Watching this next clip, you will start to believe that there is a dark force at work here. The defending team must be using some kind of magnets so that their goal just cannot be penetrated. It could also be some invisible "force" that will just not allow the ball to go on target. Alternatively, you could just say that the attacking team are just one of the unluckiest teams on the planet not to score. Nice to see the loyal support of the fans too - who start booing them after this!

England versus West Germany, 1966 World Cup Final - we all know that the ball did not cross the line.
England versus Germany, 2010 World Cup - we all know that Frank Lampard's shot was at least a yard over the line and was not given.
In the following clip, I have no idea what the nationality is of this referee but I assume that he is German seeing as this is an all German match between Duisburg and Frankfurt. More interestingly I would love to know what drugs the referee was on because what you are about to see even makes the Lampard goal look questionable in comparison to this one - and the end result of this is the other way around! If it was a tennis match not even John McEnroe would be claiming that chalk dust blew up, even the reaction of the crowd should tell the referee that it was not a goal. But once again the official is the only one in the stadium that sees it is a goal. Actually, I want to agree with him - it was clearly over the line, no doubts - who needs goal line technology?

Whether you are a player, manager or a fan - we have all had bad days. We may have lost a game that we think we should have won, maybe we feel an injustice in the score, a bad decision or just plainly robbed of a result and we deserved better.

On other days we may look back and just realise that we were not good enough and end up getting well beaten. But we turn up next week and the week after and persevere and hope that things will get better - and sometimes they do.

So when you have had one of those bad days you should watch the next piece of video and think of Madron from the Cornish Mining League. In 2009-10 their first team had been promoted to the 1st Division as 2nd Division champions winning 26 of their 28 league games, but unfortunately for them many of the players that earned that promotion decided to play elsewhere the following season. It left the team in a right mess and struggling to get enough players out to even start a game. 

By the end of the 2010/11 season they had lost every single game - and had a goal difference of (are you ready for this?) -395! Their worst moment came in November when they faced Illogan Reserves and with no regular goalkeeper and only seven players in total they lost 55-0! That works out at conceding a goal at about every 1 minute and 40 seconds of the game throughout the entire 90 minutes.

What I found even more alarming about this (and talking from some personal experience) was to find out that at the same time as the first team were letting in 55 goals, the reserve team also had a match which included a full compliment of players plus two substitutes! The Madron team secretary confirmed that he did not want the first team to take players out of the reserves because "they were doing quite well in their division at the time". Is he having a laugh or what? Can you imagine a professional league team with a long injury list being told by their reserve team not to nick any of their players for a game? How many people worldwide do you think know how Manchester United did in their last match? Compare that to how many people know how their reserves did - there is only a handful of people that care about the reserves!

Even the opposing Illogan team felt that the game was not only a farce but a complete waste of time and an embarrassment to the league. Another crazy statistic about Madron was that they were not even bottom of the league well into the season because another team called Storm had also lost all of their matches and had three points deducted to leave them on -3. They finally clawed their way past Madron to finish with 4 points of which 6 were earned in the two games against their struggling rivals.

I believe that the Guinness Book of Records shows Bon Accords 0-36 defeat in Scotland as the world record for a defeat but they may have to think again. However Madron themselves are nowhere close to reports of other crazy score-lines. Madagascan side, Stade Olympique de L’Emyrne, put the ball in their own net 149 times in a league match against Adema in protest at a refereeing decision. In a local Yugoslav division (before the countries break-up) it was reported that on the final day of a season the top two - tied on points and nothing between them in goal difference either, won their respective games and both scored well over a hundred goals each in the process. They and their opponents were all slung out of the competition!

It apparently started in the swamps of Finland but its popularity has seen it grow and now there is even a world cup!

We are talking about swamp soccer and it looks like a load of fun - I am sure that we could get a team up for it!
Teams such as Swampdoria, Mudchester United and Real Mudrid already participate so I have to start thinking of some other classic puns to use - thinking - Muddlesfield, Muddlesbrough - I need a bit more thinking time.

The next Swamp Soccer World Cup takes place in Inverness on 23-24 June - here is a link to the official web site for the tournament. Having looked at it I see a few more team names such as Hurt of Mudlothian and Blackbum Rovers!

This message goes out to all adults that play the beautiful game and I am talking about even the best of professional players. 

The following video shows a little girl scoring a crazy own goal - we can laugh about it but in this case we are laughing with her and not at her as I am sure that she will see the funny side when she gets a little older if is she has not already.

Therefore she is 100% forgiven for this own goal - in fact she does not even have to ask for forgiveness at all! But when I see top professionals scoring own goals (and you will see plenty of them on this blog in the future no doubt) then the ones that I am highlighting are the ones that we are laughing AT and not with. These are the goals that cost managers the sack and make the teams fans have a miserable weekend.

However - without either this game would not be the same - so we will take what we can get whether it is a small child or a Brazilian international and laugh the same and review the consequences individually afterwards.