When a dog or cat somehow get on the pitch and the hilarity of watching players trying to catch it. A rare event these days but gold when it happens.
I love it when that happens. The best one I saw was at a non-league game at Hadleigh, Suffolk. A blind man who I had been talking to - a blind groundhopper, no less - had let his guide dog off its leash. The dog took this as a signal to celebrate a night off with a game of football. After five minutes of hilarity which saw both teams chasing this dog with little success, one of the players finally managed to wrestle it to the ground. The handful of us watching gave the biggest cheer of the game. It was then collected by the referee who returned it to its owner.
The referee, an officious little nurk, barked at the blind man, "Get that dog on a lead". "No"! He immediately snapped back. Imagining that noise and repetition would be his best allies in this contretemps, the ref repeated the command a little louder, "Get that dog on a lead". The blind man, feeling that a single syllable was ample to demonstrate his resistance simply repeated "No"! And so it continued for what seemed like several minutes, the officious referee and the monosyllabic blind man repeating their mantras over and over again. Eventually, the penny that had dropped in everyone elses' minds some time ago, finally dropped in the referees mind: This was an argument that he wasn't going to win and there was nothing he could do about it. "Alright" he said, "just make sure it doesn't go on the pitch again" and he trotted off to take the drop-ball.
As the game restarted the blind man turned to me and muttered, "I've only got his harness with me. I can't put him on that or he'll think he's got to lead me somewhere". "Oh" I said, as thought to myself 'why didn't you just tell him that'? 'Fuck this', thought the dog, 'I'm off for another game of football'!
When I was playing football it was seeing an opposition player wearing brand new Yellow or Orange Nike boots and waiting to see whether they were quality of proper shit. Never any in between.
Long distance, slow-mo, own goal (like Nabby Sarr’s at Wembley – although for me I felt physically sick
at the time for Sunderland fans it must have been great)
Keepers
completely misjudging where their own goal is and let a shot in they thought
was easily going wide
Ref booking the
wrong player
Overzealous
linesman throwing his flag away by signaling a throw in with too much force
When as a boy I used to go with my Dad, he would always produce a pork pie at half time, which I dreaded at the time, but being a silly old sod these days I look back at this with very fond memories.
The fresh green carpet of turf, glowing in August sunshine on the first home game of the season.
The orange ball on a snow covered pitch (sadly almost extinct).
A rattling crossbar.
A midfielder starting a move deep inside his own half, before eventually arriving late in the oppositions penalty box, to rise high with a running jump, above their centre back and thump a header into the corner of then net.
When an opposIng manager or player ‘loses it’ and ends up getting themselves sent off. Extra marks if they lose it further on the way to the tunnel. (Gold standard - Paulo Wanchope)
In my distant memory I seem to remember Steve Gritt going in goal and making a few good saves
Here is a question. I am not sure if it is true but it is possible and I think it might be. Not possible today, but going back to the times when a team was numbered 1 to 11. Is it true that Gritt wore every number for us?
A bit of added nostalgia. It was fun when the bloke put the half time scores up at half time. You needed the programme to identify the match but I used to enjoy predicting the away team score after seeing the home one.
Half time scores and your local rivals are losing.
Especially when they were put up using number boards in front of the stand!
Sometimes they did get them wrong. Or, more likely, I used to get my letters and the matches mixed up. Most disappointing when you thought that one of the teams that you didn't like 'cos your school mates supported them were losing 2-0 at half time but then found out later from Sports Report on the radio or, if you didn't have one, the "Stop Press" in the Evening News, that they had actually won!
The youngsters on here don't know what they missed!
Comments
A tackle where both players go in hard and both get the ball at the same time.
The ‘go on’...then a very brief silence...then ‘yeaaahhhhhh’ from the crowd for a goal.
Having a whole team wearing 1-11 - none of this 66 and 43 crap.
The referee, an officious little nurk, barked at the blind man, "Get that dog on a lead". "No"! He immediately snapped back. Imagining that noise and repetition would be his best allies in this contretemps, the ref repeated the command a little louder, "Get that dog on a lead". The blind man, feeling that a single syllable was ample to demonstrate his resistance simply repeated "No"! And so it continued for what seemed like several minutes, the officious referee and the monosyllabic blind man repeating their mantras over and over again. Eventually, the penny that had dropped in everyone elses' minds some time ago, finally dropped in the referees mind: This was an argument that he wasn't going to win and there was nothing he could do about it. "Alright" he said, "just make sure it doesn't go on the pitch again" and he trotted off to take the drop-ball.
As the game restarted the blind man turned to me and muttered, "I've only got his harness with me. I can't put him on that or he'll think he's got to lead me somewhere". "Oh" I said, as thought to myself 'why didn't you just tell him that'? 'Fuck this', thought the dog, 'I'm off for another game of football'!
Probably due to someone with a large bet on by all accounts, but it's still funny.
Funny for 21 people on the pitch.
Long distance, slow-mo, own goal (like Nabby Sarr’s at Wembley – although for me I felt physically sick at the time for Sunderland fans it must have been great)
Keepers completely misjudging where their own goal is and let a shot in they thought was easily going wide
Ref booking the wrong player
Overzealous linesman throwing his flag away by signaling a throw in with too much force
YOU'RE SH!T
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah
Keeper scuffs it or sends it straight out into the stand
Massive cheers, 1-0 to the fans. Bring on the next goal kick
Love it.
Doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo doo doo, doo diddly doo doo-dooooo...."
That's because they had to wait for the carrier pigeons to get the scores to the ground.
A bit of added nostalgia. It was fun when the bloke put the half time scores up at half time. You needed the programme to identify the match but I used to enjoy predicting the away team score after seeing the home one.
Sometimes they did get them wrong. Or, more likely, I used to get my letters and the matches mixed up. Most disappointing when you thought that one of the teams that you didn't like 'cos your school mates supported them were losing 2-0 at half time but then found out later from Sports Report on the radio or, if you didn't have one, the "Stop Press" in the Evening News, that they had actually won!
The youngsters on here don't know what they missed!