Fun_People Archive
2 Feb
Own goals! - soccer anyone?

Date: Wed,  2 Feb 94 22:28:40 PST
To: Fun_People
Subject: Own goals! - soccer anyone?

 From: vangogh.CS.Berkeley.EDU!bostic (Keith Bostic)
 From: margo@das.harvard.edu
 From: andy@pathfinder.cbr.com (Andrew Liu)
 From: hm@star.rl.ac.uk (Huw Morris)

I'd like to share with you a little gem I heard on the radio last night.
It concerns a match played last weekend between Barbados and Grenada in
some cup competition. Barbados needed to win the game by two clear goals
in order to progress to the next round. Now the trouble was caused by
a daft rule in the competition which stated that in the event of a game
going to penalty kicks, the winner would be awarded a 2-0 victory. (Yes,
I'm sure you can all see what's coming....)

With 5 minutes to go, Barbados were leading 2-1, and going out of the
tournament. Then, when they realised they were probably not going to
score against Grenada's massed defence, they turned round, and
deliberately scored an own goal, to level the scores. Grenada,
themselves not being stupid, realised what was going on, and then
attempted to score an own goal themselves. However, the Barbados players
started defending their opponents goal to prevent this. In the last five
minutes, therefore, spectators were treated to the incredible sight of
a team defending their opponents goal against attackers desperately
trying to score an own goal!

Naturally, the game went to penalties, which Barbados won...

This story is completely true, I assure you.  Apparently it was being
televised live, so I hope to see highlights of it soon!

© 1994 Peter Langston