Non-league hero Chris Long stakes claim for fastest goal in football history before Beer Albion team-mates force him to eat dog food to celebrate
Striker, 24, struck unstoppable effort directly from kick-off in Devon & Exeter Premier League clash against Newton St Cyres
NON-LEAGUE hero Chris Long fired in the mutts’ nuts of all goals.
And his chums then celebrated the pedigree strike by making the unsuspecting striker eat DOG FOOD!
Long cracked in a 55-yard hit from kick-off for Beer Albion last weekend, giving him a claim to scoring the quickest goal in football history.
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The Devon and Exeter Premier League side were hosting Newton St Cyres with some of Long’s friends still getting out of their car when they saw the ball sailing into the net.
Long was incredibly then made to suffer for his own brilliance at the hands of his prankster pals.
The striker, 24 explained: “There has been some talk of the Guinness Book of Records from my mates but there’s not a lot of evidence – what the ref says and the people that were there.
“I’ve had a look at some of the quickest goals and people have rolled it or been passed to, that’s going to take up a second or two, but I didn’t do that.
“The referee is the one with the watch and two and a half seconds sounds about right to be fair. It did go pretty direct.
“We have a fines system, for whoever does something stupid. The person who gets it the previous week then has to decide a fine for the following week.
“Saturday we brought something edible and whoever was ‘d*** of the day’ had to eat these… things. Dog food!
“I didn’t know what it was at the time. It looked like leftover food from the night before.
“I wasn’t very happy with that to be honest! But the older guys follow us all over the place and some of our games are a hundred-odd mile round-trip and they’ll come and follow us.
“They appreciated it and were buying me pints. But obviously your mates that you play with are a bit more brutal than that. But there wasn’t a lot else that happened in the game."
Long was so stunned he could barely celebrate, while player-boss Richard Walker – a former Aston Villa and Bristol Rovers pro – worried the ref would disallow it because he didn’t know the new kick-off rules.
The goal rightly stood, with the whistler clocking the Long shot at just 2.5 seconds - just a tick slower than Vuk Bakic's effort (0.3s) for a Serbian side back in 2012.
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Chris added: “We’re not very good at kick-offs and usually lose possession straight away, so I just said to Rich: 'I’ll get it up-field as it’s windy and the keeper is going to struggle from a goal kick'.
“I won’t catch one sweeter than that, straight in the top corner. People say the wind’s caught it, but it didn’t really, only towards the end when it was going in.
“The keeper wasn’t the biggest but he wasn’t that far off his line. He might have done better, but you’re not expecting it straight from kick-off.
“I didn’t know what to do. I just stood there and all my team-mates jumped on me. Rich was more worried about whether the ref would allow it.
“Some of the refs in our league aren’t very up to scratch with some of the rules.
"With the new rule, I’ve tried it before and they’ve said ‘if that’s gone in it wouldn’t have counted.’"
Walker netted on his maiden Villa start against Arsenal back in 2000.
Chris reckons his gaffer is one of a dying breed.
But the Gunners fan reckons it is now time for Arsene Wenger to call it a day at The Emirates.
“Rich is really modest, not like a lot of the Premier League footballers you see on TV. He scored on his first Villa start against Arsenal – my team.”
“I think what Wenger did in the first ten years of his Arsenal career, no-one is going to better it.
"It’s getting to the point now where I don’t want him to be remembered for the things he didn’t do in the latter years.
"The way it is at the moment we’re not going to compete for the league and probably not going to finish in the top four this season. He could step down and be remembered for what he achieved, although some fans will remember him for what he hasn’t achieved – which is a shame.”
The goal proved to be decisive, as Beer Albion ultimately ran out 3-2 winners to move into eighth spot – out of 15 – in the league table.