I managed to look at final Saturday's Match of the Day with out realizing the scores. It truly is one in every of life's enduring thrills. So the primary time I'd seen or heard of Loum Tchaouna was when he picked up the ball within the 68th minute at Turf Moor, appeared round a bit and thought: “Sod it, I'll simply whack it from right here.” And the way! What an excellent approach to introduce himself to my mind – which was maybe not his final aim; on this occasion a aim was very a lot his final aim.
By the point of this last-on-MOTD wonderstrike, I'd clearly spent the earlier hour watching numerous different footballers at work – most of them fairly acquainted. The odd one did require a cursory Google. Who's Eli Kroupi? Who're all these Chelsea gamers? Do they actually have the identical sized squad as all the opposite groups? If I used to be cloning footballers in a laboratory and slipping them into the Champions League squad, I'd name them Reggie Walsh.
After Tchaouna's magnificence, I made a decision in opposition to trying this man up. Partly to only savour the second, and partly for worry of nice anticlimax. The very fact he's enjoying for Burnley (no disrespect, and so forth) suggests his YouTube highlights reel gained't attain that stage. They're so typically set to barely overenergetic Europop with some hasty cuts simply earlier than the participant provides away possession or balloons one over the bar.
However to be lethal severe, perhaps it was a lot, a lot larger than that. At some second between Kroupi and our buddy Loum, had I reached my elastic restrict of footballers? A limp spring, no extra disk area. Handle storage, delete your WhatsApp conversations and your duplicated images, save all the 1987 QPR squad to the cloud. Give £3.99 a month to the person for an additional gigabyte. There isn't a room on the inn.
There are simply so many footballers. They maintain showing, yearly, youthful than the final ones. Fifteen-year-olds within the Premier League, now born so not too long ago that I haven't heard of what was No 1 on the day of their delivery as a result of it's too fashionable.
Maybe that is what being outdated is. Wanting round and simply seeing a neverending procession of recent folks. Is it acceptable to demand new footballers do greater than only one factor earlier than I enmesh them into the Rolodex of gamers that swirls method too close to the entrance of my mind? There's a bouncer standing outdoors that exact cortex with a clipboard and an earpiece yelling “One in, one out” to an ever rising line of youngsters in an array of Premier League soccer kits.
Extra fruits of the Loum, if you'll, and I'll drop out Ian Juryeff, and convey you in. A bit like making associates once you're 46. I've already bought some good ones. I'm time-poor, exhausted and might't face wading via small discuss siblings and whether or not you get pleasure from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves as a lot as I do. If you wish to break into my high 50 now, you've frankly bought to be extraordinary – and I'm not giving sufficient again to deserve that type of effort.
It's curious that with footballers, you simply add and add and add and by no means delete. This bulging, unaudited listing … will it ever burst? There are most likely podcasts and complement takers on Instagram who let you know how one can free your thoughts of nugatory data like this so you'll be able to attain some type of greater airplane of existence. That's after all, if there's a greater airplane than having the ability to recall the Crystal Palace beginning XI within the 1990 FA Cup remaining – Gary O'Reilly and Phil Barber took me a whereas.
Relying in your classic, your clean canvas might have been infiltrated in a lot the identical method as mine. Dad relentlessly telling me about Gilzean and Greaves, discovering widespread floor with Glenn Hoddle. Extra elements: add one packet of High Trumps from Clive's home. Martin Buchan, Gordon McQueen – all the time go top with McQueen, 6ft 3½in. Unbeatable – the taller the higher for mid-80s High Trumps. Diego Maradona was nothing; a excessive centre of gravity was key.
Common listeners will know of my obsession with the unspectacular, stable, run-of-the-mill footballer, ideally of the 90s. I'm astonished that I've by no means written about it earlier than (please don't verify). Stir in Panini 86 and 87. Norwich Metropolis. Kevin Drinkell, Dale Gordon, Wayne Biggins, Ian … Butterworth, Shoot posters throughout my room of John Ebbrell and Nico Claesen.
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Add to this the real-life gamers I noticed on the Abbey. George Reilly, Steve Spriggs, Martin Robinson, Keith Branagan. After which an explosion of footballer after footballer zinging into my consciousness. TV: Saint and Greavsie, Soccer Focus, TransWorld Sport. Gary Mabbutt speaking about diabetes on Zig Zag. Bobby Barnes lacking penalties for Northampton City on Anglia Information. A video recorder! 101 Best Objectives: Zico, Sócrates, the perplexing John Barnes. The Premier League on Sky – Teddy Sheringham for Forest, high right-hand nook within the first Tremendous Sunday. Andy Sinton for QPR on Monday Evening Soccer. An Amiga 500. Championship Supervisor 93. Steve Anthrobus is predicted to maneuver overseas on the finish of the season.
Then season after season after season of gamers lodging themselves in my mind no matter potential or longevity – only a magnetic pull right into a synapse that ought to know higher. Romário, Grant Holt, Riquelme, Billy Beall, Chris Marsden, Gus Uhlenbeek, Marians Pahars.
Blink and it's Loum Tchaouna banging one in for Burnley within the autumn of 2025. Forty years of watching, 1000's of names. If I'm fortunate I've bought perhaps 40 extra. Time to spend money on a brand new exhausting drive to recollect the following few a long time' price.
