The all-time great 'sickener' goals you've seen your team concede...

[Enzo Scifo's Right Foot]

I remember going to the BBG for that midweek game . My old man went in the home end with a friend which left me and my best mate as teenagers in a packed cramped away end at the side of the pitch.
I still remember the wild celebrations when Drapes scored with a rare header in front of our section. Jumped into the sunken walkway in front of me , hugged a random guy. The atmosphere was tremendous with the low ceiling of the stand above just a few feet above your head

As for the equaliser if anyone remembers Derby’s away end you could see next to nothing at the other end of the field . You couldn’t judge distance or see detail .

All I remember was the ball going into the box and just watching the home crowd hoping for no reaction alas the place went nuts as the OG was scored . At the time I don’t think I knew what had happened but have never been so annoyed and pissed off after any game before or since .

We had quite the side back then regularly beating our larger East And West Midland rivals at Meadow Lane often by big score lines .

Great days , very sad punch in the gut ending ! The season ended there and then .

Thanks for digging that out not seen that clip for well over a decade .

 

[Andy Proctor]

He was decent for us to be fair and in a very good Vale team that came closest we’ve come to returning to the Championship level.

Sheffield Wednesday fans gave him real shit both times we played them so he scored in both games and taunted them... had a bit of a cult status with us.

Recall Oldham fans hated him after their keeper got injured in a collision and blamed him squarely for them bottling promotion!

The littlejohn goal at Hillsborough on boxing day that time when we beat them 3 2 was awesome.

 

[The_Boss]

Probably Micky Boulding for Mansfield at our place, which gave them a 2-1 win in 2007/08. It was only end of January/beginning of February but I thought we were down after that game and Mansfield probably thought they'd be ok. As it turned out, we survived and Mansfield got relegated.

Or a Sam Wedgebury equaliser at Macclesfield in our relegation season 2010/11. Ben Hutchinson got sent off when we were winning 1-0, we then went down to 9 men because of an injury and the equaliser came with basically the last kick of the game.

Remember that Wedgebury goal very well. We hadn't looked like scoring all game despite dominating the ball, and then the most unlikely source for a goal hit a sweet half volley into the far corner. That goal pretty much confirmed our safety that season as well I think.

 

[Wooderson]

We had quite the side back then regularly beating our larger East And West Midland rivals at Meadow Lane often by big score lines .
.

Indeed, beat Leicester, Derby (both 4-1) and Forest at home that year, as well as Birmingham, West Brom, Stoke, Sunderland, Palace and Watford. My only regret is I was a bit young to appreciate it!

Weirdly we get better gates these days!

 

[Crewelad87]

October 2006. Carling cup game at home to Man Utd. United led at half time through a Solskjaer goal. Varney then equalised for is in the 2nd half to send the game into extra time. We defended so well and it looked like it was heading to pens, for Kieron Lee to catch David Vaughan and fire cross Ben Williams in the last minute of extra time.

The Doncaster JPT game was the only other that came close, but I was more angry at that one than just truly gutted.

 

[valefan16]

Ironically the ultimate sickener for Port Vale Football Club occurred 65 years ago today when the ultimate fairy tale was robbed from us... but of course only 70+ year old Valiants will remember it!

FA Cup Semi Final at Villa Park, 3rd division Port Vale against mighty WBA... WBA won 2-1 with one of the most ridiculous penalties given... about six foot outside the box! Image of it on a history of the Vale book... worse still we had an apparently good goal ruled out late on (some things never change!) incorrectly for offside!

What an experience that run must have been though, beating holders Blackpool with Vale fan, Stanley Matthews en route. Pissed the third tier with 3 losses and only 21 conceded in 46 games and FA Cup Semi Finals... must have been great!

 

[Big Bird]

The second sickener was in the 2003/2004 season when we played Brighton in the play-offs. We lost a close first leg 1-0 and travelled to the Withdean stadium more in hope rather than expectation.

With 10 minutes to go and the game finely poised, Super Sammy Parkin scored to put us 1-0 up and send the game into Extra Time. In the driving rain Rory Fallon put us ahead after 97 minutes and we then adopted a backs against the wall excercise without Brighton ever really looking like scoring.....that is until injury time on 120 minutes where Brighton had a throw in, Tommy Mooney fell asleep and Adam Virgo was left unmarked to net the sickening equaliser. Of course this was made doubly worse by us losing on penalties and we missed out on a play-off final against a poor Bristol City side, who we would have beaten.

I was watching from a pub in Edinburgh, where I lived at the time. I remember that one hurt, a lot!

http://www.swindon-town-fc.co.uk/MatchCentre.asp?MatchID=20040402

Still hurts. Had messages from mates planning the minibus to Cardiff where we'd have played Bristol City. Cried myself to sleep and knew what was coming the next day from those who were well up for it if we did well but more than ready to take the piss when we lost. I loved that side as well. Parkin, Mooney, Howard, Igoe, Migz...all brilliant players.

Strangely though that game also cemented my love for STFC and prepared me well for failure ever since.

 

[The_Viking_Magpie]

Indeed, beat Leicester, Derby (both 4-1) and Forest at home that year, as well as Birmingham, West Brom, Stoke, Sunderland, Palace and Watford. My only regret is I was a bit young to appreciate it!

Weirdly we get better gates these days!

Yeah but it’s not about the size of your crowds it’s who you can beat

Not that football back in Early to Mid 1990s count obviously

 

[GTFCfish]

6th May 2006
Grimsby v Northampton final game of the season.
After being in the Autos all season we could only draw our penultimate game at Macclesfield (think we conceded late in that one too) leaving us 1 point outside the Auto’s going into the final game but with better goal difference than Orient.
So scenario was better Orients result and we were up.
Going into injury time we were leading 1-0 and coasting as Northampton didn’t seem arsed as they were already up and Oxford v Orient was locked at 2-2.
Then somehow, in what seemed like slow motion, Northampton levelled. The only feeling i can think of worse football wise since that day was losing on pens to Bristol Rovers in 2015, just complete despair.
Little did we know at the time also but Oxford had decided to play 0 at the back against Orient in their desperate hunt for a goal for survival allowing Orient to break away and win that one in injury time too.
We then recovered to beat Lincoln in the Semis before facing Cheltenham in the final who we had beaten home and away in the league, and so we predictably went and lost 1-0.

 

[Dan Phillips]

Sheffield United away in the FA Cup was horrible. We played so well and outplayed them in large parts only to concede two goals in added time. One was miles offside and the other was off a corner that was the most blatant goal kick I've ever seen.

Tottenham away in the Carling Cup was heartbreaking. 1-0 up until the 81st minute thanks to Leon Constantine and Mark Goodlad putting in the best goalkeeping display I've ever seen in a live game. Only for a double deflected free kick to go in off another player, the crossbar then the goalkeeper. Cruel. They then scored another massively deflected goal in ET, before Defoe put the gloss on it for them by finally converting his 122nd chance of the night lol.

Rochdale away in our promotion season was a proper head in hands, and utter disbelief moment. We went 2-1 up in the 90th minute thanks to a Liam Chilvers header, and promotion looked done. Until Jason fucking Kennedy, the bald c***, headed in from a daft angle in the 94th and it looked like we'd fucked it. As we were leaving at FT, Burton scored a last gasp goal to beat Plymouth 1-0, so we wouldn't have gone up even if we did hold on, but was awful nonetheless.

The 95th minute equaliser from Josh Parker down at Gillingham was gutting as I knew for a fact that goal would send us down. We battered them as well until Jay Emmanuel-Thomas came on very late and swung in that pinpoint corner kick, brutal.

 

[Si Robin]

I’ve been racking my brains for ages on this subject and I can only really think of goals we’ve scored as sickeners.

When relegated from Division 2 in 2003 – it wasn’t the Notts goal that was the sickener, but hitting the post and bar in the same game. Against Shrewsbury in 2015 relegation had been expected for so long it felt like a bit of a release when it was confirmed.

The one goal that really sticks in the craw was when we played Fulham at Loftus Road in the FA Cup 3rd Round in Jan 2004. Grant McCann had put us one up with a screamer past Edwin Van Der Sar before Louis Saha got an equaliser not long after. We were more than in the game for the whole match. Big Damian Spencer missed a 1 on 1 with Van Der Sar late in the match and it appeared to be petering out to a draw and a big game (likely to be on TV) at Whaddon Road. Cue Bob Taylor slicing the ball out for a corner from the edge of our 18 yard box and Saha heading in from said corner in the 90th minute. Absolutely gutting.

 

[valefan16]

Sheffield United away in the FA Cup was horrible. We played so well and outplayed them in large parts only to concede two goals in added time. One was miles offside and the other was off a corner that was the most blatant goal kick I've ever seen.

Tottenham away in the Carling Cup was heartbreaking. 1-0 up until the 81st minute thanks to Leon Constantine and Mark Goodlad putting in the best goalkeeping display I've ever seen in a live game. Only for a double deflected free kick to go in off another player, the crossbar then the goalkeeper. Cruel. They then scored another massively deflected goal in ET, before Defoe put the gloss on it for them by finally converting his 122nd chance of the night lol.

Rochdale away in our promotion season was a proper head in hands, and utter disbelief moment. We went 2-1 up in the 90th minute thanks to a Liam Chilvers header, and promotion looked done. Until Jason fucking Kennedy, the bald c***, headed in from a daft angle in the 94th and it looked like we'd fucked it. As we were leaving at FT, Burton scored a last gasp goal to beat Plymouth 1-0, so we wouldn't have gone up even if we did hold on, but was awful nonetheless.

The 95th minute equaliser from Josh Parker down at Gillingham was gutting as I knew for a fact that goal would send us down. We battered them as well until Jay Emmanuel-Thomas came on very late and swung in that pinpoint corner kick, brutal.

Forgot the Gillingham equaliser! Threw my phone across the room when that went in and as it rightly turned out... they stayed up at our expense by a point!

 

[shoddycollins]

Ironically the ultimate sickener for Port Vale Football Club occurred 65 years ago today when the ultimate fairy tale was robbed from us... but of course only 70+ year old Valiants will remember it!

FA Cup Semi Final at Villa Park, 3rd division Port Vale against mighty WBA... WBA won 2-1 with one of the most ridiculous penalties given... about six foot outside the box! Image of it on a history of the Vale book... worse still we had an apparently good goal ruled out late on (some things never change!) incorrectly for offside!

What an experience that run must have been though, beating holders Blackpool with Vale fan, Stanley Matthews en route. Pissed the third tier with 3 losses and only 21 conceded in 46 games and FA Cup Semi Finals... must have been great!

Did Vale's owner of the time put together a dossier listing those injustices alongside others?

 

[valefan16]

Did Vale's owner of the time put together a dossier listing those injustices alongside others?

I'd imagine the press at the time would have done that for us in a high profile fixture like that. I was going to sneak that quip in the post above mind!

 

[shoddycollins]

Forgot the Gillingham equaliser! Threw my phone across the room when that went in and as it rightly turned out... they stayed up at our expense by a point!

Reminds me of the Burton equaliser against us at the Pirelli. Was the season they won the title at a canter and we were fighting relegation. We'd taken an early lead through a Danny Grainger free kick and then gone down to ten men and had to hang on almost the whole game. Think it was the 97th or 98th minute that they got their equaliser.

Think that was the one that caused HG to flush his season ticket down the toilet.

 

[HarryH]

The first that stuck in my mind was one of the earliest TV FA Cup Finals (1968) that I cared who won or lost. Thanks to the World Cup, Everton (after Barrow AFC and Barrow RLFC) had become my team.

0-0 at full time, extra time, players with socks round their ankles, both teams in change strips and Bloody Jeff Astle went and punctured the bubble.

Shame how dementia struck him in his final days http://www.thejeffastlefoundation.co.uk/about-dementia

 

[TimeyWimey]

October 2006. Carling cup game at home to Man Utd. United led at half time through a Solskjaer goal. Varney then equalised for is in the 2nd half to send the game into extra time. We defended so well and it looked like it was heading to pens, for Kieron Lee to catch David Vaughan and fire cross Ben Williams in the last minute of extra time.

Did we have a goal ruled out in that game? Seem to remember making a tit of myself celebrating in the face of a gobby Utd fan (likely from Crewe/Stoke) in the main stand. Only for it to the ruled out. We played Man Utd a couple of years earlier though and I always remember the two games as one. Another fact, which may just be a fantastical myth, from the 2004 game was Ferguson offered us a young Gerard Pique on loan but Dario turned him down because he couldn’t guarantee he’d play.

 

[King Kev]

Bury 0-1 Shrewsbury

Playoff semi final 2009.

Shrewsbury had a poor away record, so the thoughts going into the playoffs after we'd missed out on autos by a single goal was avoid defeat at Shrewsbury and we'd do the job at Gigg Lane. Despite being second best throughout the first leg we scraped a 1-0 win.

1-0 up going into leg two all we had to do was draw. We missed a penalty in the first half with Phil Jevons taking the tamest of kicks without even running up. Had he scored we'd have probably gone on to win comfortably.
I can't really remember much of the second half, just that in the 89th minute and with Wembley in our grasp, a Shrewsbury cross fell to David Buchanan. All he had to do was whack the ball into touch, yet for reasons unknown he tried an overhead kick clearance that fell straight at the feet of the Shrewsbury man. He shot and scored and that sent the tie into extra time where we did everything but score, Shrewsbury keeper Daniels putting in the performance of his career. Inevitably penalties came and we lost.

The term gutted did not even begin to cover it.
We got up two years later, but at that moment I had never felt so deflated following Bury.

 

[Forza Imps]

Stuart Campbell in 2007 vs us in the playoff semi. We'd only lost the first leg 2-1 and thought we could have a chance at home in the second leg. Then within 3 minutes he scores an absolute screamer and that was that. Truly gutting after seeing us lose in the playoffs each of the four seasons before. We lost 5-3 in the end, they were really good.

 

[GTFCfish]

Another sickener for me was Hartlepools final goal against us in 2003, until that goal went in I really fancied us to get an equaliser as we were only 7-1 behind but that made it 8-1 and then I realised that there was no way back.