Mails: What is the worst goal ever scored?
Date published: Friday 7th October 2016 9:44
Send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com.
Worst goal ever?
My brother text me last night during the Ireland game, describing Coleman’s goal as “probably the worst goal ever scored by a professional footballer”. As nobody cares about the international break, maybe the time is right to open the discussion to the mailbox of what is the worst goal ever scored at an elite level?
Sean G, THFC, Dublin
Head injuries
Just back from the Ireland/Georgia game and wanted to raise an issue. For those who didn’t see it, Robbie Brady was knocked unconscious by a clash of heads. The video is here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gfKkJ8_zi4 my phone wont hyperlink) but an obvious warning that it wont be nice.
Robbie Brady couldn’t have been treated better. Jon Walters put him in the recover position, one of the Georgians checked he hadn’t swallowed his tongue, and the multiple medical staff sorted him out. He left the field on a stretcher with a neckbrace and oxegen mask after about 5 or 6 minutes.
Meanwhile, Soloman Kvirkvelia, the Georgian he’d clashed heads with, was also down injured, with blood pumping from his head. They wrapped a ridiculous amount of bandages around his head (no Terry Butcher style bloodied bandage for him). I can’t find a picture of him, but it looked like a helmet. It was wrapped around his forehead and down around his jaw. He ended up walking off the pitch just as Brady was stretchered off. He was waved back on a few seconds later.
And that is surely a problem? He clashed heads hard enough to split his own head wide open, and leave Brady out cold. He shouldn’t have been left back on. I just looked up FIFA’s new concussion protocol. It can be broken down to: ‘if a player bangs his head, the ref can stop the match for three minutes for the team doctor to look him over and make the decision.’ The decision should not be left to the team doctor.
Rugby took a long time to deal with concussions, but they now have a good system in place. If a player bangs his head the ref sends him for a 10 minute Head Injury Assessment, which is carried out by an independent doctor (play continues with a temporary sub). The doctor has the final say.
Kvirkvelia should not have been left back on the pitch tonight. He might not have suffered a concussion, but there is surely enough doubt to not risk it.
Jerry COYBIG
Not an egg
Why does football365 perpetuate this tabloid nonsense of Raymond Verheijen being some kind of crackpot doctor?
He is the leading figure in football periodisation/physical fitness and how to train footballers and aid their recovery.
Just because he is a d*ck, and has pissed off the whole of Holland and most of the world, doesn’t mean you should belittle his comments or his influence on the game.
Ask Russia…
Ask South Korea… (previous World cups)
Ask Craig Bellamy…
Arsenal might just have a few more titles if Wenger’s medical staff had half his knowledge…
Thank you
Trevor
Footballer
Football writer
Football coach
Etc whatever
Now that the weird fitness bloke has come out again with criticisms of Klopp and Guardiola, I was wondering if somebody would be willing to do some research on the injury/fitness records of teams that he has been involved in, before, during and after his appointment.
I think it would be an interesting read. I’d love you guys to come up with an article on this, but alternatively, you could publish this mail in the mailbox and see if you have a reader who is willing to explore his history.
Naz, Gooner.
The Yellow Army
The recent mediawatch look into the Sun’s investigation into Chinese football prompted me to look at the first home match of my own ISL (Indian Super League) club Kerala Blasters with a new light. Yes, our players are sh*t (our marquee player is a 36 year old Aaron Hughes, who ironically has been called up by Northern Ireland as our season started). We have Steve Coppel as our coach and so far in two games I have not managed to figure out ( I think the players haven’t either) what formation he wants them to play. We haven’t had a shot or target in the two games and sit bottom of the league.
But the atmosphere is simply electric. (https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=661846953991231&id=158120631030535) That is the sound of 65,000 fans. In the past two seasons, we have an average attendance of 52,000 which puts us ahead of Chelsea and Everton (of course the capacity is 60k, so the attendance average is only 87%, which is still remarkable since it is a 2 year old club).
At the end of the day, ISL may not prove to be the Panacea that we all hope it will be for Indian Football. But I for one am thrilled to see so.much passion for the game I love and hope we can make it count.
p.s India also hosts next year’s FIFA U-17 World Cup
Thanks
Vivek Surendran
Kerala Blasters and Manchester United
Pundit XI
I couldn’t agree with Monty, MUFC more, the state of punditry in the UK media generally is abysmal – ex-pros without an insight between them, mumbling platitudes, clichés and the glaringly obvious. There are a few exceptions I feel – Dixon; Jenas and Gary Neville to name a few – but as I’m bored and it’s a slow week I thought I might put together a ‘Ex-Pro Sh*t Pundit XI’.
GK: Peter Schmeichel
Only ex-keeper pundit I can think of (other than part-timer and generally insightful and intelligent Brad Friedel) so can consider himself a bit unlucky, but definitely another who is where he is due to who he is, not what he has to offer.
FB: Kevin Kilbane
Offers little but the stupifyingly obvious, he is simply filler.
CB: Martin Keown
Let’s forget that he looks like some kind of cro-magnon ape and concentrate on what he says – nothing, but in such an earnest, forthright manner he appears to be convincing himself what he’s saying is of merit. ‘When I played….’ you were a dirty carthorse, and you’re no better as a pundit.
CB: Phil Thompson
Continues the fine tradition of ex-Liverpool players saturating English football media, a hysterical muppet with brain of an ant and the verbal dexterity of an anus.
FB: Phil Neville.
Poor Phil, your brother was a better player than you, and he’s a better pundit than you. Can’t you find something to do that Gary doesn’t, like nail yourself shut in a box and never come out?
MD: Paul Merson
Need I say more?
MD: Jamie Redknapp
A Porsche of a player; a Daewoo of a pundit. Thick, trite, laddish, just awful.
MD: Robbie Savage (C)
I’m at a loss to understand this man’s elevation from absolute c*nt who everybody hated, to most ubiquitous BBC pundit. Do you know anyone who thinks he’s informative or adds value in any way? A travesty.
MD: Steve Macmanaman
The speed at which he dribbled as a player is only matched by the volume of drivel spouted from his pointless babbling mouth, drivel bereft of anything other than weak descriptions and tired cliché. Pushing Savage for the captaincy.
FW: Alan Shearer
Despite being the lead BBC pundit on MOTD since 2006 he has yet to utter a single insightful observation regarding football. A boiled potato in a naff shirt would do an equal, if not better job.
FW: Chris Sutton
A late call-up to the XI to replace the injured Garth Crooks – thick, boring, myopic, jingoistic, unintelligent, an enormous bell-end of biblical proportions, and the personification of the current nadir. An utter tw*t.
David O
STFC
For Paul
To Paul the Geordie Liverpool fan,
Ask anyone I know and they’ll tell you I’m an emotional brick wall. I rarely show any sort of emotion let alone feel the need to express bad times via something as feminine as shedding a tear. It’s not intentional, it’s just who I am.
But bugger me if a tear didn’t roll down my face reading your mail. I f**king love my dad and even though I’ll never admit it to him, I’d be lost without him.
Best of luck to you, your father, and the rest of your family.
Matt Wright, Gunner in Aus.
I am sure you will get 100’s of these but Paul (Geordie Liverpool fan on a train somewhere near Peterborough), was a genuinely moving email.
Paul mate, such great memories there. You will be a proud father when you tell your son about his grandad. I have read F365 for years and have never wrote an email until now.
I am an Irish man in Sydney (what a rarity!) and usually break up the day by reading (yesterday’s due to time difference!)the mailboxes. There is so much garbage out there concerning football and its world, so this is one of the very few football sites I regularly read.
And Paul’s email is one of the big reasons why. Take care Paul and F365,please keep up the good work.
Justin B ( Not exiled in Sydney. I chose to be here!)
A genuinely touching mail from Paul yesterday. So much so I’m not really sure it really needs comment from me. The only reason I’m writing is to say that your mail made me think of my dad, and the relationship we never had through football but that I always wanted.
Growing up I was so jealous of my mates whose dad’s took them to the football, even more so of the kids with the obscure allegiances like Newcastle or Bolton (London boy here) because you knew they got it from their dad, perhaps the purest way you can catch the bug at that age. He’s a Forest fan and I remember always making extra effort to memorise the Forest players in case we ever stumbled across Forest in conversation.
We never did, probably for the best anyway, van Hooijdonk was a bit of a mouthful back then. Instead it was my mum who drove me to training, mum who took me down the park for a kick about. I knew she knew I didn’t want her to be the one taking me but like much of my childhood, she knew she was going to have to do the parenting for both of them.
He’s not a bad man, just more of a provider than a ‘dad’ but I remember this coming a head when I pleaded him to take me to a Charlton game (closest to his work) one time and he finally agreed. He’s the kind of man who makes officious notes on everything and I remember the uncontrollable excitement at seeing his scribbles on ticket prices and match fixtures jotted down in the pad he kept next to the phone. I couldn’t wait to find out when we were going but days went by and he said nothing. Days turned to weeks, weeks became months and then the season was over and he never said a word.
I realised then what I know now, he just didn’t care enough to bother. He’s a smart man, he knew how much it meant to me but he just didn’t quite care enough to follow through. I say this because of all the ups and downs we had this moment – the moment I realised I was never going to have that football connection with my dad – was probably the most profound.
Anyway enough of this indulgent crap, I’m not trying to equate our stories in any way mate, just thought you hit the nail on the head when you talked about the power of football beyond all the bullshit. I guess my point is Paul, it sounds like you’ve got a pretty great dad there and I wish you all the best.
And as a cautionary tale to any armchair dads reading – pay some damn attention to your child’s footballing needs or they’ll end up a Chelsea fan and nobody wants that.
Simon CFC
Without wishing to turn the mailbox into some kind of Oprah special, I wanted to respond to Paul (Geordie Liverpool fan on a train somewhere near Peterborough) and his recent experience of how football has created memories and moments with his father.
My son suddenly passed away in his sleep 3 months ago, shortly before his second birthday. Naturally the time since has been horrific but whilst the overriding grief has been one of missing him and the trauma of that night, there is also a particular sense of grief for those future moments which he/we will miss out on. -especially where football is concerned.
Football seems to create bonds between fathers and sons like not much else. The commitment shown by fathers (and I’m sure mothers) driving their sons to far flung corners of the county on a cold Tuesday night to watch them kick a ball about is often the untold story of modern football. It’s one of the reasons I enjoy the Olympics so much as the winning seems to be as much for the parents who have sacrificed as it it the athletes.
I guess the emotion that Paul’s mail evoked and what I’m trying to convey is to be grateful for those who we have. Emotion among men, especially fathers and sons, isn’t often readily found. But football can create that, which is why it is so fantastic!
One of my lasting memories of my son will be when I took him to the park to watch some mates play one Saturday. I spent the whole game stopping him from running onto the pitch and he couldn’t work out why I wouldn’t let him go over that white line. As soon as the ref blew up after 90 mins I stopped stopping him from running on and as I congratulated my pals coming off I looked up and saw the joy on his little face looking back at me as he ran across the previously out of bounds pitch.
James, Reading
P.S
Dear the editor,
I’m in know way offended if this doesn’t get published. I appreciate the mailbox isn’t necessarily the obvious vehicle for expressing personal grief.
Keep up the good work!!
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