The Joy of Six: nefarious goal-line handballs | Lawrence Ostlere


From Ally Robertson’s save for the cameras to César Martins’s outrageous full-length stop for Flamengo via Luis Suárez’s self-styled ‘save of the tournament’

Ally Robertson’s first tackle in professional football took the ball from George Best’s toes. From that moment West Bromwich Albion’s Scottish teenager began establishing a reputation as a no-nonsense defender, a status hardened a few months later when he played on with a broken leg in a League Cup tie against Charlton Athletic. “You could hear this big crack,” Robertson recalled. “Jeff Astle came running across and said: ‘Quick! Get down – you’ve broken your leg,’ but I said ‘No, no’ and played on until half-time.” Robertson, an imposing player with a long auburn mane and thick moustache, would go on to develop a partnership with another tough defender, John Wile.

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