platinis, Bergkamps, Henrys, Owens, Butts, Holdsworths and Dowies, the name
of Jimmy Glass means fuck all. He never won the World Cup, never won the
League or the European Cup. He never played for England, never won a Cup
winners medal, was never voted Footballer Of The Year or died playing for
Cameroon in some shit friendly tournament. But by the people of Carlisle, he
will always be remembered for that one goal he scored against Scarborough,
the bastards, to save them from going out of the Football League.
--
Arthur Thacker Man Of Bollocks 2003
Roo
BlueRoo
--
Get to fuckery...
www.efc-online.net
"Arthur Thacker" <gen...@large.com> wrote in message
news:bdp8j8$p5r$1...@titan.btinternet.com...
ChuckSpears
> That was a quality moment...
>
> BlueRoo
>
downloaded the lot.