Chris Pascoe’s Fun Tales

Chris relates an unfortunate encounter with a dog… at least he’s not alone…

Iwas bitten by a dog last week. This came as a bit of a surprise because, in my role as a catsitter, I hardly ever come into contact with dogs. And while, cats being cats, I’m viciously scratched all day long, I’m very rarely bitten.

The dog in question was standing outside a local newsagents and, as I walked through the shop door, it suddenly launched sideways and bit the back of my knee.

This had a very painful and quite alarming effect – namely my suddenly appearing in the doorway of a crowded shop and shouting obscenities at the top of my voice while hopping from one foot to the other. Nobody had seen the dog, so everybody assumed I was a lunatic. As I leant on the newsagent’s counter, moaning, groaning and, ironically, panting like a dog, somebody finally asked me if I was OK.

Pointing at the door I explained that a dog had bitten me on the way in, only for the shop owner to inform me that there wasn’t a dog outside. I rushed to the door, just in time to see a tail disappearing round a distant corner. I still have no idea who that dog was, but he’s certainly not on my Christmas card list.

When I got home, finally a little calmer and after putting up with my wife Lorraine laughing at my misfortunes for five minutes (she’s like that), the incident suddenly brought to mind an old story I’d heard about a 1960’s goalkeeper named Chic Brodie. The reason this obscure story should come to me as a result of a dog bite, was that Chic Brodie also had a very unfortunate “knee incident” involving a dog, but this was just the tip of the iceberg in the bizarre career of one of the unluckiest players ever to have graced the Football League.

In fact, Chic’s knee was a target more than once – his bad luck story beginning with a member of the crowd throwing a stone at him, which hit him on the knee and ended with him being stretchered off the field.

Not long afterwards, presumably not content with boring old stones, a spectator threw a hand-grenade at him. It turned out to be a replica, realistic enough for quickthinking police officers to bury it in a bucket of sand.

A few seasons later he jumped up and held onto the crossbar, something goalkeepers occasionally seem to do, but in his case bringing it crashing down onto his head and causing a half hour delay while he was stretchered off and the goalposts were fixed.

Then, just to cap it all off, the following year, a dog ran onto the pitch and Chic managed to run straight into it, tripping over and breaking his kneecap. As the great man himself said, “That dog might have been small, but it was solid.”

Somehow I just know that, had I ever been anything more than an own-goal disaster at football, and had I ever managed to turn professional, my career would have mirrored Chic’s in almost uncanny detail…

The dog launched sideways and bit the back of my knee

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.