Applauding the opposition goalie

We always give the opposition goalie a friendly hand when they come down to the Rookery. It's sometimes a lonely life as a keeper and they deserve a bit of respect don't they?

Only today I thought, **** it. This **** is going to waste time at every opportunity. So I got a good hefty 'boo' in early.

I encourage fans to consider in future whether we wouldn't rather just get the preliminaries over and start immediately barracking goalies who have achieved less than a Premier League/Champions League medal.

 

Maybe I'm too young (31) - why do we do this? It's just an instinctive thing for me...

 

I’m positioned nearer the opposition fans and I can tell you that Gomes receives no such pleasantries. All he gets from the backwards northerners is last century’s ‘oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, your **** ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh’

So I fully back your efforts and implore the 1881 to adopt them.

I booed Stoke at the end of the game today, but I think that other fans thought I was booing our players and now I have a shining black eye and I type this from a hospital bed!

 

You cheeky young scamp.

 

Who cares.

 

I've no respect for prem goalies - they're usually French & so-forth. Having for many yrs wandered what the point in Belgium was

 

Belgium exists solely to be the punchline in pointless country jokes.

 

Not true. Belgium is there to help stop the French ruining the Netherlands

 

We pinched this habit of clapping the other teams goalie from the scousers back in the 80's. The kop used to do it to give the illusion that they had a touch of class and sense of fair play when they had neither.

 

Yet I remember we did it in the sixties and seventies, I am certain.
In the days of Bert Slater, Micky Walker Andy Rankin etc., and I remember opposition fans doing the same for our aforementioned keepers.

 

I remember the Arsenal game in 2000 - they switched ends at kick-off so Seaman made his way down to the Rookery and got a very good reception from us all (back when he was England keeper and both he and the England team were yet to be despised by most supporters, like they are now).

About a minute or two in to the game, he messed up a back pass and got it tangled in his feet - Helguson nipped in, took the ball, and as he was about to go past him, Seaman just blatantly hacked him down for one of the most stonewall penalties and red cards you'll see. Of course, no foul given and with eleven men on the pitch they raced into an undeserved 0-3 half-time lead thanks to a bit of magic from Henry. Two Micah Hyde goals gave us hope in the second half, but ultimately it summed up a miserable season.

Anyway - the point of bringing this up is that after his great reception, Seaman was given a shed load of stick for the rest of the match, complete with as many imaginative and colourful adjectives as you'd imagine, having a name like he did/does. Perhaps it has taken 17 years for a bit of karma regarding that foul and the recent penalty decision.

 

It's sole purpose before was to provide a protective barrier to stop Germany invading France, but we all know how that panned out .

 

Think it's always been customary for fans to applaud opposition keepers.

My favourite baiting of keeper was to Peter Shilton when having personal affairs in the papers..... Tina, Tina and does your missus know you're here

Sadly in recent years with the demise of the terraces much of the humour has disappeared from football chants

 

Especially from wandering jokers.

 

F***ing hell! You're hard!

 

...and you appear to be a bit thick.

 

I've just given your post a withering look. I don't care who knows it.

 

I recall playing the unmentionable team up the M1 at their dog of a ground in the mid 80's. As Les Seeley approached the goal we applauded politely only for him to flash "V" signs back at us. If confirmation was ever needed they are all a bunch of ****wits.

 

Yeah this goes back to the 80's, nice touch i thought. It's funny though.. even though football crowds seemed to be 'rougher' back then there was also more mutual respect between clubs.

Here's Pat getting a welcome return..

 

Nice to see the pitch then looking like a billiard table......

 

Ha.. yeah pretty awful.

Pitches back then were never re-laid and over time areas like the goalmouths would become raised up with the sand top dressing they used to receive.

 

A famous bit of goalie baiting happened to Andy Goram when he played for Celtic. After the news emerged he suffered from a form of bi-polar, when he approached the goal in front of the Rangers fans at the next Old Firm game, the Rangers fans chanted "2 Andy Gorams, there's only 2 Andy Gorams". Harsh but witty.

 

And almost true. Except that he played for Rangers, and the Celtic fans sung the song.

Good story though.

 

Who was the Southampton goalie in the late 80s that took one of our players out (think it was Luther) in a game at the Vic? He didnt get clapped after that, should have been sent off but didnt even get a yellow if I recall correctly. Much snarling and gnashing of teeth in the Rouse Stand as it was called back then.

 

A truly revolting practice, especially more times than not the goalkeeper tends to be the biggest **** on the opposition team.

 

Goalies always a class apart. Otherwise in the 70's anyone else got 'Allo, allo, Watford Reject'.

 

What is it with keepers? Wicketkeepers are universally c***s as well. I was once cheered by my cricket teammates as if I had scored a century when a sidestep away from the wicket sent a complete tosser of a keeper sprawling to the ground and conceding four byes.

 

Must have been either Tim Flowers or John Burridge. Unless it was Peter Shilton....!

 

Not true it only exists to make waffles , apparently 98% of waffles are made there

 

2 of them played for England, the other one signed for (but didn't play for all) 33 clubs

 

Burridge, thats the guy, thanks Jossy. If I remember correctly he was an awful keeper and had a reputation for being dirty.

 

Yes he rightfully received a burridge of criticism.

I like the polite clapping welcome of the oppo keeper. Confuses the hell out of them ("are they pleased I'm playing because they think I'm s***......perhaps I am s***, ....is there someone behind me ? .....no, so wtf") and if they have a decent bone in them they will let in a couple to cheer us up a bit of we are getting hammered.

 

Well spotted...mind you, both sets of fans could have sung it to their own Andy Goram I suppose...