By Chris Wright
Over in the French amateur leagues, Sunday League side Marly-Gomont managed to get themselves pasted 20-0 by opponents Tupigny a weekend or two ago.
However, it has since emerged that there were several mitigating factors as per the otherwise embarrassing scoreline.
According to French regional news site L’Aisne Nouvelle, Marly-Gomont lost their goalkeeper with just 25 minutes of the game gone when he received a phone call to inform him that one of his cows had gone into labour.
The ‘keeper, a farmer by day, had to be subbed off so he could return home to oversee his heifer giving birth. Not yarn you tend to hear every day!
Given that Marly-Gomont were coming into the game with a heavily depleted side that had been ravaged by a whopping 14 injuries to first-choice players (four of their players were only 16-years-old), the departing ‘keeper had to be replaced between the sticks by their one and only sub: the club’s 61-year-old president.
Already 5-0 down at the time of the substitution, Marly-Gomont’s veteran reserve ‘keeper went on to concede another five goals before half-time before shipping a further ten in the second half!
In truth it was a complete and utter nightmare from start to finish as far as Marly-Gomont were concerned, but L’Aisne wrap their match report up with this heart-warming line:
“At the end of the match, the Tupigny players congratulated their opponents for their exemplary behaviour.
“That’s the beauty of football.”
Lovely stuff.