After spending two years at a semi pro football club (yeah yeah i know not the most glamorous, but you work up to the big time right?), I came across some hurrendous tackles, broken legs, snapped calfs and stuff. English football is a lot more agressive than European and American football, I was taught that if you didnt go in 100% into a tackle, you'd end up getting hurt. I used to be shit scared of going into tackles, I'd always pull out in fear of getting hurt, but then I thought fuck it and a lot of people became scared to go into a tackle with me because I just didnt care about getting hurt anymore.
I'm a goalkeeper and I weight 10.6 stone (making me a featherweight in football) but I can smash through 4-5 players to claim a cross in and release the ball to a winger before most of the team has even turned back to defend. I've learnt to use all my body weight and I've managed to push a lot bigger guys than me off the ball, the goalkeeper is the most unique position on the pitch, a goalkeeper can make 50 great saves in one match, then make 1 bad error which could cost his team the match, nobody will remember the 50 great saves, but the 1 bad mistake (trying to control a backpass with a forward charging at you like a raging bull on a pitch like a cow field-not a good idea)
I hate the players that dive about and cry like theyve been shot (see: any arsenal player or Christiano Ronaldo - I am MUFC btw) it makes me angry to see them get away with it. Some referees can be completely sensless to that stuff and carry on running about like a headless chicken.
Football is a great sport, the only thing to make me cry with joy (ole soskjaer scoring the winning goal against liverpool in the FA cup in 99 after being 1-0 for 90 minutes, then again in barcelona when we came back from 1-0 against Munich - even thinking about it now gives me the shivers, I'll never ever forget the commentator saying "AND SOLSKJAER HAS WON IT!" I dont care what anyone says, that was a better come back than liverpool vs milan last year. Thieving scousers.
Again last year, in the semi final of some county cup and they'd not been beaten in 5 years, their manager even told my manager they might as well call it off cause htey know who's going to win. Needeless to say we put up one hell of a fight. We went down 2-0, down to 9 men (our goalkeeper sent off for 2 "deliberate" handballs, So on I went in place of him) 10 minutes left 2-1, injury time my team-mate sends one flying in the top corner from about 30 odd yards, I ran 80+ yards to celebrate, hit the waterworks of joy and it was possibly the greatest feeling ever.
Get through injury time and to penalties, our pen taker had missed two already that night (missed one but was disallowed so had to retake and missed yet again) missed his penalty and as did they, we went through the whole team even I took a penalty (and I've never, ever scored a penalty in my life) and I scored. Saved their next, tipping it onto the post, grabbing it again just before it'd crossed the line, my team went insane and
I was half way up on the shoulders of my team-mates and then the linesman said it crossed the line (in which point my manager flipped and got really angry and nearly assulted him) we got back to our penalty taker who'd missed 3 already, this time he rockets one top corner and im talking right in the top corner, but the goalkeeper saved it.
Now I don't know how many of you know but the goalkeepers arent allowed to move off their line during a penalty, but their 'keeper was jumping about 3-4 off his line (this gives a greater angle advantage for the GK) and the officials didnt do anything about it. So I thought, okay, I'll do that do, I had to save this penalty, I must have been on the edge of the 6 yard area just before he took the kick, I saved it, hit the cross bar, bounced over the line and back out.
Nights like that are the reason I've just wrote a long ass essay.
Sorry if you didnt bother reading it, thanks if you did
Last edited by E7IX3R (2006-06-10 09:59:55)
