This book is for my sister.
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Foreword by Chris Kamara
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Extreme FA Cup
Extreme Goals
Extreme Goals II
Extreme Old Age
Extreme Cup Replay
Extreme Absenteeism
Extreme Goalscoring
Extreme Culture Shock
Extreme Downfall
Extremely Strange Stands
Extreme Great Escape
Extreme Cup Shock – Scotland
Extremely Bad Season
Extreme Fouls
Extremely Bad Transfers
Extremely Short England Careers
Extremely Bad Predictions
Extreme Gobbledygook
Extreme Greediness
Extreme Match Fixing
Extremely Useless Cup Competition
Extremely Long Wait
Extreme England Thrashing
Extremely Bad Misses
Extremely Bad Goalkeeping
Extreme Expulsion
Extremely Brief Managerial Careers
Extreme Bad Luck
Extreme Mis-Match
Extreme Smallness
Extremely Bad Matches
Extreme Sexism
Extreme Refereeing
Extreme Magnanimity
Extremely Small League
Extreme Goals by Inanimate Objects
Extreme Cup Shock – England
Extremely Large Crowds
Extremely Cold Weather
Extremely Bad Football Songs
Extreme Fatness
Extreme Personal Favourite
About the Author
Copyright
FOREWORD BY CHRIS ‘KAMMY’ KAMARA
We’ve all heard the old Greavsie cliché, ‘It’s a funny old game’, but even I was a bit surprised on reading this book to find out just how many bizarre and peculiar stories there are from the world of British football. Every Saturday I have the honour of travelling around Premiership games watching events unfold but I’m sad to say that, even in my experience, I’ve yet to see a 20-0 win or a triple hat-trick by one player in a single match – both stories that Rob has uncovered in this wonderful book.
Of course, Jeff Stelling will tell you that maybe things like that did happen – but I managed to miss them. ‘Red card? I must have missed that, Jeff…!’ There’s plenty I could say about Jeff too, as it happens, but as this is a family publication I’ll leave it for now…
Anyway, this is the perfect book to get stuck into should you find yourself in the middle of a 0-0 bore draw – and it’s not a bad book to ponder should you ever have concerns that your team is cursed or just simply dreadful. As you’ll see as you make your way through these pages, there’s always been a group of supporters who have had it worse than you.
Enjoy the book – ‘It’s unbelievable, Jeff!’
Chris Kamara
Huge thanks must go to all of the fanzine editors, message board scribers, online bloggers and football club archivists who have given so much of their time for nothing to help me with this book you’re reading. There’s far too many to thank here but you know who you are.
Huge thanks also to the local newspapers including the Oxford Mail and the Rochdale Observer, which have been of so much assistance in digging into their musty back issues for ancient match reports.
Thanks to Allie Collins at John Blake for all her helpful guidance through the writing of this book and, lastly, eternal thanks must go to Gordon Glyn Jones and Eoin and Damien McSorley. Without their help, my pipe dream of being able to make a living from writing about football and travel would have remained exactly that.
George Best, Pelé, David Beckham… none of these people need any more medals, garlands and praise bestowed upon them, and you won’t find many mentions of them, or any of the other famous footballing greats, in the following pages.
Rather, this is a book dedicated to the unsung heroes of the game who, in their own myriad ways, have earned a small but special place in football fans’ hearts as being part of or culpable for some of the most extreme moments in football history.
Some of them will be familiar to you already, some you will never have heard of before. For me, however, the true spirit of the game doesn’t lie with watching endless YouTube clips of the Brazilian 1970 World Cup side. It lies with wondering just who the couple of hundred people were who turned up at Stirling Albion on an ordinary Saturday in December 1984 and ended up witnessing the biggest thrashing in British senior football in the 20th century. Are they still celebrating now? Are they aware of their unique place in history? Were the pies any good that day?
We can’t ever know any of these things with certainty, but it’s moments like this which provide football with its soul in all its eccentric, obsessive glory – far more than yet another Champions League penalty shoot-out or lucrative multi-million-pound shirt sponsorship deal.
I’ve always dreamed of being a spectator at an ‘extreme’ football moment, like the ones you’ll read about in the following pages. The closest I have come was in 1992 when, as a typically gauche and callow 12-year-old I was at the Racecourse Ground to watch my team, Wrexham, beat Arsenal 2-1 in the FA Cup third round – one of the biggest cup shocks of all time.
Sadly, this moment doesn’t make it into the hallowed pages of Football Extreme as the story is just a little too well-known. So instead, this book is full of stories of characters like the Torquay manager who was boss for all of ten minutes – the shortest managerial reign in British football history – or the non-league football coach who guided his team to the FA Cup fifth round by forcing them to drink something that he called ‘speed oil’.
Many of the people featured herein will be proud of their small place in football history. Many will be