Gallas' sit-in, Barton's punch, Zola's backheel and Red Nev's taunt: The 100 most shocking football moments of the decade, numbers 70-61
70. William Gallas' St Andrews sit-in (22/2/08)
Had they hung on to the Premier League lead they took into this game, Arsenal's young swashbucklers might have been the most popular champions in a generation. Instead, it all ended in tears here on an extraordinary afternoon.
First Eduardo's sickening injury - so horrific Sky refused to screen a replay - cast a pall over proceedings that was briefly lifted by Theo Walcott's double. Then, two minutes into injury time, the hammer blow of Gael Clichy's clumsy challenge and James McFadden's equaliser.
And finally, captain Gallas - who we recently discovered insists on sitting on his own oin the team coach - raising the white flag with the most incredible football sit-in since Neville Southall. A few hours later Manchester United thumped Newcastle 5-1 at St James' Park and the title race was over.
69. Doug Ellis sells up (14/8/2006)
"I'm a great believer in never retiring," said Deadly Doug in 2003, brushing off yet another 'Ellis Out' campaign. So the events of Villa's velvet revolution in Summer 2906 were truly shocking: A player statement criticising penny-pinching at Villa Park, the removal of unpopular David O'Leary, the arrival of Martin O'Neill and, finally, the Thatcher Moment for supporters as the man who once claimed to have invented the bicycle kick finally got on his bike after Randy Lerner's takeover.
At least the club's President Emeritus stayed at Villa Park long enough to for a memorable meeting Kevin Costner, whom he hosted at a Villa game in 2004. Ellis is alleged to have repeatedly called Costner "Bob" throughout the afternoon. When a Villa Park staffer asked why, the grand old man is said to have replied: "Well, you didn't expect me to call him Mr Redford, did you?"
68. Joey Barton's jail punch (27/12/2007)
Joey Barton is football's Bad Santa, having stubbed a cigar out in Man City team-mate Jamie Tandy's eye at a festive do in 2004 before laying out a passer-by outside a Liverpool McDonald's three years later.
The offence cost Barton 74 days in prison; it was somewhat unfortunate that on his release he told reporters that his inspiration inside had been the ex-jailbird boxer Bernard Hopkins. Then again, it was a punch The Executioner would have been proud of.
67. Wenger shoves Pardew (6/11/2006)
Arsene Wenger strikes you as a lovely man driven absolutely insane by football. How else to explain the manic gesticulating, the hand-shaking aversion, the apparent belief that Arsenal can win the title with a team entirely comprised of small, whippet-thin Belgian 15-year-old, the long-term feuds with Mark Hughes, Jose Mourinho, Sam Allardyce and Sir Alex Ferguson, the made-up words ("footballistically" and "playerish", anyone?), or the frequent sideline spats with hard cases like of Martin O'Neill and Martin Jol?
Maddest of all was this flare-up, in which the man once dubbed 'The Professor' shoved West Ham's manager after he had the temerity to celebrate a late winning goal.
66. Alan Smith joins Manchester United (24/5/2004)
Unless you've lived in Leeds, you don't understand the utter loathing for Manchester United in the city. It makes the contempt from Eastlands and Anfield look mild in comparison. Years ago I spent a lot of time at Elland Road and would marvel at the supporter who arrived to every home game wearing a Manchester United shirt with SCUM 7 upon the back in reference to the despised Eric Cantona. Shirt and printing together had probably cost him £40 and he had to spend every other Saturday wearing the colours of the team he hated like no other - but he clearly thought the deal was worth it.
So it was no surprise to turn on a random episode of Soccer AM sometime in the early Noughties and see Rothwell-born boyhod Leeds fan Alan Smith answering "Manchester United" when asked "Which club would you never join?" Or to see Smith in tears, with Elland Road chanting his name, as Leeds were relegated against Charlton in May 2004.
Which made it even more astounding when, 16 days later, he promptly crossed the Pennines, beaming about joining "one of the best clubs in the world". Said Leeds chairman Gerald Krasner, helpfully: "Any gripe by the fans should be directed at Alan." And it was.
65. Zola's backheel v Norwich (16/01/2002)
Graeme Le Saux lines up to take the corner, Zola skips towards the near post. Seven years on I've still no idea how he does what happens next - a backheel flick through his legs and into the top-right corner. A moment of breathtaking individual skill from a breathtaking individual.
64. Goldenballs-up in Yokohama (21/6/2002)
David Beckham had got England to Japan and, alas, he played a major part in them coming home.
One-nil up in the quarter-finals against Brazil, Sven Goran Eriksson's team looked relatively comfortable until the fourth minute of first half injury time. Then, probably mindful of protecting his newly-healed metatarsal, Beckham could have cleared into touch midway inside his own half but instead jumped out of a challenge with two Brazilian players. Ronaldinho received the ball, beat Ashley Cole on a brilliant 60-yard run and fed Rivaldo, who curled in the equaliser.
63. Gary Neville's celebration v Liverpool (22/1/2006)
Just imagine how much it gnaws away at football's Fred Kite that, thanks to some enterprising tilers, beneath the swimming pool in his 12-bedroom Bury mansion there lies a Liverpool scarf, and Anfield programme and copy of The Kop magazine, placed there "so future archaeologists will see what a passion he had for the Red men.”
Neville, of course, loathes Liverpool and their fans with the same ferver that they loathe him. During an interview in his youth, he is said to have delivered an anti-Liverpool rant so vitrolic that his father and agent Neville Neville reached across to switch off the interviewer's tape recorder. "But dad, I do hate them," protested the young Neviller, later telling a United fanzine: "I can't stand Liverpool, I can't stand Liverpool people, I can't stand anything to do with them."
Never was that seen to be truer than following Rio Ferdinand's late goal at Old Trafford, which Gary hailed by running 60 yards to the disconsolate away fans, pumping his fists and clenching the United badge on his chest.
Fined £5,000 by the FA, Neville called it a "poor decision", asking "do we want a game of robots'? The mind boggles at what kind of mad scientist would create a robot who looks like Gary Neville.
62. Bobby Charlton and Denis Law visit dying George Best (24/11/2005)
The last time we saw Bobby Charlton cry in public was after George Best's Wembley masterclass in the 1968 European Cup final. Now, as he spoke to news cameras outside the Cromwell Hospital with his old team-mate's life ebbing away, Best had inspired tears again.
61. Chelsea players scoff at 9/11 (11/9/2001)
With their flight to an away match at Levski Sofia grounded in the aftermath of the Terror attacks on New York and Washington, Chelsea players found themselves at a loose end. Some went home to watch CNN, but Eidur Gudjohnsen, Frank Lampard, John Terry and trouble magnet Jody Morris had other ideas. First a couple of pubs - where a "hammered" Gudjohnsen stripped off and threw peanuts at punters while Lampard and Morris urinated in a rubbish bin outside - and then on to a local bowling alley where they hurled themselves down the lanes and saw former colleague Frank Sinclair, who by now had joined the party, almost decpatitated by the pin-changing mechanism.
Then, finally, to the bar of the Posthouse Hotel at Heathrow, where stranded travellers, many of them Americans, had gathered to watch events unfold on TV. Instead they were treated to the players throwing food around while pictures were shown of sobbing firemen searching through the rubble for the dead, before Sinclair exposed himself to the appalled throng.
"I have been left as confused, bewildered and sad as anyone over these awful atrocities," said Lampard later. Obviously some people grieve in different ways...
Rooney, Foe, Collymore, Loos: The 100 most shocking football moments of the decade, numbers 100-91
Tomorrow: Keegan quits in the toilet, Martin Edwards visits the ladies and Pedro Mendes meets Ben Thatcher: Shocking moments no: 60-51
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