Golden Goal: Brian McClair for Manchester United v Sheffield Wednesday (1991)

11/19/2024 08:00 AM

It may have been an absolute mess, but McClair's two-yard wonder strike was a window into the human soul

The reality of corporeality is a hard thing to process; just look at what we look like! But somehow, the agglomeration of weird shapes and freaky textures that comprises us responds to instructions from the quivering lump of jelly that really comprises us, and thus does football eventuate. Jesse Armstrong once said that if a joke isn't working, one thing to try is sticking it an enclosed space so "the characters are up in each other's physicality" and such is our beautiful game: a chaotic, hilarious gumbo of bodies controlled by brains that are fickle, stressed and distractible, having been socialised into the fanatical pursuit of an arbitrary aim to which has been ascribed inherent moral value.

Many of the most preposterous events I've seen in my life have been football-related: consider John Terry arranging for himself to take a Champions League-winning penalty and adjusting his captain's armband en route, then slipping and crying, or Steven Gerrard coming on for his last appearance against Manchester United after spending the entirety of the first half being wound up by the away end, then getting himself sent off 38 seconds later. For balance, I was also at the Stadium of Light on the last day of 2011-12, but we all have our own favourites: those moments when players, asked to process footballing obsession multiplied by the human condition, simply cannot.