Full description please
From the man himself!
“By the time we went to Highbury in my fourth game for the club, I had already scored my first Coventry goal, a 25-yarder in a 3-1 win against West Ham. I didn’t think I would score a better goal that season. I was wrong! We were already winning 1-0 against Arsenal and were cutting them to pieces when, in the second period, I picked the ball up just inside our half and set off towards their goal. In my mind’s eye, I can remember beating Alan Ball about three times on that run. Funny how your memory plays tricks, as match reports reveal that I beat him only the once, although he did try to bring me down. I dribbled past McLintock and Rice and then rounded the goalkeeper Barnett before slipping the ball between two defenders on the line and into the net. As I ran away celebrating, Colin Stein caught me up and shouted, ‘Why did you go and panic?’ It was an ironic comment as my finish was so cool! A goal like that is pure instinct. When I set off on the run, I wasn’t thinking I would score. The goal simply happened because I beat so many opponents and had no team-mate better placed for me to pass to. Steiny said to me later, ‘If the goal hadn’t been there, you’d have carried on with the ball into the crowd and up the terrace at the Clock End.’ I didn’t even realise that it was such a special goal until I saw the reaction later. In fact, one minute after my goal, I almost repeated the feat but Barnett saved after a long mazy dribble. There are a few grainy seconds of the goal available to see on YouTube and I think that the London Weekend Television cameras were there to cover the game, but for some reason they didn’t release footage of the complete move, which is a shame. Joe Mercer described the goal as the best he had ever seen. Considering Joe’s longevity and his standing within the game, this was a lovely compliment. Derek Henderson, chief football writer for the Coventry Evening Telegraph, said that it was a goal of ‘sheer poetry’. Perhaps the most unusual recognition came a good few years after the event. A young Nick Hornby was at the game and he wrote about the goal and the emotions that it aroused within him in his book (later turned into a film) Fever Pitch. Nick describes my goal quite well, but he is really looking back at his 15-year-old self and is a bit ashamed at his anger with, and desire to do violence to, the Coventry fans celebrating at the Clock End while he watched on from the North Bank. Also watching on was Scotland manager Tommy Docherty. As well as the goal, I had played really well that day, so I certainly hadn’t done my international chances any harm. Unfortunately, within a few weeks, Docherty left his Scotland role to take over as manager of Manchester United and never picked another international squad. I felt that if I continued to play the way I was then, whoever the new Scotland manager was, he couldn’t ignore me.” Excerpt From Hutch, Hard Work and Belief Tommy Hutchison and Kevin Shannon
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No 1 City goal for me.
