Scotland V Rest of the World at Craven Cottage |
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Local freelance Photographer David Higgs reviews Socccer Aid
A windy rain swept Craven Cottage couldn’t dampen the spirits of the crowd, eager to catch glimpses of their heroes battling in this ‘friendly’ warm up match. I’m sure I could hear the distant sounds of the droning bagpipes as 11 William Wallaces lined up against the Rest of the World team consisting of many legendary names in football. My predictions of a Rest of the World victory were soon dashed when Gordon Durie opened the scoring against a hapless Patrick Kielty within 2 minutes. The ever young Gary Mcallister soon added a second goal in what was looking to be a one sided game.
Having been a spectator for 25 minutes Andy Goram warmed his gloves in the Scottish goal with a great save from the Chelsea old boy Gus Poyet. The fifth goal game courtesy of a rare Lothar Matthaus mistake. The usually reliable German miskicked a clearance into the oncoming Jackson who rifled the ball past Kielty. The ex-Scottish internationals were showing more energy and commitment than their current international counterparts. Walter Smith should be thinking about bringing a few of these players out of retirement with a display like this. Minutes later Goram produced another gravity defying save to again deny the luckless Poyet. As the ROW stars looked like producing a Rocky Balboa against the odds fightback, Gordon Durie breaks free from the defence and coolly passes the ball into the net for his hat trick and Scotland’s sixth goal. The scoreboard now resembled the Scottish national cricket teams best score with the match looking well and truly over.The closing stages of the 1 st half had one final dramatic piece of action when Poyet appeared to trip over his own laces in the Scottish penalty area. The referee blew for a penalty. The crowd favourite, Zola, who had been entertaining everybody with his genius skills, stepped up to easily slot the ball past Andy Goram. 6-1.
I thought the rain had clouded my vision when I saw Ally McCoist run past Ben Johnson the Canadian athlete who ran the 100m in a world record time of 9.79, as if he was standing still. Kielty who was now growing in confidence expertly saved the resulting shot. The crowd was cheering ironically everytime Kielty managed to catch the ball.McCoist, under the watchful eye of his fellow ITV pundits soon added a second to his goal tally with a well taken goal just inside the area. 7-1 It was again Gianfranco Zola’s magical feet that created the ROW’s second goal. After skipping past several lunging challenges he proceeded to curl the ball from 18 yards out into the far corner of the goal. The Italian master has still got his touch and this performance would grace any great stage. The final whistle blows and the scoreboard unbelievably reads ‘ Scotland 7 – 3 Rest of World’. As the players are due to come back onto the pitch to sign autographs, Craven Cottage is engulfed in an Arctic style downpour of hailstone and rain. June 1, 2006
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