Chris Pascoe’s Fun Tales

pele, Beckham... pascoe? No, chris’s name never made it up there with all the legends of the game – for very good reasons What happened next had our coach staring in astonishment

Back in my school days, I was surprisingly good at sport, generally reaching a standard just below mediocre. The most surprising thing of all though, was that in my final year at secondary school, I was picked for the school football team. Even the football coach was surprised by his own decision to pick me, seeing absolutely no skill in my play whatsoever.

However, against his better judgement he did so on the recommendations of his team captain and vice captain, who just happened to be my two best friends.

So it was that I pulled on our school’s coveted blue jersey for the first time on a rainy autumn day. This was another surprise, because I’d always been convinced we played in yellow, but it mattered not as the referee blew his whistle and our captain passed the ball straight to me. What happened next had our coach staring in astonishment.

As the ball reached my feet I looked at it for a second and realised I had no idea what to do with it, so I began running forwards. Luckily the ball came with me. As I kept running, in a state of blind panic, I realised my ‘direct’ approach had caught the opposition off guard and I was nearing their penalty area.

Only one thing to do; I kicked the ball as hard as I could towards the goal. I remember seeing it shooting off on completely the wrong direction – but unbeknown to me, to one of our advancing players who immediately hammered it back into my path. By now I had absolutely no idea where the ball had gone… until it smacked me in the shins and rocketed straight into the roof of the goal. To the bewilderment of everyone around me, I’d scored 20 seconds into my debut… by accident.

The wonderful thing was, I was the only one who actually knew it was an accident. I’m told the football coach actually dropped his clipboard in surprise and his jaw fell open. He probably believed he’d discovered a school-park Pele.

And that was it. I never scored another goal. My only other claim to fame was being substituted during the last game of the season for tactical reasons (being rubbish), then being asked by the referee to assist him as a stand-in linesman… and then getting sent off by the same referee five minutes later, possibly the only linesman to be sent off in the history of football. So I did achieve something. Not something good of course, but I achieved it!

After leaving school, I persisted in the beautiful game, much against people’s advice, and my play became very consistent, in that I consistently scored owngoals. So many own-goals in fact, that my goalkeeper voted for me in the end of season awards, as his ‘Most Difficult Opponent.’

So there you have it, a few reasons why my friends are wrong to claim my football career was a disaster. It was much worse than that.

Chris Pascoe is the author of A Cat Called Birmingham and You Can Take the Cat Out of Slough, and of Your Cat magazine’s column Confessions of a Cat Sitter.