History, drama and the ultimate football quiz

A bit of debate regarding the de-ethnicising or re-ethnicising of football in this country is great, but we don’t want a full scale civil war, so I thought I might take the tone down a bit.

I flicked through the channels and found a show called Time Team.

It’s a kind of archaeological reality show where they pick up a nondescript lump of rock and wheel out an expert who will declare “this fossilised piece of dog excrement indicates this was the site of an early Saxon fishing village where human sacrifice was performed in the town square every second Tuesday.”

My viewing was disturbed by the sound of swearing from my teenage daughter. I rushed in to see what was wrong only to realise that she was rehearsing scenes from a play. She is studying acting – living with a method actor can be unsettling.

Then I thought, can I combine the two themes of history and drama?

So I have come up with a football history quiz, with each clue in the form of a dramatic scene. Your task is to guess the incident that the scene refers to.

Scene 1
Wife on phone: I have been waiting for over three hours for you to come home.
Man on phone: Yes but I have been waiting 32 years for this. Hang on. Yesssss!
Random spectator: I’ll have what he’s having.

Scene 2 – in my house this year
Me: Please don’t go back to bed, these semis only happen once every four years. What can I offer you to stay up and watch?
Daughter: How about you give me $20 each time the red and black team scores.
Me: Sure

(Later)
Daughter: Where are you going?
Me: the ATM

Scene 3 – bar in Hamburg, this year
Player 1: Barmaid, elf bier bitte! Nein, just pour it straight into zis big stein!
Player 2: Pass it to golden gloves, he won’t drop it.
Golden Gloves: (CLANG!) oops.

Scene 4 – a dormitory suburb of Munich, 2006
Son: You promised we were having calamari tonight.
Mother: Sorry leibschen. I am cleaning up at the TAB with zis calamari. One mistake and then I’ll serve him up with garlic and chilli.

Scene 5 – Sydney Football Stadium, recently
Son: Do you think he will score it Dad?
Father: He wasn’t voted the country’s best ever player for nothing. I know he’s had a few knocks to the head but he can do this in his sleep.
(Crowd roars with laughter)
Son: Did he score?
Father: I don’t know.
Son: Did he miss?
Father: I don’t know either.

Scene 6 – a shop in Birmingham, England 1895
Mick: Hi Gov, boots all done then?
Shop owner: Yes lad. Just get them from that cabinet, but mind you don’t knock the trophy.
Mick: What trophy?
Shop owner: What the…

Scene 7 – a World Cup group match, Stuttgart
Son: Dad, I know why they call him the Spider?
Father: Why’s that son?
Son: He just sort of hangs in his web and when the ball hits the back of the net he pounces on it.

Scene 8 – a Sydney garbage dump
Bum 1: What have you found?
Bum 2: Some kind of trophy. It’s got some writing on it.
Bum 1: What does it say?
Bum 2: I think it’s written in ethnic. It says Yugal 1962.
Bum 1: Put it away, the FFA won’t want that found.

There it is, eight clues, one for each Guangzho outfield player that finished the first leg match.

The rules are: only one answer per comment but feel free to put your own twist on the events or add your own clues.

The prize? Your choice of a one-on-one goalkeeping session with Zelko Kalac or a penalty taking seminar by Harry Kewell.

Quiz done hopefully your heart rate might have come down a notch. Now it’s time to get back on the angry pills.