Football celebrations: I'll never be a Gazza

Childhood dreams of scoring the last minute winner in the FA cup final have never deserted me, but just as pertinent is the manner in which I would celebrate my defining sporting act. I envision scampering off at breakneck speed, arms aloft in a messiah fashion toward the crowd, taking my top off to encourage the yellow card, and diving headfirst into the throng as they grope me mercilessly and slap my head in a jovial manner.

In spite of my fantasy, I am fully aware this turn of events is unlikely as I am in my 40’s, have little footballing pedigree and have no wish for my body to be objectified by drunken middle aged men in polyester as they froth at the mouth on a Saturday afternoon.

I would have given anything to have realised my dream which makes lame pedigree professional athlete celebrations stick in my craw.

Watching the supremely talented Mo Farah run is always a masterclass. He is a finely tuned athlete and streets ahead of his compatriots. That said, a shiver runs down my spine as soon as he breaks into the ridiculous mobot. Its lack of originality is accompanied by Mo’s smug face as if he is doing something really empowering. It says something for those Quorn adverts when they are the most interesting thing he has undertaken off the track yet he is nowhere nearer to convincing me to ditch the meat and becoming a paid up member of the emancipated chic elite. Given the choice of eating a Quorn meal or drinking a pint of my own sick, the sick would shade it every time. I do wonder if he undertakes the mobot after every culinary success such as downing a Mini Milk or wolfing down a grab bag of Walkers although I guess his celebration after such gluttonous activity involve a couple of fingers down the throat in his no doubt palatial en-suite master trap.

There have been other shameful celebration such as Lampard Junior kissing his ring as he looks up to the heavens. He never struck me as a religious man, but I guess a 3-yard tap in in front of the Shed can be biblical in its own way.

Peter Crouch had the robot which seamlessly masked his lack of footballing ability. It was pre-planned and well executed and started a short lived movement in the same vein as Louis Vega’s Mambo Number 5 or Gangnam Style.

From Mourinho’s knee slide, to the slalom where a second rate footballer attempts to escape his teammates by bobbing and weaving like a crazed lunatic as he ‘wheels’ away to the fans, there is precious little in terms of wow factor.

The non-celebration is less than endearing. It’s impossible to pity a striker taking 100 grand a week off his new employer after scoring against his old team who only paid him 80 g’s a week. Footballers do this so as not to offend fickle fans, thus avoiding parcels of dog poo through the post and threats to kidnap the family bulldog.

Robbie Keane’s weapon of choice was an imaginary six-shooter preceeded by a juvenile roly-poly. As celebrations go it’s just below the scrapings at the bottom of the barrel. There is still, decades after its inception, one celebration that has achieved legendary status and has never been replicated. The originator is a hero of mine who I was privileged to meet this summer. Step forward: Paul Gascoigne. The dentist chair skit in the summer of 1996 Is iconic and rightfully so. What we would give for a Gazza now at the peak of his powers taking on the Scottish whilst on a booze fuelled comedown, yet still having the sublime skill to undertake the ultimate lob and volley to defeat the auld enemy.

In honour, I will attempt to replicate the moment this Tuesday in my customary position of goalhanger on the hallowed Astroturf at Hatfield Sports Village. I shall lay on the ground and attempt to squirt water from an Evian sports cap bottle into my mouth whilst my midfield general, Dazza, will chide me to stop being a Wazza as I’ll never be a Gazza.