Sports and culture writing from overenthusiastic man-child Nicol Hay.
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Peter Enckelman came unexpectedly back into my life this week. I hadn’t thought about him for a long while, but Heart of Midlothian’s reserve goalie Mark Ridgers took a nasty injury playing for Scotland U21, and number one Jamie MacDonald’s girlfriend is at the stage of pregnancy where any moderate-to-heavy burp could provoke a rapid dash to the hospital for an immediate babyectomy – so Enckelman was brought in on short-term deal to provide back up, experience and a range of anecdotes about Boško Balaban. When I heard about the deal, my first reaction should have been quiet satisfaction over signing a cheap but reliable custodian, who knows the league well and won’t mind life as a substitute. In reality, my first reaction exactly the same as your first reaction was when reading the opening words of this article. My mind’s eye treated me to a repeating loop of the very incident that you have, are, or shortly intend to search for on YouTube (here, let me help you with that). No matter how many clean sheets or saved penalties or international caps (a very impressive 12, considering his era in the Finland squad overlapped exactly with two begloved legends in Antti Niemi and Jussi Jääskeläinen) Enckelman ever achieves, he will always be the man who dropped a bollock so egregious that he not only sold the jerseys, but threw in the shorts, socks, and entire east terracing to sweeten the deal.
You can read this article in full at The Football Ramble, an excellent website for an even excellenter podcast.
