Delia Smith and 10 Other Crazy Football Moments
Sometimes, you just have to do what you think is right to help your team win a match.
Ten years ago on Saturday, Norwich City joint-majority shareholder Delia Smith responded to her relegation-threatened team losing a two-goal lead to go in at the break level with Manchester City by heading down onto the pitch. Microphone in hand, she then delivered the following infamous words:
"A message for the best football supporters in the world: We need a 12th man here. Where are you? Where are you? Let's be 'avin' you! Come on!
"
The response? A last-minute Robbie Fowler winner for the visitors, and Norwich were eventually relegated.
Delia’s intervention is far from the craziest thing we’ve seen in football, though. In fact, the proceeding stories make it look quite normal.
Dmitry Pietrman Becomes the World’s First Owner-Manager-Photographer
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What do you do when pesky rules and regulations get in the way of appointing yourself as the manager of the club you’ve just invested in? Well, you find a way around them, obviously.
Ukrainian-American businessman Dmitry Pietrman was determined to do just that after he bought almost a quarter of Racing Santander’s shares in 2003, so after appointing Chuchi Cos—a man with actual football experience—as manager, Pietrman picked up accreditation as either a photographer or journalist and stationed himself behind the dugout at Santander’s El Sardinero stadium (pictured) in order to shout out instructions to Cos.
The bizarre episode lasted just a few months, sadly.
Fan Interrupts His Own Minute’s Silence
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The minute’s silence has become the most accepted way for football clubs to mourn the passing of former players, well-known fans or respected figures, as well as pay tribute to global tragedies.
It can often be a sad, somewhat poignant sight to see and hear a whole stadium of people falling quiet, which is what happened at non-league Congleton Town in 1993, as the Cheshire-based club paid tribute to their oldest fan, who was believed to have died.
However, as reported by Virgin Media, the minute’s silence was soon rudely interrupted when the fan walked into the Booth Street ground and took his seat to watch the match.
Talk about a miraculous comeback.
Fulham's Bad Michael Jackson Statue
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Yep, this is still weird.
His attendance at a Fulham versus Wigan Athletic game in 1999 was apparently enough for Michael Jackson to be considered a fan of the west Londoners by club owner and friend Mohamed Al-Fayed, who initially planned to put a bizarre statue of Jackson outside Harrod’s. However, after the Cottagers' owner sold the store, he opted to place the statue outside Fulham’s Craven Cottage ground in 2011.
It lasted two head-scratching years until it was removed in September 2013, and Fulham were relegated at the end of the season.
There's a Parachutist on the Pitch, They Think It's All Over...
4 of 10Pitch invasions aren’t that rare, and they can sometimes even be pretty funny. Sometimes, though, they are just downright weird.
It’s September 2013, and the English Conference match between Salisbury City and Chester City is just heading toward a crucial moment when—well, you can see for yourself.
Colonel Gaddafi's Son Pitches Up at Perugia
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We could have filled this list with bizarre behaviour from the former Perugia owner Luciano Gaucci, but surely his strangest decision was the move to sign the son of Libya's former leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2003.
Al-Saadi Gaddafi, it turned out, really wasn’t very good—despite apparently having the calming influences of Diego Maradona and Ben Johnson around him according to the Daily Telegraph.
He made one substitute’s appearance in Serie A, failed a drugs test and then left. Who could have foreseen that?
An Actual Cricket Score in the Madagascan League
6 of 10149-0.
That’s a pretty decent first 20 overs in the ongoing Cricket World Cup, but it’s also the world record for the biggest win ever recorded in a football match.
In 2002, Madagascan side SO l’Emyrne were so upset about a refereeing decision that cost them in a big match, they responded by protesting in their following game against AS Adema. And how.
The l’Emyrne players deliberately scored 149 own goals to make the match a complete farce, with the referee allowing the result to stand and ensuring they got their own little piece of football history.
The Referee's a Drinker
7 of 10We all like to criticise referees from time to time—or if you’re Jose Mourinho, all of the time—but for all of their faults, and there are a lot of them, at least we know they are trying to do their best.
Well, most of them are.
In 2008, Belarusian ref Sergei Shmolik—a veteran of several international matches—turned up at a domestic game having allegedly enjoyed a few too many refreshments.
The “tired and emotional” Shmolik was eventually led off the pitch, no doubt looking for the nearest 24-hour kebab shop.
Mwepu Ilunga Enters World Cup Folklore
8 of 10The World Cup is a chance for reputations to be forged, lasting legacies to be created and greatness to be achieved. And Zaire’s Mwepu Ilunga has done all of that.
By bizarrely kicking away a Brazil free-kick in the 1974 tournament in West Germany, Zaire defender Ilunga cemented his place on highlight reels, “best of” moments and comedy clip shows forevermore.
Years later, Ilunga claimed to the BBC that his bizarre act was an attempt to get the referee to send him off in protest at what he saw as poor decisions, but for the rest of us, it is still just pretty funny.
Manchester United's 12th Man
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At first glance there doesn’t look to be anything wrong with Manchester United’s team photo for their Champions League quarter-final at Bayern Munich in 2001.
There’s Roy Keane, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and the deadly strike partnership of Andy Cole and Dwight Yorke, but there’s also Karl Power, a serial prankster who had wandered on to the Munich pitch in his kit and lined up next to the players.
Looking a little like chubby Eric Cantona, Power only seems to have been spotted by Jaap Stam in the photo above, and he quite understandably made a quick getaway after being caught in the Dutchman’s death stare.
Ball Boy Bags a Goal in Brazil
10 of 10We’ll finish with a bizarre moment from Brazil in which a ball boy proved to be the unlikely hero for Santacruzense.
They were 1-0 down in the closing moments of a match against Atletico Sorocaba in 2006, and their hopes of an equaliser looked to have gone when a late effort hit the side-netting.
However, a cheeky ball boy placed the ball over the line instead of returning it to the goalkeeper, and with referee Silvia Regina de Oliveira having turned away for a moment after the shot had hit the side-netting, she presumed that seeing the ball over the line meant that it was in fact a goal.
The equaliser was awarded and the 1-1 draw stood. Pretty understandably, Oliveira and her assistant received an immediate suspension.
