I was at plough lane that day and you're right, it was unforgettable. I think Paul Durkin even wrote apiece about it somewhere. The weirdest game he'd ever refed
Interestingly, our favourite sports journalist
wrote an article in 2003 about Fash and the infamous game. I've never seen this before. Durkin didn't see the second penalty until he watched MoTD ffs !
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I'm a liability get me out of here!
By Martin Samuel, Sports Writer of the Year
WHEN Mr Justice McCullough ordered John Fashanu to pay £650,000 legal costs after he was acquitted in 1997 of conspiring to fix football matches, he made a statement that has served as a leitmotiv throughout the former footballer’s career. The judge ruled that, in failing to explain the vast sums of money he had accumulated, Fashanu’s “conduct had brought suspicion on himself”.
Les mots justes indeed. Few players are capable of arousing greater suspicion than Fashanu and seldom is it more deserved.
His present predicament, which finds the FA investigating allegations that he told a Sunday newspaper he could arrange the outcome of matches for a price, is just the latest unsavoury episode in a life that takes in a suspicion of everything from brutality to corruption. Faces have been rearranged, careers have been shattered, serious questions remain unanswered and significant events unexplained.
Yet our new obsession with celebrity means that Fashanu’s star continues to rise. It no longer matters that everything around him is detestable. Fashanu is famous. And fame in Britain in the 21st century is akin to having diplomatic immunity.
It is no coincidence that a smart man such as Fashanu, who rejoices in the title Ambassador of Sports and Tourism for the Federal Republic of Nigeria and mugs for reality TV cameras in an Australian jungle, keeps a lucrative foot in both camps. It gives him a credibility that he does not merit. There is a lengthy list of reasons why Fashanu is not good for football. Where do you want to start?
On March 23, 1991, Wimbledon played Sheffield United at Plough Lane. The home side were leading 1-0 thanks to a goal by Alan Cork when, with 20 minutes remaining, Fashanu handled in his own area and gave away a penalty, from which Brian Deane equalised. With the clock winding down, an even stranger event occurred. Fashanu handled in his area a second time. On this occasion, Paul Durkin, the referee, did not get a clear view of the incident. He looked to a linesman for confirmation, but none was forthcoming. The game ended a draw.
This is Durkin’s recollection of the match: “It is the oddest game I have ever refereed, the only one in my career that stands out as odd. When Fashanu handled the ball the first time, I can remember thinking: ‘Why was he there?’ The second incident was strange, too. Vinnie Jones took a long throw for Sheffield United and Fashanu appeared from nowhere, jumped up and flapped his hand at the ball. When I watched it on television later it was a clear handball.”
Dave Bassett, the former Sheffield United manager, recalled: “At the time, I thought it was bizarre. I said: ‘For crying out loud, he’s done it again’.” And, of course, football is littered with the unusual and inexplicable. Yet even so, those who have witnessed a striker committing two handball offences in his penalty area within the space of 20 minutes could count such instances on the fingers of one hand — even if they’d been caught stealing in Saudi Arabia.
So what does this prove? Simply that conduct likely to bring suspicion on himself is nothing new for Fashanu, the man described by Jones as “my best mate in football”.
