Fair play to Johnson after 'bizarre goal'

Have you ever dreamt you kicked off and then dribbled past the whole of the opposition as though they were standing still to put the ball in the net and score? Well if you were Plymouth Argyle's Steve Crawford you might have thought your dream had come true on Tuesday night, when he did just that against Yeovil Town in the League Cup.

However, it wasn't quite Crawford's dazzling dribbling skills that allowed him to waltz through the Glovers and score an equaliser without being tackled. It was Yeovil boss Gary Johnson's fair sense of play after his side had scored an 'accidental goal'.

Lee Johnson (son of manager Gary) had tried to kick the ball back to Plymouth goalkeeper Luke McCormick after the Pilgrims keeper had received treatment following a stoppage. Unfortunately McCormick wasn't in the goal and the ball sailed into the net to give Yeovil a 1-0 lead.

It was then that Gary Johnson told his players to stand aside and allow the Pilgrims to score their 'bizarre' equaliser. The Glovers boss was rewarded for his fairness as his side went on to win 3-2 in extra-time, ironically with all three goals being scored by his son Lee.

Kettering keeping mum on Rooney

Have you noticed that when nothing appears to be happening of interest in the football world then the media creates their own news. Now I know that is hardly news in itself, but lately there seems to have been a noticeable increase in 'non-stories', the ones that you're halfway through reading before you realise there is nothing in it.

Most of the time they seem to concentrate on which player ISN'T being signed by which club and go on to list a whole host of reasons why the club won't be signing a certain player. Er, like we even care which players our club ISN'T signing, what we want to know is who they HAVE signed.

For example, if Wayne Rooney had signed for even half of the clubs the papers have had him moving to since the Euro 2004 competition ended, he'd already have had a more distinguished career than Pele, Best and Maradonna put together!

Of course it's a fair bet that half the stories are circulated by the player's agent in the first place, trying to drum up interest amongst clubs who might be tempted, just so they can get their cut of the huge transfer fees paid these days.

In some ways I suppose you can't blame them for trying, after all, would you rather be collecting the agent's fee for a player who stays at one club for his entire career, or one that moves from club to club every couple of seasons for large sums of money?

In some cases the agent probably hopes the player could be lured away to sign for another club even if the player hasn't contemplated a move or even had no desire to leave his present club.

The agent or the newspaper starts the story that the player wants a move and interested clubs pickup on it and start bidding, even if he isn't for sale. No matter what club managers say, all players have a price on their head, even Rooney.

Reverse psychology is being used a lot more frequently these days by the media, especially in trying to sell newspapers, after all surely there's no smoke without fire? So why not 'Kettering deny Rooney bid' .. now that headline would surely sell a few copies of the old ET!