The sporting domain has a tendency to produce the absurd. We rarely question these anomalies. For instance, it’s perfectly normal to play cricket for six hours a day for five days, only to shake hands, pull up stumps and call it a draw.
Or when, in the middle of a session of cross-country skiing, it is a completely natural act to lie down, pull out a rifle and check to make sure that you’re still a crack shot.
These are just some of the quirks that make up the sporting landscape and we generally don’t give them even a second thought.
But one of the nuances of sport I’m having great difficulty, well, celebrating is the most Shakespearean conundrum to ever inflict a Premier League footballer. To celebrate or not to celebrate?
That is the question one faces after scoring against a former club.
The anti-celebration was made famous by the great Denis Law who, after 11 years and 171 goals for his beloved Manchester United, scored a cheeky back-heel goal against them after switching to Manchester City in 1974.
At the time of scoring, Law believed the goal would send United down to the old second division.
He walked back to halfway with a look on his face that would have been more suited had he just been diagnosed with testicular cancer.
Today’s players are rarely faced with the conflicting emotions of Law.
The current climate of club merry-go-round means that a player’s focus is centered more around the paycheck and their own self interests, rather than devotion to their badge.
Yet many of them still refuse to celebrate goals against former clubs, a phenomena often made worse by vomit-inducing PR-charades in the lead-up to the game. They inevitably promise us that a new recruit – in the off chance that they score against their former club – will most certainly not look happy about it.
Take Robbie Keane, for instance.
The only surprise with his recent loan move to Aston Villa was that he didn’t describe it as “a dream come true”, a phrase he seemingly used in one form or another to describe his moves to Coventry, Inter, Leeds, Spurs, Liverpool, Spurs (again), West Ham, Celtic and LA Galaxy.
As a young chap growing up in Dublin, Robbie Keane must have had the kind of dreams you get following a three course Peyote dinner in the middle of a Mexican desert.
But as Robbie slotted two goals against his very first club Wolverhampton, including the winner which pushed his former club even deeper into the relegation zone, he chose not to celebrate. Instead he traded his usual routine of cartwheels and show-boating for a largely unconvincing display of excitement suppression as he jogged back to halfway.
So it was your boyhood club Robbie, we get that. But what are we meant to think? What a stand-up bloke. He must have real character. Sure he stuck that ball into the goal like a prison-fashioned shiv to the guts of the team that taught him precisely how to do so, but at least he looked solemn and regretful when he did it.
The crowd at Molineux clearly wasn’t taking the bait; they continued to boo his every touch until the final whistle.
Maybe if Keane wasn’t such a footballing mercenary, who goes through clubs like an angry golfer, they’d have given his display of good character a little more credit. But the truth of the matter is that every time Robbie has had a sniff of the almighty green throughout his career he has been off in a flash with no show of loyalty. Gimme a break Robbie.
And what to make of Scott Sinclair’s quality finish against his former club Chelsea a few weeks back?
He scored a cracker then immediately held his hand up apologetically as his Swansea teammates mobbed him, leaving Sinclair looking like an unwilling participant in a game of stacks-on. What was this apology all about?
Sinclair played a total of five games for the Chelsea first team and failed to score a goal. Maybe that’s what he was apologising for.
As a Chelsea player Sinclair was loaned out to a number of other clubs and was passed around like a Manchester United groupie who’d wandered into one of Anderson and Ronaldo’s infamous parties.
So due to these extensive loan deals, if Sinclair decides he is not going to celebrate goals against former clubs he has to strike Plymouth, QPR, Charlton, Crystal Palace, Birmingham City and Wigan off the celebration list as he played more games for those clubs than he did in the Chelsea blue.
Some players decide to confuse the matter further by politicising the situation.
Nicholas Anelka, who’s also had his share of clubs will celebrate goals against Liverpool and Manchester City but will not celebrate goals against Bolton and Arsenal. Likewise Carlos Tevez – who takes great delight in knocking one in against United (and I dare say against City when he gets his chance in the future) – does not celebrate goals against West Ham.
Are these statements against the fans? Or against the board members of the club? Are they just ill-advised protests suggesting mistreatment?
It’s all a bit convoluted and perhaps quite difficult to regulate; some of these journeyman probably need a collection of post-it notes on their locker to remind them who they can and can’t raise their arms against should they score.
While Tevez certainly knew how to stir up Gary Neville and the Old Trafford crowd with his celebrations in sky blue, there is one goal celebration against a former club that truly stands out in recent times – Adebayor topping his length-of-the-field-ice-cream-sundae sprint with a large-serving-of-nuts slide in front of the Arsenal fans who were given their just desserts. It may well go down in football folklore as the biggest and most blatant finger to a former club we’ve ever seen.
Whilst he issued an apology afterwards, there is little doubt that a celebration like that was good for football. It was a natural and spontaneous outburst, which is everything a goal celebration should be.
With Bobby Zamora facing his old club Fulham this weekend, all will have a watchful eye on how he tackles this Shakespearean dilemma should he find the net. Let’s hope he chooses to play the villain Adebayor-style as opposed to the transparent hero act seen from the likes of Robbie Keane. After all, there is nothing we love more than a bit of theatre in football.
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