FOOTBALL'S INTELLECTUAL orthodoxy says: “All goalkeepers are mad.” Speaking on behalf of my fellow custodians my answer is: “Yes, and when you see some of the daft ways you lot outfield try to beat us, you know what drives us daft.”
We all know the basic reason d'etre of the game is to win, by scoring more goals than the opposition. Given that fact, why should there not be an honoured place for those of us who wish to prevent ther scoring of goals? It's a classic case of balance, of Ying and Yang.
But no, we goalkeepers have, since the dawn of organised football, been seen as lesser beings. I will tell you how low we are on the game's totem pole. International football was started in 1872, with the first official Scotland v England match, at Hamilton Crescent. The men who basically organised the game were England's Charles W Allcock and Scotland's Robert Gardner.
Gardner was the goalkeeper in the first Scotland side – our very-first full internationalist, but, and this is a continuing disgrace, he has never been inducted into the Scottish Football Hall of Fame, far-less the full Scottish Sport Hall of Fame.
OK, no goalkeeper who lets in nine goals can ever be said to have had a great game, but, while Frank Haffey had to emigrate – via Swindon – to Australia, in an effort to escape the fall-out from Wembley 1961, a forensic examination of the match concluded: he might have done better for three of the goals, but, he was far from the worst Scotland player that afternoon. Yet “nine past Haffey” has become shorthand for that disaster – that's the sort of negativity which surrounds the men who wear gloves and a different coloured top.
So, given all the abuse we have to put up with, this week, we life-time members of Goalkeeping Lodge Number One are walking a bit taller, courtesy of a magnificent performance in Paris on Wednesday night, from Liverpool's Alison Becker, or as he is more commonly known – Alison.
Liverpool beating Paris St Germain 1-0 was perhaps the greatest smash and grab act in the history of the game. The French side pounded the Liverpool goal for most of the 90 minutes, they attempted nearly 30 shots at goal, ten of which were on-target; all bar one were saved by Alison – and that one he didn't get to was shown to be offside, by VAR.
Then, in what was almost their only attack, Liverpool scored, to take a precious one-goal lead into the second leg at Anfield next week.
In the AS (that's After Shankly) years, Liverpool have employed a number of great international goalkeepers – Scotland's Tommy Younger, Bert Slater and Tommy Lawrence; England's Ray Clemence, Zimbabwe's Bruce Groebbler, Spain's Pepe Reina and Poland's Jerzy Dudek to name but a few. I don't think any of that illustrious number ever gave as important or as outstanding a display of goalkeeping as did Alison in Paris.
Of course, football being football, and in particular goalkeeping being a precarious occupation, there is every likelihood that Alison will drop a major clanger in the second leg. It's that sort of uncertainty which keeps us goalkeepers humble, but, right now, Alison has made us all feel better about ourselves.
THE SPORTING WORLD'S longest-running game of Whitabootery got a bit of a boost on Thursday night when that top boy band Hun Direction stormed Istanbul, to the intense chagrin of “The Chosen One”. I gather, when he arrives in Scotland next week, Wee Jose will be passing on his usual tipples of fine wine or sparkling water, in favour of Tennent's Lager, or perchance the odd bottle of Buckie, to see if his men can turn the tide on a tie which is in danger of slipping away from him.
Of course, the fact the second leg is at Ibrox, a stage on which HD has shown themselves uncomfortable of late, just might prevent over-confidence on the part of the boy band's devoted following. However, until then, they can indulge in their favourite game, of yelling “Gerritrightupye” at the equally devoted followers of the rival band The Celtic Family.
The knowledge that Wee Baz, HD's lead singer, has now won more knock-out European games than a whole choir of CF legends will keep the HD fans happy through what we might, from recent experience, be further dark nights to come in this roller-coaster season.
There may only have been a couple of native Scots in the HD starting line-up in Istanbul on Thursday night, but, you've got to admit, they have picked-up on the Scottish trait for pulling off the big result when least expected to.
I know the odds are very-much against it, and there are several very-good sides, well capable of beating both teams who will have a say, but, for me (far-fetched though it might appear) this year's version of The Europa League could yet come down to a final between Manchester United and Rangers, two sides whose current squads get far-more stick than praise from even their own fans – if this happens, then we will know for sure, Jimmy Greaves was correct – Football is indeed a funny old game.
ENJOYABLE, indeed satisfying though the two midweek European games I have featured were, perhaps the biggest TV news of the week came today, Friday, with the news that the BBC has done a deal to show Scotland's internationals free to air.
About time too. The situation whereby we up here could get wall-to-wall England match coverage for free, but had to pay through the nose, and jump through hoops to see Scotland games, well, if they had been remotely interested in Independence, that would have been a free gift to the SNP.
Let's just hope, now the games are back on “Cooncil Telly” - Scotland are worth watching; but, that's half the fun with Scotland. There is a reason why “We're shite, but we know we are” has taken over from slandering of the late James Hill OBE in the Tartan Army's Greatest Hits song book.
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