Greatest Own Goals of All-Time No.1
Own goals are part and parcel of the game. If your team scores one, it is infuriating and embarrassing. But if the opposition score an own goal for your team, the cause an extra cheer as your fans mock the opponent who was unfortunate enough to put the ball past his own goalkeeper.
There have been some famous own goals over the years and as last week’s Iconic Moment in Football showed, they can be a matter of life and death.
To show that I am not showing any bias towards my beloved Arsenal, the first in this new series was scored by an Arsenal player.
Greatest Own Goals of All-Time No.1 – Lee Dixon for Arsenal vs Coventry City, September 1991
This was a spectacular own goal. It was scored a few minutes into the start of the home game against Coventry City in a league game on 7th September 1991.
Arsenal had won the League Championship four months earlier and hadn’t lost at home for seventeen months. They had gone the whole of their Championship winning campaign unbeaten at Highbury.
A couple of minutes into the game, a Coventry defender took a long goal kick that went all the way to Lee Dixon in the right back position. He was a good thirty yards out from his goal, took a couple of touches before hitting a high backpass to David Seaman. Sadly for Dixon and Arsenal, he did this without looking where the goalkeeper was.
This was the last season where backpasses were allowed to be picked up by goalkeepers. Seaman tried in vain to reach for the ball but it sailed high over his head and into the back of the net.
Highbury was sent into a stunned silence. Peter Ndlovu capitalised on a rare mistake from Arsenal’s David O’Leary to give Coventry a second goal after the break. Tony Adams got one back for Arsenal but it wasn’t enough and the game finished 2-1 to the visitors.
It was Arsenal’s third defeat in their first seven games, hardly the form of reigning Champions.
Ian Wright was brought in from Crystal Palace for a club record £2.5 million. He would go on and score 24 league goals by the end season.
Arsenal would go on and finish the season in fourth position after a late resurgence in the league. They only lost one game in the whole of 1992, scoring goals for fun.
About Author
