100 GREAT GOALS: Part V1 - more great goals for you to consider

John Harding 13-06-07

How the hell do you select the best goal/goals from the last 100 years of wonderful football? It's a tough one to call but we are asking givemefootball readers to help us name the best of the best. Here are another ten to be going on with, in no particular order and from another a different era...look out for more over the coming weeks and then there will be your chance to vote...

No. 51: 1972 - Sniffer Clarke snuffs out Gunners!

Allan 'Sniffer' Clarke was signed by Don Revie for a British record fee of £165,000 from relegated Leicester in 1969 to build on the strength of Revie' first championship-winning squad. 'ho put the ball in the Arsenal net?' was the cheeky question asked by Leeds fans. The answer was most definitely 'Allan Allan Clarke', his powerful header being the only score in the FA Cup Final. Paul Madeley took the ball forward from inside the Leeds half and dinked a fine pass to Peter Lorimer inside the centre circle who drifted to the right before moving the ball onto Mick Jones who was cutting in from the right wing. Bob McNab came out to meet him and shepherded Jones to the edge of the Arsenal area and then dived in to tackle, but Jones, with clever footwork, kept possession, and scooped out a deep cross that Allan Clarke, steaming in and ignoring two Arsenal defenders closing in on him, dived forward to head deep into the far corner of Geoff Barnett's net. A classic, sweeping move that won the Cup for Leeds!

No.52: 1970 - Six of best by the Best crushes Cobblers

After a long lay-off due to suspension, George Best was cruising for a bruising and it was Northampton who took the lumps as he took out his frustration with an FA Cup equalling record six-goal salvo. Quite simply, Northampton were unable to cope with Best's genius that day. Ray Fairfax was the luckless man detailed to mark Best, a task akin to picking up spilled mercury in boxing gloves. Fairfax admits: "The closest I got to him was when we shook hands at the end of the game." All the skill, impudence and arrogance of Best was summed up with his last goal. He skipped through the Northampton defence, rounded keeper Kim Book, and stood on the ball on the goal line, saluting the United fans before knocking the ball into an empty net! An exhausted George Best was later pictured in the national papers leaning on the goal-post following that incredible slalom run through most of the Northampton Town team!

No.53: 1970 - Ernie Hunt donkey kick's himself into football history

In 1970, Coventry City scored one of the most famous goals in the history of the game. In their home game against Everton, City were awarded a free kick on the edge of the Toffees' penalty area. Willie Carr proceeded to grip the ball between his ankles before flicking it up into the air behind him for Ernie Hunt to volley it over a bewildered Everton wall and into the top corner. Though the 'Donkey kick' was allowed to stand, the FA banned the technique on the grounds that it constituted a 'double-touch' of the ball. Aside from changing the laws of the game, the goal also won the very first Match of the Day 'Goal of the Season' competition!

No.54: 1970 - Eddie Gray scores one of the great solo goals of all time

<p>For many older Leeds fans, winger Eddie Gray's two goals scored against Burnley rate as the best seen at Elland Road. His first was an amazing chip from 40 yards, while for the second, picking up the ball at the left corner flag, he proceeded to beat six defenders before rounding Albert Johannsen (the Leeds no 9) who was lying injured in the penalty area, before smacking the ball past Peter Mellor. There was a split second of silence around the ground followed by a massive roar as Elland Road realised what a fantastic goal it was. Gray himself always said that the first goal gave him the greater pleasure. "As soon as the ball was cleared from the box I saw the goalkeeper off his line and decided I was going to chip him. So I had to have a good touch on the ball, I had to set it up right, and the chip I hit had to be well-executed. That gave me a lot of satisfaction. The second goal I scored - the goal everybody talks about - was something I could do naturally. And when you pick the ball up there (on the dead ball line), it's something that just evolves. Going by people was just something I was always able to do, so the first goal gave me more pleasure."

No.55: 1970 - Osgood is good as Chelsea take the cup

This year saw the first Wembley FA Cup Final to go to a replay, played at Old Trafford between Chelsea and Leeds United. Mick Jones scored for Leeds who held the lead until ten minutes before the end and the Blues seemed doomed to lose to the hot favourites. However, Osgood would break Chelsea's cup final jinx, equalising in style after a flowing move from which he scored with a powerful diving header from a Charlie Cooke cross. Jackie Charlton should have been marking Ossie but had 'lost' him, whilst chasing Ian Hutchinson to exact retribution for a deadleg administered in the Chelsea penalty area a minute or so earlier! When Peter scored for Chelsea, he became the last player to date (and ninth in total) to score in every round of the cup. With only minutes left in extra time David Webb moved up from his centre back position to deflect home a Hutchinson long throw. During 210 minutes of action Chelsea led for only five minutes but still took their first FA Cup!

No. 56: 1971 - George Best's stolen 'goal' at Windsor Park

On 15 May 1971, George Best scored the cheekiest and arguably the most famous 'goal' of his career at Windsor Park in Belfast for Northern Ireland against England. As Gordon Banks, the English goalkeeper, attempted to kick the ball downfield, Best flicked the ball out of his hands and over his head! The famous duo both scrambled towards the net but Best outpaced Banks and headed the ball into the empty goal, to the delight of the home supporters. Unfortunately, his cheeky effort was disallowed for 'ungentlemanly conduct by a referee whose back had been turned away from the incident, but even this intervention did not spare Banks the embarrassment of having been outwitted.

No.57: 1971 - Was this Gerogie's Best goal?

The BBC Match of the Day cameras were on hand at Old Trafford in October to record a goal that had 'George Best' written through it like a stick of Blackpool rock. When Best picked up the ball in the centre circle he looked distinctly annoyed as there was no teammate looking for a pass. With little else on and an air of 'if you want a job done properly, do it yourself'. Best set off towards goal. Defenders ganged up on him to shepherd him away from goal, but by the time Best had reached the edge of the penalty area he was at full speed. And yet, there seemed little danger as he was ushered ever-wider from the goal, and the angle become ever more acute. But a final shift into top gear took him half a yard clear of the chasing defender, enough space for Best, with the minimum of backlift, to whip a shot across the keeper and into the far corner, off the post.

No.58: 1971 - Charlie George's lays down the marker for Wembley's finest

Having secured the Football League Championship five days earlier at White Hart Lane, Arsenal were drawing 1-1 with Liverpool in extra time during the 1970-71 FA Cup Final. With only a few minutes to go, after 111 minutes of gruelling football on an extremely hot day. Charlie George, the young long haired Islington lad, gained possession some 25 yards out from goal. He swivelled before striking an unstoppable twenty-yard rocket of shot that flew past Liverpool goalkeeper Ray Clemence into the net. Charlie then collapsed to the Wembley turf, lying flat with his arms outstretched awaiting his teammates to congratulate him! His stunning goal secured the Double for Arsenal that season and his celebration after scoring the winner remains one of football's most enduring images. It has also been judged the most energy efficient goal celebration in the competition's history by E.ON, sponsor of The FA Cup!

No.59: 1971 - Super Mac almost does a Shack and takes North East by storm

In 1971 Newcastle United paid £180,000 - then the second biggest cash transfer in the British game - for 21-year-old Malcolm MacDonald and, on his St. James' Park debut, he introduced himself with a tremendous three-goal burst against Liverpool, one of the most dramatic home appearances since Len Shackleton's sensational double hat-trick back in 1946. The first was an equalising penalty that he simply lashed into the roof of the net. The second, to put United in front, saw him make something out of nothing, dragging a short pass from a challenge to make position and then hit a rocket-like cross shot past Ray Clemence with very little to aim at, while the third, after Clark, Hibbitt and Tudor had paved the way, was another left foot rocket across Clemence. Tyneside had a new hero!

No.60: 1971 Ray Kennedy's title clincher is a sickener for Spurs

In the final match of the 1970-71 league campaign, Arsenal needed a win or a goalless draw to take the First Division title for a record eighth time (a score draw would have meant Leeds United won on goal average). The game was tight with few real chances on goal until the very end. With three minutes to go, John Radford's shot forced Pat Jennings into a good save. The Spurs players stopped, thinking the ball would run for a corner but George Armstrong rescued it near the goal-line, and chipped it back into the middle where it was met by Ray Kennedy's soaring header. The ball sped to Jenning's left, above the leap of Cyril Knowles behind him, clipped the underside of the bar and bounced over the line! Arsenal held out and, three days later, beat Liverpool 2-1 after extra time to win the FA Cup securing their first 'Double. Kennedy didn't score in the final, but did end the season with 27 goals, making him the club's top scorer.