Great goalkeeping gaffes, in honour of Luke Steele....
Poor old goalkeepers. While their fancy dan outfield colleagues - clad in colourful boots, alice bands and the like - can happily make mistakes all game and go unpunished, if the humble stopper errs it's a goal to the oppo and, most likely, a starring role in that evening's football highlights complete with sarcastic commentary from the voice-over man.
Which brings us to Barnsley's Luke Steele, the catalyst for this post. For reasons which I still cannot fathom, cool hand Luke raced from his goalmouth like a gazelle just four minutes into Saturday's game at Portman Road, hurtling towards a ball which he would surely smash into the proverbial row Z.
His speed and reactions saw him reach the ball way ahead of Town's chasing frontman Pablo Counago, and any danger would surely be cooled. Unfortunately for Steele and the Tykes, it didn't quite work out that way.
Instead, Luke let the ball roll gently past him - I can only assume he thought it was to swiftly exit the field of play - and, to compound his monumental error, promptly fell over. Town, of course, scored as a result and went on to win 1-0.
All of which is, I reckon, a sufficiently tenuous excuse for a quick stroll down memory lane to relive great goalkeeping gaffes from football's past....
Firstly, while on the subject of Town benefitting from a goalkeeping mistake, Bryan Gunn's infamous airkick has to be enjoyed. Yet again.
Perhaps my favourite howler of recent times saw Aston Villa keeper Peter Enckleman fail to control a ball thrown tamely back to him by his own team-mate towards the end of a heated Birmingham derby, gifting victory to the Blue half of the city and forever consigning himself to the blooper reel. He didn't deserve the 'hand gestures' from the fan though.
Other classics featuring the likes of the horrendous Massimo Taibi and hapless Andy Dibble are contained in this top ten countdown. I remember the Gary Crosby/Dibble incident with particular affection from my youth - Match magazine (which I read in preference to Shoot, just to be different to my friends) had a scene by scene breakdown of the goal and in-depth explanation of the rules, while EVERYONE I knew tried that trick in every football game from that point onwards for about a year. Sometimes there would be two or three people jostling to hide behind the keeper. And it never, ever worked.
Finally, I uncovered this gem while trawling Youtube 'researching' this post. I have no idea when or where it happened, but it's beautiful - a classic example of a stopper trying to do too much with the ball instead of hoofing it clear. Brilliant.
- Have I missed any? What are your memories of goalkeeping gaffes? Let me know!
posted on 22 March 2010 15:01 byMark Heath
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