The greatest goal I ever saw is one that I can only barely remember. It was scored almost 25 years ago, and I’ve never seen a replay, despite the fact that it happened in an English First Division match. This was the 1987/88 season, and football coverage – even involving top flight teams – was relatively sparse. The goal isn’t on YouTube, and various requests via Twitter and the like have drawn a blank. There was no end of season highlights video for 87/88, and there’s a possibility the footage no longer exists. So my recollection of the goal is pieced together from fragmented and unreliable memories, and is quite possibly overblown and inaccurate.

But that doesn’t matter. In a way, I’m glad I’ve never seen video footage, and I’ve been allowed to develop my own rose-tinted memory, elevating the goal to a kind of mythical status in my mind. In that respect, Paul ‘Gazza’ Gascoigne’s goal for Newcastle United against Chelsea on 27 February 1988 was absolutely perfect. Read more…

Football Newcastle United, Sabotage Times

The own goal is the ultimate moment of soccer self-destruction. Few footballing sights are as awe-inspiring as that split second of lunacy in which a gangling centre half dives full-length to head the ball past his hapless keeper. What follows is a celebration of ten of the worst ever own goals, some funny, some bizarre, some genuinely tragic – and a lot of them on YouTube. All proof indeed that, as a dramatic moment, the own goal knocks anything Shakespeare managed to come up with into a feathered bard’s hat…

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Football Sabotage Times

Farewell Don, Peggy, Roger, Pete and Joan. Especially Joan. This week’s Mad Men season four finale means we’ll have to wait the best part of a year for our next wallow in the glamour and drama of 60s Madison Avenue. And that’s tough, because Mad Men is a show that completely absorbs its viewers, the kind of show that makes sitting on the sofa in front of the telly seem like pretty much the best thing in the world…

Read the full story article over at Sabotage Times.

Film, Television Sabotage Times

When Chris Sievey died in June, several of those who knew him best described him as a genius. Chris was best known as the man inside the oversized papier mache head of Frank Sidebottom, but before finding cult success with his aspiring pop star alter-ego, he had attempted to carve out a music career of his own, and produced a pioneering computer game based on his experiences called The Biz. Typically brilliant, the game remains thoroughly playable more than 25 years after it was released. It’s also incredibly innovative – a multimedia music release created long before anyone had any clue what a multimedia music release was….

Read the full story at Sabotage Times.

Music, Technology Sabotage Times