Golden Paws

With subtitle or not?

Football. Also known as Soccer

Football fans everywhere will have heard of David Beckham, otherwise known as Golden Balls. Well, he has a rival now known as Golden Paws. It also has to be said that Paws, like his illustrious namesake, is definitely not camera-shy. Maybe not as well dressed, but nobody can dispute his enthusiasm.

Now we all know that the Mexicans take their football seriously and don’t take kindly to any interruptions that might impact their enjoyment of the beautiful game, but this incident was an exception.

The pitch invader

This whole episode started during the second-division football match between Alebrije de Oaxaca and Dorados de Sinaloa. To be fair, this is not in the same league as the El Clásico, Real Madrid v Barcelona or the Premier League rivalry between Manchester United v Liverpool. It’s probably more on a par with Wigan Athletic v Burton Albion, but even so, it attracted a partisan crowd of enthusiastic spectators in the 16000 capacity stadium.

With the game entering injury time, the goalkeeper Hernan Mendoza was holding the ball and preparing to throw it to a member of his team when the dog raced onto the pitch. The referee stopped play, and Mendoza tossed the ball to nobody in particular, but this careless act was to be the start of the fun .

The hairy intruder turned out to be a highly talented individual with a considerable degree of skill, a true crowd pleaser. Holding the ball with his teeth, he raced towards the centre circle as officials attempted to tackle the gatecrasher. Matters were not helped by the stadium’s announcer encouraging the crowd to support the dog, so each unsuccessful attempt was greeted with a shout of Ole` from the supporters. To the embarrassment of the dog catchers, the playful pooch gave them all the slip; they had no chance as this agile animal proved unstoppable.

The fans were highly entertained, although there is no information regarding the quality of the football before the intervention of the hursuit hound. The unnamed canine showed quite extraordinary skills as he evaded all initial attempts at capture. The Alebrijes forward Bryan Garcia did attempt to stop the intruder, and the Dorados player Franco Valentini also made an effort to tackle the canine, but to be honest, his heart wasn’t really in it.

An unfair tackle

Obviously, carrying the ball in his mouth is against the rules, and we were never to see if his footwork was up to standard. Eventually, the sheer weight of numbers was his undoing, and finally, a player managed to make a successful interception more in line with a rugby tackle. This would be unacceptable normally, and the perpetrator would automatically receive a red card; however, this time the referee took a lenient view, and the crowd applauded. The errant intruder was handed over to a member of the ground staff, and with this comical episode over, which had lasted about a minute and a half, the game restarted.

Since the dramatic intervention of the dog, Alebrijes have announced that their new star player is having a full medical, as is customary in new signings.

As no one knows where he came from, there is no transfer fee to pay, and the new Alebrijes substitute will now be known as Max. He has now been photographed with some of the team and has been kitted out with his own shirt. As yet, he doesn’t have a number or his name on his shirt, but we are assured that the necessary steps to rectify this are underway. The following was posted on social media.

“Welcome, Max! This Thursday, we officially welcome Max, our new Alebrijes substitute player. He had his first few minutes during the game against Derodos after leaving home. But he is already with his family and ready to be part of our team.

For those of you who collect facts that are totally irrelevant to others and need to know the result of this enthralling encounter between Alebrijes and Dorados, the final score was 4 – 0.

Let’s be honest, however, the result will be long forgotten as immaterial, as people won’t remember the game, only the antics of Max.

Extra time trivia

You might be interested to know that there is a very famous individual who also collects useless facts and has a catchphrase to go with them. The English actor Michael Caine, star of films like Zulu, The Eagle Has Landed, and The Man Who Would Be King, is an avid collector of odd information with a catchphrase of “Not a lot of people know that.”

You might also be interested to learn that this catchphrase was actually created, not by Michael Caine, but by his great friend, the actor and comedian Peter Sellers.

Now, definitely “Not a lot of people know that!”