100 GREAT GOALS: Part IX - another ten great goals for you to select from

John Harding 21-06-07

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 a bye-gone era...look out for the final ten and then there will be your chance to vote...

No.81: 1947 - Finney's finest hour - and greatest game

During season 1947-48, Tom Finney played in an astonishing match for Preston at home to Derby County. Derby scored two quick goals before Preston pulled it back to 2-2. Derby scored a third, but at half time it was 3-3. Derby went further ahead at 4-3, but the final result was 7-4....to Preston! North End had come from behind three times to win by three clear goals, the last of which came after a devastating run by Finney leaving defenders trailing in his wake. The Lancashire Evening Post reported that 'Finney's dazzling runs were sheer artistry and it was fitting that the wingman should end it all by making a goal in a million'. Finney rates it the best game of football he ever played in.

No.82: 1872 - Morton Peto Betts scores the first ever Cup Final goal

The historic first final took place at Kennington Oval before a crowd of 2,000. At the time football matches were played without pitch markings inside the touchlines, no nets, tape for crossbars, and no presentation after the game. The Wanderers, captained by FA Secretary Charles Alcock, had six future internationals in their side including R.W.S.Vidal, 'the prince of dribblers' who once scored three goals in succession from the kick off without a single opponent touching the ball! The game was settled by a single goal from Morton Peto Betts, a well known Harrovian who played for Wanderers under the pseudonym AH Chequer because his first choice team, the Harrow Chequers, scratched from the Cup. Once he had opened the scoring from an acute angle after Vidal 's long dribble, the Engineers did well to keep the margin down to one goal although they were unfortunate in losing a Lieutenant Creswell after just ten minutes when he broke his collar-bone - the first recorded accident in football!

No.83: 1873 - Lord Kinnaird's winner in the first of his NINE cup finals

A superstar of his time, Kinnaird played in a record nine Cup Finals (five wins). In 1873, in his first appearance, Bell's Life went into ecstasies over the way in which Kinnaird dribbled right through the Oxford team to score his side's second goal, his red beard flowing in the breeze and his white trousers 'threading a way between the forest of Oxford legs. He stood on his head in front of the pavilion after his fifth victory, but did something even sillier in the 1877 final. In goal for Wanderers (he could, and did, play in any position), he caught a long ball and stepped back over his own line - football's first own goal of note, yet oddly omitted from the records for decades.

No.84: 1923 - David Jack scores the first-ever Wembley cup final goal

Prior to this first Wembley final, tens of thousands of fans rushed the gates - around 200,000 people entered a stadium built to accommodate 127,000, with another 45,000 locked out. Kick-off was delayed by 45 minutes but the first Wembley goal came after only two minutes when Bolton's David Jack crashed in a shot so hard that it whizzed past West Ham keeper Ted Hutton and knocked out a spectator behind who in turn knocked over a whole section of the crowd like skittles! While the goal was good, there was some controversy about the absence of Hammers' right back Jack Tresadern who was trapped in the crowd and unable to get back onto the pitch after the throw-in that led to it. Eight minutes after the interval Bolton scored a second. JR Smith, Bolton's centre forward and the only Scotsman in the match, took a beautiful pass from Vizard on his left and shot home past a perplexed Hufton. The ball rebounded into play so swiftly that few had realised he had scored!

No.85: 1927 Dan Lewis's FA Cup Final howler hands Arsenal the cup

In the first-ever Cup Final to be broadcast by BBC Radio, Arsenal were the better side by far, but a terrible blunder by their goalkeeper Dan Lewis saw Cardiff City take the Cup out of England for the first and only time. The move started with a throw-in. Cardiff's Hugh Ferguson received the ball and had little space to run or make a pass, so instead attempted a pot-shot at goal. The ball ran low across the ground, but Arsenal keeper Lewis had the shot well covered. He knelt down and attempted to gather it but, as he did so, the ball squirmed out of his hands and slipped in between the crook of his left elbow and body. With a couple of Cardiff City forwards closing in, Lewis desperately tried to reclaim it but only succeeded in knocking it into the net with his elbow. Lewis later blamed the error on his jersey, which being brand new was greasy and made it difficult to grip the ball.

No.86: 1928 - Dixie Dean scores his 60th goal – an all-time record for one season

The Division One goal scoring record was 43 held by Blackburn's Ted Harper but on the 24th of March, 1928 Dixie Dean broke it, scoring two goals in a 2-2 draw with Derby a total of 45 goals. Dixie then set his sights on George Camsell's Second Division record of 59 goals. With two games to go, he needed seven goals in two games: Burnley away and Arsenal at home. Everton went to Turf Moor and Dean scored four in a 5-3 win! In the final game, Arsenal took the lead but from the restart Dixie ran towards the Arsenal goal and struck a thunderous twenty-yarder! The 58th goal was registered. midway through the first half he was brought down in the box, placed the ball on the penalty spot and delivered the record-equalling goal. Just five minutes were left on the referee's watch when Everton's Alec Troupe took a corner. Time stood still, then moved into freeze frame as Dixie leapt like a salmon above the surrounding packed penalty area and headed the ball into the Arsenal net! The ticking bomb inside Goodison exploded. Dixie had accomplished the impossible!

No.87: 1930 - Alex James springs a cup final surprise on Hull

On the team coach on way to Final with Preston North End, Alec James said to young winger Cliff Bastin: "If we get a free kick in their half early on, I'll slip it out to you on the wing. You give it me back and I'll have a crack at goal." Most of the players thought James was joking – he had rarely scored goals since coming from Preston North End. But in the 17th minute, just such a free kick occurred. James was fouled 40 yards from goal, sprang to his feet and looked at referee Tom Carew, who nodded to the Scotsman to take the kick without any ado. Out went the ball to the left wing, off hared Bastin, drawing Goodall out twards him. At just the right moment Bastin slipped the ball back inside for James following through, who hit it into the corner of the net. There were brief protests from Hull, but to no avail. Moments later the Graf Zepplyn appeared over the Stadium! It was Arsenal's Cup.

No.88: 1930 - Bastin and Jack's crucial FA Cup semi final goals for Arsenal

Two down to Hull City at half time, Arsenal pressed for the whole of the last 45 minutes against a packed Second Division defence. Jack then converted a Joe Hulme cross but not until eight minutes from time was the draw was made safe. Cliff Bastin said 'I hadn't even touched the ball for 20 minutes and it was agony standing on that wing when we badly needed a goal. Then Alex James gave me the ball. I took it past Mills, the Hull right half and cracked it into the top right hand corner of the net'. The replay saw a second crucial goal - arguably the most important in Arsenal's history. Joey Williams ran the ball down the right wing to the touchline and crossed for Jack to volley right-footed into the left hand corner of the net past keeper Gibson. It took Arsenal on to their first major success, the 1930 final - and a decade of dominance!

No.89: 1935 - Drake's Seven stun Villa

All the goals were classic Arsenal - a long ball from Pat Beasley for Drake to run on to, a long pass from Bastin which Drake picked up and ran with to the edge of the area before scoring, and a rebound from a Beasley shot from the wing. At the end of an hour, Drake had a double hat-trick and Arsenal were 6-0 up. This time the goals came from a mistake from Villa centre half Tommy Griffiths, who assumed a ball was going over the dead ball line only to see it rebound off the post for Drake to bundle in, another pass from Bastin to Drake and an instant return from a bad goalkeeping clearance. By this time the entire Villa half back line was marking Drake, but it made little difference for his seventh shot actually hit the bar and bounced down to be cleared. It was one of only two goal attempts of the whole afternoon which missed its mark (the other was saved)! Villa did score once, but Drake had the final word in the last minute with yet another goal from a Bastin cross-field pass; seven goals away from home with just nine shots!

No.90: 1936 - Payne scores a perfect TEN on his debut!

Joe Payne was spotted playing as a centre forward for Bolsover Colliery and signed by Luton Town where he was assigned to the Luton farm team, Biggleswade Town, as a wing half. Over Easter, 1936, a last minute injury crisis forced the club to call on his services as replacement for Scottish international Billy Boyd. Joe capped his debut with the remarkable feat of scoring ten goals in one game, a record that will surely never be surpassed. And his name didn't even appear in the match programme! His remarkable achievement was watched by a crowd of 13,962 but for the next home game versus Coventry City (when Joe scored again in a 1-1 draw) the attendance leapt to 23,142. But it had been no flash in the pan. Joe bagged 55 of the following season's 103-goal tally in a Division 3 (south) Championship winning season.