Football's Strangest Matches by Andrew Ward

Author:Andrew Ward [WARD, ANDREW]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-909396-27-2
Publisher: Pavilion Books
Published: 2002-01-16T05:00:00+00:00

ALL IN THE IMAGINATION

FORFAR, FEBRUARY 1963

‘It was a great game at Station Park on Saturday although few spectators braved the elements. Three seagulls and a dead sparrow occupied the enclosure, while the only spectator in the stand besides the “Dispatch” reporter was a dispossessed field-mouse.’

That was how the Forfar Dispatch introduced its report of the imaginary game between Forfar Athletic and Stirling Albion during the big-freeze winter of 1962–3. Snow and ice layered the pitches and terraces, matches were postponed en masse and a major casualty was the football pools, until the introduction of a pools panel to fix the results of imaginary games.

The pools companies first disclosed the plan in the third week of January. If there were more than 30 postponements a panel of experts would forecast results of games postponed – home win, away win or draw. (In the 1960s, 0-0 draws counted the same as other draws in pools points.) Doubts about the legality of the scheme were overcome and a panel brought into action. It consisted of Lord Brabazon of Tara (chair) and four ex-international players, Ted Drake, Tom Finney, Tommy Lawton and George Young.

The objectives of the scheme were very clear – to help the pools companies and provide a continuing outlet for the nation’s gambling impulses. This was little consolation for non-gambling soccer fans, who had no chance of following a game … unless they read the Forfar Dispatch. The reporter took the panel’s imaginary result and unearthed an imaginary game which was exciting from the very start.

‘Straight from the first blast of the imaginary referee’s kidon whistle, Albion swept into the attack. Lawlor, scrambling over a large heap of salt in the Forfar goal-area, got his boot to a loose ball but kicked it high over the bar. Play was held up for five minutes while the luckless inside-right, assisted by his team-mates, searched for his boot in the adjacent field.’

You get the idea?

You are given the result – in this case an away win to Stirling Albion – and you write the match report to fit the result. I’m surprised more reporters don’t try it.

The Forfar Dispatch spared us no details. We learn about the first goal – scored by Park while the Forfar goalkeeper had his foot caught in the side-netting – and the three incidents needing the non-existent trainer’s magic sponge: Dick shot over the bar and landed heavily when he came down on the other side; Cumming, in agony, pink in the face, clutching his stomach, needed a new piece of elastic for his shorts; and a Forfar forward, through on his own, hit the post, and was carried off with a nasty bump on his forehead.

Reid scored Forfar’s equalizer – his colleagues pelted the Stirling goalkeeper with snowballs – and it was 1–1 at the end of the first half, which lasted for 63 minutes as the referee had difficulty defrosting the pea in his whistle.

Both teams scored early in the second half. Soon Forfar led by

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