PENALTY NIGHTMARES: TAKING A SPOT-KICK DURING MY FOOTBALLING LIFE...

Penalty Nightmares: Taking A Spot-Kick During My Footballing Life...

I was playing at left-half for my primary school team Hillstone in Shard End, Birmingham and as a Year 5 pupil I was a younger lad in a very strong outfit. I had scored twice, both volleys, both from 35 yards and both against the league leaders, Brownmead School, whom we defeated 5-2 at home, to replace them at the summit. We had already drawn 2-2 at their pitch. In Year 6, we again had a fine team but I had failed to score a single goal, despite being chosen for the Saltley area soccer team in the Birmingham Schools’ District competition. Both my school team and the representative team wore green shirts, with white sleeves and black numbers and I played at left-back for Saltley.

I recall the final game of the season, at home to St Anthony’s and we led 7-0. We were awarded a penalty late in the game and the football teacher, Mr Barber asked me to take it. The nerves I felt were overwhelming and I was painfully shy anyway, but I stepped forward gamely and rapped a hard, low left-footed drive towards the centre of goal but the ‘keeper, who had done well to keep the score down to seven, fell to his left and the ball cannoned off his flailing right foot to safety. I was devastated and felt tears welling up inside but I recall saying: “Well done…” to the goalie. My mind was full of foreboding, for I knew that my dad would be disgusted with me. He was. And he didn’t let me forget it.

LEFT-HALF, NUMBER 6.
ALSO LEFT-BACK FOR THE SALTLEY DISTRICT TEAM...

Oddly, in the staff versus lads game, the ‘keeper was our rather masculine class teacher and P.E. trained Miss Cattell, who warned me not to score against her; I thus raced through in the latter stages and cracked the ball past her with a wry smile.

HILLSTONE: STRONG TEAM...

Sadly, attending a grammar school meant only Rugby Union for the next seven years and there was no local Sunday football for lads in those days. I missed my football badly, I was an only child and received no real support from a father who seemed to be working all the time. I did however appear in one Sunday morning adult game with my dad, when I was 15; he made a goal and I scored the other with my right foot in a 5-2 defeat. At Teacher Training College in Reading, where I was studying P.E., five of us played in a knockout 5-a-side tournament on campus and we fielded a good ‘keeper, plus what was considered the best outfield group in the competition. Our opening round opponents paraded a weak team but had included a ringer, the Southern Universities goalie, who played superbly and kept the score to 0-0, meaning sudden-death penalties to settle the tie. We had our first spot-kick saved, the opponents missed theirs too but no-one wanted to take our second kick, so it was left to me with no choice but to shoot. I stepped forward and the ‘keeper flicked my hard, rising penalty over his crossbar with a dive left. Our ‘keeper, John Follett, a Millwall fan, was unable to save the opponents’ second kick and we had been beaten. I had failed from the ‘spot’ again.

After college, I played Sunday soccer for a number of years, yet wasn’t ever asked to take a penalty, although I often dreamed that I was taking one. The outcome was always the same: as I approached the ball awkwardly, my body simply wouldn’t position itself at the correct angle, nor would my left instep strike the ball properly and the whole action seemed to take place in slow motion, so that the kick failed even to reach the goal-line and I usually awoke then, shaking…

HALF-TIME DURING A TYPICAL MISTY SUNDAY MORNING GAME...

One cold, damp, muddy Sunday morning, the team I was playing for was being hammered by strong opposition and I was skipper, probably because I was the only fit person, who hadn’t been out drinking during the previous evening, had not puked before the game, or filled the stinking changing-room toilet with the remnants of a late-night curry. I was wearing new boots, which were not comfortable and despite playing at left-back, I took each kick-off with the striker, saying something like: “Plan Z this time?” We were 9-0 down by the time we were surprisingly awarded a penalty in the closing seconds of the match but everyone looked at everybody else in my team and then everybody else began slouching towards the half-way line. So it was that I trudged forward stealthily in my ill-fitting boots, placed the ball upon the muddy penalty-spot and turned to take a run-up. But then my mind became haunted and plagued by those awful slow-motion nightmares, sending a tingling feeling running down from my thighs to my calves. I remember shaking. The official whistled, I ran forward, unthinking now and struck a firm drive low to the ‘keeper’s left and although he dived that way, the ball sped into the bottom right corner of the net. The final whistle blew to signal a 9-1 defeat, no-one congratulated me and the others went off to the pub.

BUT I DID GET TO PLAY FOR THE ASTON VILLA OLD STARS TEAM...

I never missed another penalty but those dreams still haunt me today, where I cannot get my body in the correct position to strike the ball, I fail utterly to strike it well enough and the ball, in slow-motion, doesn’t even reach the goal at all. 

What a sad person...