Its the last minute...you need a goal, from somewhere, anywhere, this is it, its all on the line...you win a corner, one last chance to toss it into the box...who knows, maybe you'll get lucky, maybe that donkey of a centre forward who couldn't hit a barn door all season will fall over in the box, make contact with the ball and send it flying into the top corner...but whats this you see out of the corner of your eye? Your 'keeper is gesticulating wildly at the bench, you shoot a glance at the manager...there it is! There's the resigned wave of the arm, the permission for one of the most magical things in football to happen, the 'keeper is coming up for the corner...
Now, for the most part the next minute or so is a bit of an anti-climax, firstly we'll have a commentator telling us that "the manager will be hoping the big man will cause havoc in the box", then the obligatory close up of the "big man" causing "havoc" in the box followed by the corner being floated in, nowhere near the goalkeeper and the game peters out into nothingness. But just occasionally that keeper will make himself a hero...
Obviously there are a couple of notable exceptions to this stereotype of 'keepers scoring, 'Chila' and Rogerio Cen.
Jose Luis Chilavert, the Paraguayan 'keeper affectionately known in Argentina and Paraguay as 'Chila', the man had a penchant for scoring goals. During his career at in Paraguay and Argentina he chalked up 44 club goals including a hat-trick for Velez Sarsfield against Ferro Carril Oeste and scoring a free kick from the half way line against fallen Argentine giants River Plate. Chila also had a fiery side, probably most famous incident was his brawl with Colombian legend Faustino Asprilla. Amazingly he also scored 8 goals for his country, thats more than Robbie Fowler, Chris Waddle and big Emile have managed.
Rogerio Ceni is another South American phenomenon having famously played over 1000 first class games and having scored 103 goals...oh, and he's still going. Ceni is officially the most prolific 'keeper ever, and all of his goal have come for his one and only club Sao Paulo, he has even outscored Paul Scholes...and if you hadn't heard, Paul Scholes scores goals.
Enough of these experienced goal scorers though, lets delve a little deeper into the rarer breed of goalscoring goalies.
Firstly a cheeky little effort from arguably the greatest goalkeeper of all time, Peter Schmeichel with an overhead kick scored against Wimbledon, but again Schmeichel had a habit of popping up with goals every now and then.
Paul Robinson also used to enjoy going forward, scoring this effort against Swindon for Leeds, along with a couple of others, and actually managed to cause enough of a nuisance last weekend to win a penalty against Wigan.
But the ultimate goalscoring goalie is one Jimmy Glass. Jimmy was on the books at Swindon when he was shipped out to Carlisle United for the final 3 games of the 1998/99 season. Carlisle were languishing at the bottom of the football league, battling it out for survival against Scarborough. It had all come down to the last game of the season, a must win game against Plymouth Argyle. After 90mins of play things were not looking good, at 1-1 Carlisle were going down, out of the league and probably out of business for good. News had filtered through to the Scarborough fans that the scores were level at Brunton Park with only seconds left to play, and so they were on the pitch celebrating survival. As Carlisle pushed forward in numbers they managed to force a corner. Cue Jimmy Glass gesticulating wildly at Carlisle boss Nigel Pearson who gave the 6ft 4 'keeper permission to amble forward into the box.
The corner is swung in...a Carlisle head meets the ball, the Plymouth 'keeper can only parry it out...and then...well, I'll let you watch this little video. 3,000 Cumbrians on top of Jimmy, 1 on the ref!
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