The truth is that everything in this world that constitutes of a life is a story. The only difference being that some stories are recorded and some never reach the surface of attention. Football, though, belongs to the former category—thanks to the huge amount of attention that it gets.
Some stories are drab and not worth being narrated. However, there are some events that are so beautiful or ugly that it etches itself to the walls of eternity. And the intention of this article is to bring to you the ones worth telling.
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From the dog that saved United to Emmanuel Adebayor’s story of God’s divine intervention––here are the 7 most unbelievable football stories of all time…
#1 The dog that saved United
Ah, isn’t it kind of wonderful to make misleading titles/sub-titles? Well, the club under the microscope here is Torquay United, not the one in Manchester. Down by 2-0 at half-time, Torquay United needed to salvage something from the game if they intended to stay up and not become the first team to get relegated from the Football League in 1987.
Jim McNichol pulled one back just after half-time from a deflected free-kick... a ray of hope was now visible. But what happened next was something no-one could have predicted. As scorer, McNichol, ran towards the touchline to chase a dying ball, a German shepherd came out of nowhere and bit the former right-back.
Apparently, the dog, named Bryn, thought that the defender was running in to attack his handler and, hence, gashed McNichol’s legs with its teeth. The full-back was down for 5 minutes and 5 minutes were added as injury time.
And as luck would have it, Paul Dobson scored the equaliser in the final minute of added time, which was just about enough to keep Torquay up. 17 stitches and 3 holes on Jim McNichol’s leg was perhaps worth the pain.
#2 Pele’s lucky shirt
All of us have some kind of rituals buried deep in the dungeons of our subconscious mind. And footballers are no different in this regard. One of the most celebrated players of all time, Pele, also relied on rituals to play at his optimum best.
It was during the mid-60s when Pele’s form slumped so badly, it put the Santos fans and staff members in a perplexed state. Pele himself was deeply worried and sought to know the cause of his downward spiral.
After a lot of analysis, he came up with a genuine cause… he had given his ‘lucky’ shirt to a Santos fan, which in turn caused his demise. And so he hired a detective to get back what he had given away. After an extensive search, the detective that Pele hired brought him back the shirt and Pele got back to his best right afterwards.
Lucky, isn’t it? Fun fact: Pele’s ‘lucky’ shirt was never found and what the detective gave him was his jersey from the previous game. As they say, it is all in the mind!
#3 Three yellow cards for Josip Simunic
There are some things in football that can never really die, and one of them is the controversies created by refereeing decisions. In almost every other game—regardless of the tournament—there is at least one officiating incident that becomes the topic of discussion among the fans and pundits alike.
One such encounter that is remembered more due to terrible officiating than the football itself was a 2006 World Cup match between Croatia and Australia. After having picked a booking in the 61st minute, Simunic was once again shown a yellow card for a rash challenge in the 90th minute.
Players are usually sent off after the second yellow…that’s supposedly the rule, it seems. However, referee Graham Poll failed to produce the red card, much to the surprise of even Simunic. So he went out to set it right and three minutes later, argued vehemently with Poll.
This prompted the official to produce the third yellow and this time, the red card finally appeared. The event was so embarrassing for Poll that he retired from officiating international games right after the World Cup.
#4 A manager for 10 minutes
One of the most common ways of unemployment is structural unemployment. This is when a person loses her/his job because their skills are longer deemed necessary by the top members of the hierarchy.
This usually happens when there is an industrial development or a change in structure. For our case, Leroy Rosenior fell prey to the latter which cost his job at Torquay in 2007. Rosenior lasted for just a humiliating 10 minutes at the club.
The departing club owner, Mike Bateson, wanted someone to manage the club until its sale was completed. As Rosenior was literally just about to be unveiled as the new manager, the sale of the club was complete and he was informed that his services were no longer required.
Poor, Rosenior. He must have felt like a guy who earned a date for the prom party but was ditched the moment they entered through the doors and the girl was asked out by someone else.
#5 The man who sold himself
What do you do when you are a football club on tight finances and need to save money in order to survive? You appoint your 23-year-old star player as the player-manager. What do you do when you are the player-manager of a football club on tight finances that are showing signs of trouble and need money to ensure survival? Simple: you sell yourself!
In 1946, just after the war ended, Carlisle United signed a talented forward as their player-manager, Ivor Broadis. Three years later, when the finances started to show worrying signs, Sunderland came knocking for the player-manager.
Sunderland were willing to pay 18000 pounds to acquire the services of the inside-forward—and Broadis saw the chance to leave a strong financial legacy that could potentially save the club from obscurity. And so he sold himself and went on to play for England 18 times before returning to the club for a second spell.
#6 When football became a war
Pele once dubbed football as the beautiful game. While football certainly divides opinions, it is one of the very few things that allows people to momentarily forget about the real problems of the world. However, when football becomes the cause of one of the greatest real problems, it is a truly depressing sight.
In 1969, during a World Cup qualifier game in Honduras, the hosts beat El Salvador 1-0, thanks to a last-minute goal. This prompted the fans in the stadium to go wild as fights broke out with the stadium being torched in the end.
The media of both the nations continued the friction and furthered the animosity by abusing each other in their respective outlets. The following leg was played in El Salvador and things went over the top when the hotel where the Honduras team were staying was torched during the dark of night.
Luckily, the players managed to escape unscathed but were left mentally disoriented by the event. Obviously, the away side lost the encounter and once again chaos ensued as cars were set on fire in the streets, shop windows were broken… such was the brutality that the hospitals set new attendance records.
But things went completely out of hand on July 14th, 1969, when the military got involved and a full-fledged war between the two countries took place. The war began after the Salvadoran Air Force bombed within the Honduras borders. They also launched full-scale foot attack along the main road connecting the two nations.
Indeed, the Salvadorans were out for blood and would have spilled a lot more had they not run out of fuel and ammunition. After 100 hours of blood and warcry, 6000 people lost their lives, 12000 were wounded and 50000 lost their homes.
The root of this war was the massive deportation of Salvadoran immigrants––who left their nation about a decade ago due to lack of living land––from Honduras. The tensions were burning inside and it took a football match to add fuel to it; something that can never be forgotten.
#7 Adebayor’s childhood
The previous slide was a dark and gory account that tainted the beautiful game in so many ways. Death and destruction might be a part of life, but the ugliness surrounding the war was something unforgettable.
However, football could also be the reason for someone getting a life—and none depicts that better than Emmanuel Adebayor. There are a lot of African players who came from poverty-stricken backgrounds to become millionaires and live the luxurious life of a footballer.
With Adebayor, it was no different. However, what made his story different from the rest—and more special—is the fact that football taught him how to walk.
Even at the age of 4, the Togolese couldn’t walk. His mother sojourned around many African countries to find a cure for her son’s condition but to no avail. In the end, she was advised by the Church to pray for him every day for a week. If even that didn’t work, the Church said, all hope was gone.
Nothing happened for the six days as Adebayor could still not walk, but on the final day of the prayers, a football was shot into the church by one of the kids playing outside. “And,” said Adebayor, “the first person to stand up and run was me, because I wanted to get that ball.”
Dust in my eyes...
Also Read: The miraculous story of Emmanuel Adebayor: From a 4-year-old cripple to a football star
