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It's a Goal by Archie Macpherson sampler

The scoring of a goal in football unleashes emotions for the scorer, teammates, opponents and onlookers on terracing and living-room couches, that can play havoc with our anticipation of what constitutes an ordinary day. Legendary commentator Archie Macpherson delves into the heart of the beautiful game, where the simple act of scoring a goal becomes a profound moment of human connection. From the roar of victory to the sting of defeat, Macpherson captures the essence of football’s emotional rollercoaster through a curated personal selection of significant goals – some spectacular, some less-so, some not-at-all, but all significant – together with the fascinating backstory to each goal and the match in which it was scored. With unparalleled insight and passion, Macpherson invites readers to experience the highs and lows of football, a game where so often a goal transcends the boundaries of the pitch to touch the hearts of fans worldwide. It’s a Goal! is a testament to the enduring power of football to unite, inspire and move us all – whoever our team, wherever we are.

The scoring of a goal in football unleashes emotions for the scorer, teammates, opponents and onlookers on terracing and living-room couches, that can play havoc with our anticipation of what constitutes an ordinary day.

Legendary commentator Archie Macpherson delves into the heart of the beautiful game, where the simple act of scoring a goal becomes a profound moment of human connection. From the roar of victory to the sting of defeat, Macpherson captures the essence of football’s emotional rollercoaster through a curated personal selection of significant goals – some spectacular, some less-so, some not-at-all, but all significant – together with the fascinating backstory to each goal and the match in which it was scored.

With unparalleled insight and passion, Macpherson invites readers to experience the highs and lows of football, a game where so often a goal transcends the boundaries of the pitch to touch the hearts of fans worldwide.

It’s a Goal! is a testament to the enduring power of football to unite, inspire and move us all – whoever our team, wherever we are.

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IT’S A GOAL!<br />

over the heads of the crowds like ‘pass-the-parcel’, to comparative safety<br />

nearer the front, to the cries of, ‘Watch the wean!’ So, unknown to my<br />

mother I parted company with my father as I was transported over the<br />

heads of the crowd to just behind the perimeter wall from where I was<br />

to see a goal that lives with me to this day.<br />

The players seemed gigantic to me down there, the English particularly<br />

so. They seemed like rough hooligans, bullying sergeant-majors, uncouth.<br />

Ours were cavaliers fighting a just cause. The blonde-haired Bob<strong>by</strong> Brown<br />

in the Scotland goal seem to exemplify for me the purity of their makeup<br />

as he gracefully pulled crosses out of the air despite the constant<br />

aggravation of the great England striker Tommy Lawton, the man they<br />

were to call ‘The Hammer of the Scots’, backed up as he was <strong>by</strong> talented<br />

midfield players Denis Compton and Len Shackleton. But the core of the<br />

Scottish defence, the two Shaw brothers and Frank Brennan at centrehalf,<br />

all of whom came from the one small mining village in Lanarkshire,<br />

Annathill, never flinched.<br />

Peering from the low position with no conception of time passing in<br />

the match but feeling growing frustration, the world suddenly exploded.<br />

There had only been two minutes of the game left in fact. Two great<br />

wingers who could cause an argument in an empty house about who was<br />

the superior, Willie Waddell of Rangers and Jimmy Delaney of Celtic,<br />

combined to convert 139,468 into a seething cauldron.<br />

Jackie Husband takes a free kick. Waddell gets his head to a ball<br />

in the air, deflecting it into the path of Delaney who crashes it (as I<br />

can recollect) into the net. The game has been won, snatched from the<br />

deadening clutches of a no-scoring draw. In the madness around me I<br />

experience a personal feeling that I still think ranks with any sensuality<br />

I was ever to feel in adult life. But, from that moment, in a sense I never<br />

did grow up.<br />

For that small Hampden boy was with me every time I raised a mike to<br />

my mouth with the Auld Enemy in sight. He was inside me, kicking every<br />

ball for Scotland as I tried to retain professional objectivity, although both<br />

of us nakedly desperate to relive another tumultuous Delaney moment.<br />

14

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