On Saturday October 16th 2010 a young defender called Ollie Barnes scored for Gloucester City, firing home a free kick from about 35 yards out, easily beating the Harrogate Town goalkeeper. Nothing too interesting there you might say. Non-league football, especially a mid-table Blue Square Bet North match, is a bit specialist, isn’t it? Surely Zlatan Ibrahimovic, or Cristiano Ronaldo, or Lionel Messi, scored a better goal.
Well yes, except for the fact that more people in Hungary have watched the YouTube clip of Barnes’ goal than they have in the UK.
In fact, the views for the video are more than ten times that of the gate on Saturday, at 325 the fourth lowest in the league that day.
Have a look at the clip – ok it’s a good goal but…well, have a look.
Hungarian blog Nemzetisport has declared it a goal which will ensure Ollie Barnes goes down in the club history (ish – my translation skills are iffy at best). Meanwhile French site Horsjeu has had more than 600 views.
Now, it could be one of two things:
- It really is quite a good goal, for a defender who hasn’t started many games and who has been injured, and wouldn’t normally be second let alone first choice to take free kicks
- The slightly bonkers commentary provided by the two Gloucester City fans
No offence to Ollie but going from the comments on the French site I expect it’s reason number two, although although it’s impossible to rule out a ‘Norman Wisdom-in-Albania style’ following in Hungary.
Still it is rare treat to have Gloucester City talked about (in football circles) on a global stage. The last time was for this.
Hi there,
Thanks for the mention, your second assumption is the right one. This commentator and his surreal enthusiasm reminded us of Christian Jeanpierre, the main commentator on TF1, the french channel broadcasting our national team and champions league game…
To give you an idea of the man, a video (by the way, he alaways smiles lke that), and one of his famous quote “Look at this silence, it’as amazing” during the World cup….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0a6ocGr4UU8
Cheers
I think it was reason 1. if it was scored by ronaldo etc it would be on all spectacular goal compilations. Next time I am in uk I will try to get to a gloucester match
[...] writing about Ollie Barnes for http://www.twofootedtackle.com [see here] TigerTV caught up with him after he scored another goal, this time against [...]