Superstition has it's place in many a facet of life, but sports people seem to have the onus on bizarre behaviours and beliefs in order to find them luck. Former Tennis superstar Goran Ivanesivic would need to repeat the exact routine he had on the day of a win, the day after, so as to keep his luck running. That included watching same TV shows, eating same meals and going the same places.
Tiger Woods always wears a red T-shirt on the last day of a tournament, which has proven lucky for him, as when he wears no shirt at all, his luck really does run out. Michael Jordan wore lucky throughout his career. The same pair was worn from his college basketball days right up to his 6th NBA Championship winning game.
Kolo Toure once delayed the second half of a game due to his superstition of being the last out the dressing room. William Gallas was recieving treatment and Toure refused to leave before Gallas was mended. Whether these behaviours are based on predicted outcomes or just on general mentalness remains to be seen, but for those who have them they serve a purpose.
At school, i referred to it as a tradition as opposed to a superstition, when playing 7s at lunchtime. I'd put my right goalie glove on first, then the left and upon leaving the dressing room, I'd fingertip the ironic "This Is The Bernabeu" sign above the door out to the pitch. Firstly, it was to give me a good stretch and secondly was a last grasp at the hope of not getting a tanking as our team, Kyoto Purple Sanga, was gash.
Full of Motherwell fans, (Frazz, Borthwick, Morton, Ev, Paton, Kennedy and myself) and some Arsenal and Rangers fans, we were by no means the cream of the school footballing crop. No matter how many times we took to the ash park to play our peers, the tradition of slapping the sign rarely worked. Our own ineptness up front and at the back and Borthwick's reckless sliding tackles on the gravelly pitch, often left him with holes in his kness and us with holes in the defence.
Given that players from other teams were allowed to ref the games, we suffered many unjust defeats; having goals disallowed that shouldn't have been and conceding goals that hit the post or went wide. (No nets, scuppering us on these occasions). The only time the tradition worked was one game against the teachers.
An early surprise goal from Paton put us in a 1 goal lead, which we defended to the hilt. wave after wave of frustration was soaked up by having all 7 of us behind the ball. With a few minutes remaining, a good old stramash in the box somehow resulted in a penalty to the teachers.
After much complaint and gamesmanship form both teams, Fergie Robson (history teacher allegedly once on the books of Aston Villa) placed the ball on the spot. His staggered run up failed to decieve me as I guessed correctly. My sleeve rolled up as my arm stretched along the ground to my right, scraping my elbow in the process. My gloved hand tipped the ball round the post to a stupendous cheer. (As disliked as our team was, the teachers were hated more).
As the rest of KPS rallied around me for the save, the teachers complained that it should be retaken for encroachment. Encroachment. At 7s. On an Ash Park. At Lunchtime. A retake was ordered and alas, the penalty went in. For a brief moment, The Bernabeu had lucked out for us. The game ended in a draw, but it felt like a defeat.
As Motherwell fans, we were all too used to superstition and hoodoo. Every team probably feels it, but for Motherwell, if a team is in need of breaking a hoodoo or a run of bad luck, Fir Park is the place to come to smash it.
My first ever game, as mentioned a few weeks ago ended both Motherwell's unbeaten run of 1994 and Aberdeen's abysmal away record of the same year. Indeed, a few seasons later, a similar run by both teams ended in the most bizarre of games. Aberdeen came to Fir Park on a Wednesday night, ironically after another school game gubbing where I'd injured my elbow.
The game just had this really weird feeling about it. Even before kick off, I had some sort of weird anticipation that it was going to be a strange game. We'd made a decent start to the season under Billy Davies while Ebbe Skhovdahl was failing to rally the Northern Reds to points.
The game went by in somewhat of a haze. Goals were just flying in from everywhere and at half time, we had conceded 4 goals and Goodman and Spencer had scored 2 for the Well. At half time, I remember being baffled as to how we had lost so many goals against a team that had been struggling to get shots on target in their last few games, let alone goals.
The second half continued in the same vein, back and forth with both Robbie Winters and Spenny completing their hat-tricks. A Shaun Teale penalty to make it 6-5 was as close as we could bring it back and Aberdeen had undone their hoodoo in a remarkable way. The Hibs game last season brought back memories of that night, but ended in a far more enjoyable way.
We can also come across as being our own worst enemies with our own hoodoos regarding beaten/unbeaten runs. Games we believe we should be able to win, those "6 pointers" and "kickstart the season" games, rarely materialised when growing up. I remeber a game at home against Livingston, where we had been playing poorly and this was seen to be the game to change our season. We got horsed 5-1, with Khled Kemas scoring an audacious 30 yarder to give us one positive.
Horrible defeats to rubbish Dundee and Kilmarnock teams over the years emphasise the point that in the past, "must win" games became " dead on lose" games. Thankfully over the past few seasons, this hoodoo been killed off. While last seasons lengthy unbeaten run under Gannon and subsequent defeated streak that caused the fans to turn on him was a bummer, the old "new manager gets results" superstition came in to play. (Despite the blip in the Cup at Inverness).
The one hoodoo that we have struggled with to a large scale is being on television. We just can not seem to get a result in front of the cameras, although we very rarely put on a poor display for the armchair viewers. I remember watching us get hammered 7-1 by Celtic on Sky after breaking my wrist in another goalkeeping accident, where Larsson ruled the show, but that was erased by Faddy night when he ripped them apart in the 2-1 win.
We put Aberdeen out the League Cup a few years ago on the BBC. Brian Kerr scored a goal in that game, which the press used to make him out to be our best player, which sort of went to his head. St Mirren put us out a cup competition a couple of years ago on Sky. Me and Frazz watched it in an empty pub in the Merchant City cursing fat billy Mehmet.
We've run Celtic and Rangers close on telly a few times, but haven't had a win against them on the box for a while. Mark Reynolds seems to enjoy televised Old Firm games, as he's scored the opening goal in a few of them. The last 2 games of last season showed that we are value for money as well, managing to score and ship 9 goals over both matches.
These hoodoos are brilliant for commentators and statisticians. Every week on Match Of The Day, former England striker and crisp peddler Gary Lineker, gives the viewers some ridiculous stat based on the last time one of the teams scored 2 goals in a match against whoever or some 2 teams have never had a 0-0 draw with each other, before suggesting that this doesn't happen in the game about to be viewed.
It provides more interest in the game and should promote entertainment in the game. More often than not, it doesn't and a 0-0 is the outcome.
Hoodoo's and superstitions I hope to see this season include, Jamie Murphy and John Sutton scoring double figures like last season, Randolph keeping up his away clean sheet record, and us getting to Hampden 20 years since our last Scottish Cup win, with a super sub scoring in every round.
Also, I'd like to see us beat Rangers at home on Boxing Day, with my Rangers supporting Father In Law to be, on ESPN!
Up The Well!
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