Slightly Strange But True

by Brian Kennedy

(first published in the August 2009 UCD match programme)

It was during the 93-94 season of the Belgian championship. The home team was AA Gent. In the five last minutes, the Gent goalkeeper was sent off and Eric Viscaal (a Dutch player) took his place as the three substitutions had been made earlier. He had to face a penalty kick resulting from the foul for which the goalkeeper was sent off. And he superbly guessed right diving to his left. But AA Gent still required one goal to equalize and kept pressing. With one minute of injury time left they were awarded a corner, Viscaal went up, headed home from six yards and the roof came off the stand.

This occurred in Uruguay for a Libertadores game between San Lorenzo of Argentina and locals Penarol, the game held on May 3rd 1996. A group of Argentinean fans was arrested as they tried to sneak two rifles into the stadium. Asked why by an astonished police after being arrested, they said all they wanted to do was shoot their own centre half in both kneecaps as they’d have been heroes to the fans because the man was useless!

A couple of years ago there was a story in the local paper about a Cambridgeshire league match that was played one winter in typically murky fenland conditions. After about 10 minutes, the fog came down so thickly that visibility was reduced to about half the length of the pitch, so the referee decided to abandon the game. It was only after the players had been enjoying the warmth of the changing rooms for about 20 minutes that a player on one of the teams noticed that their goalkeeper had not come in. When they went out to look for him they discovered him still faithfully guarding his goal, oblivious to the fact that the match had been abandoned. Apparently, he thought his team had been playing particularly well and had managed to keep the play at the other end of the pitch!

An international in 1967 between Sweden and Norway. Sweden were 3-1 up with five minutes to go. Their striker Hendrickson was clean through on goal with metres of space. Instead of scoring, he cheekily dribbled the ball to the corner flag. The furious Norwegian defender charged at him, landing a fist right in his face knocking Hendrickson out cold. Our hero walked to the changing room without even looking at the ref! The Swedish attacker had to have stitches and Sweden had already made three substitutions, so ironically it finished 10 versus 10!

French international footballer, Olivier Kapo, gave an apprentice player his car to thank him for polishing his boots throughout the season. The ex-Birmingham City player gave the lad, James McPike, his Mercedes worth £30,000 as an end-of-season present. He also agreed to pay for a year’s insurance when James, 20, said he was unable to afford it. The French midfielder, who is originally from the Ivory Coast in Africa, earned almost £1.5million a year at St Andrews. Originally James had asked for Olivier’s boots as a souvenir but he ended up with his car. What a magnificent present!

Once, Newtownards football club were playing a match against Ballycastle junior farmers, in the Bass Irish Cup. The crowd was about 100 in total. Nearby, a pie baking competition was taking place. A man named Douglas Saulters had taken surprise first place, with a beef and apricot pie. His rival, Bernie Botmann, was irate at the judge’s decision, and stormed out of the contest. He drove to the football ground to calm down. However, he decided to get rid of the pies, and, in a rage, threw them at the footballers. Johnny McCreadie, the Ballycastle forward, who was a bit fat, halted an attack to bend over to sample the pieman’s wares. Suddenly, the crowd began to sing “Who ate all the pies? Who ate all the pies? You fat bas****, you fat bas****, you ate all the pies!” And this was how that famous chant began!