Читать книгу Football Extreme - Rob Crossan - Страница 9
ОглавлениеHow Manchester City got into double figures – without the help of Arab backers
No team has got the scoring into double figures in the history of the Premier League – though there’s been some close-run things. Manchester United came nearest back in 1995 when they banged nine past a hapless Ipswich Town who, deservedly, were relegated at the end of the season. To find out the last time a team scored ten in the upper echelons of the game, you have to go back to 1987.
DID YOU KNOW?
The fastest England goal in history was scored just 17 seconds into a 10-0 friendly win over Portugal in Lisbon on 27 May 1947. Chelsea’s Tommy Lawton was the lucky goalscorer.
Who could have achieved such an incredible tally? Perhaps Liverpool in their Dalglish-era pomp? Or maybe a free-flowing vintage performance from Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest? No – for the answer, we have to travel down to the old Second Division and Maine Road, Manchester, the former home of City in an era long before multi-squillionaire Middle Eastern owners and Brazilian strikers.
It was proving to be a pretty ho-hum season for City, managed at that time by Mel Machin. They were mid-table but were still expected to win against Huddersfield, who were already bottom of the table by a mile and who on that day were bedecked in disgusting yellow-and-black checked away shirts.
Huddersfield had the better of the game in the first half, before a long-range strike by Neil McNab opened the floodgates for City with three more goals coming before half-time.
Starting the second half 4-0 down, Huddersfield nevertheless commendably continued to attempt to play attacking football until Adcock and Stewart made it six with over twenty minutes still to play.
The idea of slowing down the pace and cruising at six goals up was the furthest thing from the mind of the City players, however. Within 60 seconds of the restart after Paul Stewart’s goal, Tony Adcock claimed his hat-trick. Not to be outdone, Stewart continued to keep up, reaching his own hat-trick with a tap-in to make it eight goals without reply.
Would the match ball have to be shared two ways? It turned out that there would be further competition as David White scored his second in the 82nd minute before a one-on-one with the no doubt suicidal Huddersfield keeper in the last minute meant that three players had grabbed a hat-trick in one game – an unprecedented event. And as for Huddersfield? Well, just before White’s final goal they were awarded a penalty, with Andy May scoring possibly the most pointless goal of all time. They were nine goals down at that point.
It should have been the start of a soaring run to promotion for City, but in fact the game turned out to be a one-off. Paul Stewart went on to have a chequered career at Spurs and Liverpool and David White, his career sadly blighted by injury, ended up playing for Sheffield United and Leeds. Tony Adcock was only to stay at the club a few more weeks before he moved to Northampton Town in January in exchange for Trevor Morley.
After that monumental game it seems that perhaps the players were exhausted. City embarked on a disappointing run only two wins in seven games after Christmas, and even somehow contrived to lose 1-0 to Huddersfield in the return fixture in April. It must have been of some consolation for the Yorkshire side to take three points off Machin’s men, but after letting in ten, you could hardly call it revenge.
DID YOU KNOW?
The record number of Football League goals scored in a single day is 209, scored on 2 January 1932 in 43 matches.
