24. WHEN SATURDAY’S GONE By Jonaldo

Mirroring Foursomes

In November 1977, as I was fast approaching my 15th birthday, I witnessed Joe Royle’s debut for Bristol City in the top flight against Middlesbrough. He hit four goals that day in a 4-1 home win. But my enduring memory of that feat is walking away from Ashton Gate and hearing a couple of men in front of me lambasting him for missing an easy chance in the second half that he should’ve converted.

Why am I echoing back to the events of getting on for half a century ago now? It’s because in the big match last Friday I hit all four goals in a 4-0 win but then found myself being ridiculed for a glaring miss sandwiched between my plentiful haul.

When I was a teenager I baulked at the audacity of my fellow supporters in their criticism of our new signing. To me it seemed ungrateful, especially as the Robins weren’t the most prolific of scoring teams in the old First Division, indeed, a little later on the satirical BBC programme Not The Nine O’Clock News it was reported that Lord Lucan had finally been found after 6 years missing. He had been playing as a centre-forward for Bristol City. So someone who notched a hat-trick plus one more to boot was to be lauded and have deity-like status conferred upon them in my opinion.

But why, almost 47 years on, have I changed my mind? It’s because now I am in the boots of the player elevated by the four goal haul and it has afforded me a different perspective.

I realise now how necessary it was for me, in the scheme of things, to miss that sitter. Martyn Stephens, playing up front alongside me having just returned from a nine month absence due to a knee replacement, put in a lovely cross that beat the keeper and I rushed in to connect with from two feet out, only for the ball to inexplicably balloon about a foot over the bar.

It would’ve been my hat-trick and at halftime at two up I ran the gauntlet of my teammates jibes for missing it. I duly reached the accomplishment in the second half with a powerful shot from just inside the box and added a fourth, minutes later from a similar situation as the glaring miss but this time with the cross supplied by Bill Hyde.

In the post match analysis conducted at The Swan, my fellow players were again quick to focus on the miss rather than engage me in any conversation regarding the actual goals I had scored. Indeed, anyone hinting at doing so was swiftly admonished. But this I appreciated, for it infused me with a good dose of humility. Rather in keeping with the Roman ethos of having a slave as a fellow passenger in the chariot of a conquering hero enjoying his triumph. There to keep him humble.

I’m glad I was kept thus, down to earth, realising there was something about my game that needed improvement. I dread to think now had that gone in and I had notched five. It would’ve been as near to perfection as could be achieved. There would’ve been no self-critical evaluation of my performance and I dare say I would’ve felt the necessity to crow endlessly about my scoring feat. I would’ve even pondered whether I should hang up my boots, never take to the pitch again rather like an author who has written a masterpiece would be scared to put his quill to parchment in earnest for fear that what they wrote would be inferior by comparison.

So I would have been either plagued by self-doubt or resting on my laurels believing I had nothing left to prove. Either way it would have affected my performances on the field of play. Therefore, that glaring miss was a godsend and my subjection to the taunts of my fellow players a necessary evil in keeping me a level headed player and a fox in the box.

At the time I walked behind those older City fans leaving Ashton Gate in 1977, I was so glad Joe Royle couldn’t hear what I considered to be outlandish and ridiculous criticism of his miss. But now, I beg to differ. Especially as he went bloody ages after that four goal debut before he scored for City again.