The best goal ever forgotten: when David Rocastle made mugs of Man Utd | OneFootball

The memories of football supporters often work in the same way. Birthdays, anniversaries, names… to borrow a phrase from Sir Robert Mortimer: like a mouse’s tear on a hot griddle. But link them to a game or a goal, and they are forever ingrained.

In football terms, there’s not much about the decade from the late 1980s that I can’t remember. Especially when it comes to Manchester United. My first game at Old Trafford was in 1986 and from that point on, football and United became my point of reference for, well, everything.

Results, goals, saves, tackles – for and against – all stored, probably in the memory space that others might dedicate to more trivial things, like wedding anniversaries or the names of friends’ children.

Which is why, a couple of years ago, I was completely thrown by this goal by David Rocastle for Arsenal against United at Old Trafford in 1991.

I remembered absolutely nothing of it. Which, when you see it, seems unfathomable. It ought to be one of the hardest goals in English football history to forget. I was worried I might be ill.

I remember Anders Limpar’s scabby winner (didn’t cross the line) from the same game the season prior, just before the Battle of Old Trafford kicked off. Christ, I can recall almost every tackle in the first Battle of Old Trafford in 1987, Sir Alex Ferguson’s first meeting with Arsenal, when Norman Whiteside kicked the s*** out of the Gunners but Rocastle was somehow the one to be sent off.

So it genuinely bothered me that I had no recollection of one of the greatest goals scored by opposition player at Old Trafford in my lifetime.

And Rocastle was some player. He didn’t achieve his potential but only because his ceiling appeared limitless when he broke into the Arsenal team. At 19, he was in the PFA Team of the Year and named Young Player of the Year, earning the same accolades again in 1989 before his 22nd birthday.

By the time Arsenal pitched up at Old Trafford in October 1991, Rocastle had already won almost all of his 14 England caps. He missed out on Italia ’90 due to a knee operation and a poorly-timed dip in form but a switch to central midfield saw Rocky regain his England place.

Which is one of the reasons why his opener against United must have been so satisfying. In the hosts’ midfield that day were three of his rivals for an England spot. And he left them all trailing in his wake shortly before the break.

Rocastle would not have been the only midfielder to get the better of Neil Webb in 1991/92 but the United no.5 evidently did not fancy a 50/50 with the Arsenal man around a bouncing ball on the halfway line.

That would usually prompt little concern on the Stretford End because coming for Rocastle behind Webb were Paul Ince and Bryan Robson.

The self-styled Guv’nor didn’t lose many midfield duels and we know for sure he would have fancied himself when he lunged in for the ball from Rocastle’s left. But Rocky saw him coming and bodied Ince into the floor while hooking the ball to his right.

Normally, when Robson saw the p*ss taken out of a team-mate – two in this case – the perp was not long for this game. If the ball wasn’t played, you could be sure the man was.

But having beaten Webb with his anticipation and Ince with his strength, Rocastle’s skill took over to send Captain Marvel for a copy of the Pink. A stepover showed Robson right when Rocky went left and goalwards, leaving United’s entire midfield in tatters.

Having escaped three red shirts, two more converged on Rocastle as United’s back four narrowed up. Steve Bruce and Clayton Blackmore boxed him in while Gary Pallister shifted across to cover Ian Wright’s run. Rocastle looked fresh out of options.

So, from 30 yards, he casually chipped Peter Schmeichel. The actual Peter Schmeichel.

Phillipe Albert still dines off the time he did that. Gloriously-executed finish that undoubtedly was, it was also the obvious finish. Schmeichel liked to set high but he was a full eight yards from his line when Albert looked up from 25 yards out to score the fifth in a 5-0 at St James’ Park.

Schmeichel was a little deeper when staring down Rocastle five years later, which gave the Great Dane false hope that there was a save to be made. Albert bypassed the keeper but Rocastle teased him – and Schmeichel took the bait.

This is where the joyless will probably pipe up. ‘iT WaS An oWn gOaL.’

Shurrup.

Yes, the ball clipped the bar, hit the flying Schmeichel on the bonce and went in. Which, frankly, makes it seem even more humiliating for the greatest goalkeeper ever to play the game.

So these days, it would go down as ‘Schmeichel (OG) 39’. But as we are all too aware, modern football is rubbish. It’s Rocastle’s goal, Rocastle’s moment.

Perhaps my brain thought it was doing me a favour by parking the memory too far away to be recalled, protecting my pre-teen self from the trauma of seeing two of my all-time heroes – Robbo and Schmeichel – made to look second-best and a bit silly.

But we grow up – most football fans get there eventually – and realise it’s ok to see the infallibility in our idols. No one is perfect, and thank f*** for that. But at no time were both made to look quite so normal, average even, as Rocastle achieved in the autumn of ’91.

I forgot it somehow, somewhere along the line. I won’t make that mistake again and nor should anyone else.