When is a goal not a goal?
When is a goal not a goal?
(And other reasonably fundamental questions.)
You know that Shankly quote, “Football is a simple game made complicated by people who should know better”? Well it’s obviously true. This is game that can essentially be boiled down to kicking a bit of dead cow between two posts, and yet we discuss, analyse and argue football in its minutae. I’m culpable for writing this and you’re culpable for reading it. We are Shankly’s “people who should know better”.
If there’s one thing we can all agree to agree on about football it’s that we can’t agree on anything. Half the time we can’t even agree on what constitutes a goal and what doesn’t. Did the ball cross the line? The forward says it did but the defender says it didn’t. The referee was too far away to see, and the linesman’s looking baffled. Was it a goal? No one rightly knows. What are we to do? FOOTBALL HAS DESCENDED INTO ANARCHY!…
Read the full story in issue 2 of The Blue & White.
