VIVA LA COCKROAH
An excellent childhood football anecdote donated by Chris
"....This reminds me of Primary School when and me and my mates played 5-a-side football, which back then seemed to be every night of the week. We had this routine that became a bit of a running joke. When you scored your first goal of the night you had to choose the most impressive or powerful member of the animal kingdom you could think of, and run back up the pitch shouting 'The Lions scores!!' etc. That kind of thing really tickles a shool boy (probably not these days though). So, that was your chosen animal for the night, and you had to stick with it - shouting 'The Lion scores!!' after every goal you scored that evening. It was amusing waiting to see which animal would be chosen after everyones first goal of the evening.
Being young at the time (and some of us not being the most imaginative), all the good animals ran out fast. If you were the poor guy who was maybe the 8th or 9th to score his first goal of the night there wasn't much left in the animal kingdom to choose from. The Lion, the Tiger, the Shark, the Bear etc. had all gone by that time. 9th and 10th had to take animals that were still great, but they were certainly no Lion or Tiger, and they were never anyones favourite animal. So, although it was only a bit of fun, you still tried hard to bag your first goal of the night as early as possible, so you could lay claim to the name of your favourite animal before someone else did.
I can remember the following like it was yesterday. One evening this guy, who was pretty bad at football and who never ever scored, but played week in week out, miraculously scored the very first goal of the night -- it was a screamer as I recall. Dazzled by the simple fact this clogger had scored, but more amazed by the fact it was the first goal of the night, and a great first goal at that, we waited for what seemed like an eternity before he made his choice. For each of those timestretched milliseconds every last one of us was secretly desperate he wouldn't choose our favourite animal. To our amazement, and soon to our amusement, he wheeled back up the pitch screaming: 'The cockroach scores, the cockroach!! Can no-one stop the cockroach!!!?'. From that evening on the first person to score each night would, without fail, choose the cockroach as their animal. There's probably a moral in there somewhere?"
"....This reminds me of Primary School when and me and my mates played 5-a-side football, which back then seemed to be every night of the week. We had this routine that became a bit of a running joke. When you scored your first goal of the night you had to choose the most impressive or powerful member of the animal kingdom you could think of, and run back up the pitch shouting 'The Lions scores!!' etc. That kind of thing really tickles a shool boy (probably not these days though). So, that was your chosen animal for the night, and you had to stick with it - shouting 'The Lion scores!!' after every goal you scored that evening. It was amusing waiting to see which animal would be chosen after everyones first goal of the evening.
Being young at the time (and some of us not being the most imaginative), all the good animals ran out fast. If you were the poor guy who was maybe the 8th or 9th to score his first goal of the night there wasn't much left in the animal kingdom to choose from. The Lion, the Tiger, the Shark, the Bear etc. had all gone by that time. 9th and 10th had to take animals that were still great, but they were certainly no Lion or Tiger, and they were never anyones favourite animal. So, although it was only a bit of fun, you still tried hard to bag your first goal of the night as early as possible, so you could lay claim to the name of your favourite animal before someone else did.
I can remember the following like it was yesterday. One evening this guy, who was pretty bad at football and who never ever scored, but played week in week out, miraculously scored the very first goal of the night -- it was a screamer as I recall. Dazzled by the simple fact this clogger had scored, but more amazed by the fact it was the first goal of the night, and a great first goal at that, we waited for what seemed like an eternity before he made his choice. For each of those timestretched milliseconds every last one of us was secretly desperate he wouldn't choose our favourite animal. To our amazement, and soon to our amusement, he wheeled back up the pitch screaming: 'The cockroach scores, the cockroach!! Can no-one stop the cockroach!!!?'. From that evening on the first person to score each night would, without fail, choose the cockroach as their animal. There's probably a moral in there somewhere?"
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