our particular brand of madness

"Across the globe, we are told, at any one moment just so many people are being born, or dying, or procreating or staring down the barrel of a gun. I like to think that at any one moment somewhere in the world one of football's ordinary punters is scoring an extraordinary goal. It has happened to everyone who has played the game. On some (perhaps lone) occasion you have sent the ball thundering past the helpless keeper from 25 yards, or else you have met the ball with head (eyes closed, of course) and sent it like a bullet into the top corner of the net. Not every sport can offer such a thrill. However often you go to your municipal swimming baths you will not chance upon someone establishing a new world record. Yet, by the law of averages, every Sunday, some bepaunched and breathless punter from publand will strike home the ball in a way that the peerless Pele or the mighty Bobby Charlton could not have bettered. It can happen anywhere and, if you wait long enough, will happen almost everywhere. This is the beauty of football: a little bit of the sublime, rather more of the ridiculous and quite a lot of everything in between."

- Chris Pierson, "The Golden Year: St Albans City 1971/2" from My Favourite Year, A Collection of New Football Writing, edited by Nick Hornby