BBC SPORT | Football | Eng Prem | May the farce be with you



By John May BBC Sport Online

As Oscar Wilde might have said, to score one own goal is unfortunate, to score two is careless.

So what does that make Sunderland, who conceded three?

Their use of the self-destruct button against Charlton plumbed new depths of clumsiness and cack-handedness.

Own goals: bad luck or bad defending?
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Begin from the starting-point that, unless he plays for Stade Olympique l'Emyrne (more of them later!), no player scores an own goal deliberately, and Sunderland managed to cross the invisible line from sympathy to ridicule.

THE WEEKEND BUNGLERS
Stephen Wright (Sunderland)
Michael Proctor (Sunderland)
Michael Proctor (again)
Kenny Cunningham (Birmingham City)
Phil Gilchrist (WBA)

All that was missing from a circus-like spate of three own goals in seven minutes were red noses, outsize shoes and scorers named Joey, Coco and Boko.

On a Saturday when players suffered severe navigational problems, no less than five own goals created a Premiership record.

Robbo on 'Slack Cats'

There are own goals and own goals and they rate differently on the Sympathy Scale.

Top of the sympathy shop is the Unwitting Deflection, most commonly committed by a defender trying to carry out his job but only succeeding in stranding his goalkeeper like Robinson Crusoe.

At number two is the Unintentional Run-in. In this, the ball rebounds from the goalkeeper or the woodwork and hits a defender tracking back towards his own goal and unable to get out of the way.

The Hapless Header earns some sympathy, but is already approaching the area where questions are asked.

To this day the most memorable hapless header remains Everton defender Sandy Brown's full-length dive to bullet the ball into his own net in the Merseyside derby.

Sunderland manager Howard Wilkinson
Howard Wilkinson does not know whether to laugh or cry

When you reach the Communication Breakdown, the scale is now firmly tipped away from the accidental and towards the clumsy.

The Communication Breakdown comes in various guises.

There's the ever-popular mix-up with back-passes, and also ignoring a goalkeeper's call, as Kenny Cunningham did by taking the ball out of keeper Ian Bennett's clutches to steer the ball inside his own post at Bolton.

At the bottom end is the sort of own goal scored by Leeds' Dominic Matteo against Chelsea.

It is almost unforgiveable that a Premiership defender should so favour one foot that his ham-footed attempt to clear an already dangerously bobbling ball left him looking like a one-legged man in a backside-kicking contest.

That a top-flight international defender was so untrustworthy of his weaker foot deserved little sympathy and he got none.

Like Lee-Harvey Oswald in a conspiracy theory, Sunderland's Michael Proctor was the wrong man, in the wrong place at the wrong times.

DOUBLE TROUBLE
Michael Proctor (Sunderland)
Jamie Carragher (Liverpool)

While Proctor deserves sympathy, the Big Top antics were symptomatic of Sunderland's hapless defending.

But if Sunderland's own-goal treble stands them alone in the Premiership, they are minor league compared to Madagascar outfit Stade Olympique l'Emyrne.

After a spat with the referee they decided to turn their game with AS Adema into a farce.

They followed their coach's orders to the letter and put 149 goals into their own net.

And Howard Wilkinson thinks he came off badly!

The own goal farce in Madagascar


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