#4 Darren Bent’s beach ball goal
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Darren Bent needed little help scoring goals during the 2009-10 season. By the end of the campaign, he had scored 24 times for Sunderland following two relatively disappointing seasons at Tottenham Hotspur. But help is exactly what he got from an unexpected source in Sunderland’s 1-0 win at home to Liverpool in early October 2009.
A low, right-wing cross made its way past forwards and defenders alike in the centre of the area, leaving Bent free to fire in a first-time effort on goal. It was a good strike but one that Liverpool goalkeeper Pepe Reina looked to have covered. However, as a defender tried to block it, the ball ricocheted off a beach ball that had been thrown onto the pitch, leaving Reina stranded as it flew past him into the net.
It was perhaps the best example in the history of football of a foreign, inanimate object playing a key role in a goal.
