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The Premier League has treated us to numerous iconic celebrations down the decades
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The most famous and cherished are often direct responses to criticism
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Two have led to match bans and hefty fines
Whether its pre-planned or spontaneous, we’ve been treated to some memorable goal celebrations in the short history of the Premier League.
Indeed, very often they’ve been far more entertaining than the goal itself.
10) Robbie Keane’s Cartwheel
Most of our favourite celebrations are typically a direct response to a news story, or a fan-base, or a manager. They’re one-offs. Of their time.
That’s not to say that a player’s trademark routine on hitting the back of the net doesn’t also warrant a lot of love. From Lomana LuaLua’s somersaults to Tim Cahill punching corner flags, these are moves that have gone down in folklore.
Across a career that spanned two decades Robbie Keane was unquestionably one of the best Premier League strikers around, and undoubtedly too, one of the most under-rated.
On 126 occasions the Irish hit-man tumbled into a clumsy-looking cartwheel that was always redeemed by blasting a few rounds off from his finger guns. Tottenham fans adored him for it.
9) Bullard Mocks The Gaffer
In January 2009, Hull boss Phil Brown unforgettably and unforgivably kept his team out on the pitch at half-time to read them the riot-act, his players humiliated enough from being four down at Manchester City.
It was a surreal incident that prompted hilarity but also criticism of Brown’s actions.
Fast forward ten months and the Tigers equalise late-on at the Etihad courtesy of a Jimmy Bullard penalty.
So, of course a character such as Bullard isn’t going to let the opportunity pass for some pay-back, instructing his team-mates to sit around him in a circle as he furiously finger-wagged at each of them.
8) Shearer Keeps It Simple
Keane aside, it’s no coincidence that the most elaborate celebrations are usually enacted by strikers who rarely trouble the top of the goal-scoring charts.
In the Premier League alone, Shearer smashed home 260 goals and if he followed every one with a split leap leading into a back handspring that number would be halved, with the Geordie legend consistently injured via calf strains.
Which is why Big Al kept it simple. A raised arm. A broad grin. A good old-fashioned and wholesome response to giving a keeper nightmares that night.
His familiar pose is cast in bronze and proudly stands outside St James Park. It’s iconic.
7) Ravanelli Gets Shirty
Fresh from winning the Champions League with Juventus, the signing of the Italian international caused quite a stir in the North-East back in 1996 and with Juninho already on their books, Middlesbrough could look forward to a vintage era, one that is still cherished at the Riverside today.
On his debut at home to Liverpool the ‘White Feather’ wasted no time in securing a legacy, firing a momentous hat-trick that upset the football betting odds and each time wheeling away, pulling his red jersey over to cover his face.
It was a celebration copied on Monday in every playground and school playing field from Stockton-On-Tees to Redcar.
6) Crouch Does The Robot
A drunken robotic walk to the gents at a pre-World Cup get-together in 2006 soon became a national obsession when Crouch’s England team-mates encouraged the lanky striker to reprise his party piece when he next converted for his country.
Scoring the first of an international hat-trick against Jamaica soon after, the player duly obliged, dancing like a robot from 1984 and he was presumably then stunned by the level of interest his angular moves received, transcending the game and being warmly embraced by popular culture.
His signature routine was solely reserved for England duty until 2017 when Crouch became the oldest player to reach 100 goals in the top-flight. At Stoke’s Britannia Stadium on February 1st, the famous strut was given its first and final Premier League outing.
5) Adebayor On The Wind Up
According to the Togolese forward, the away end at the Etihad spent much of Manchester City’s clash with Arsenal back in 2009 chanting derogatory claims about his family. According to the Gunners faithful who were present that day, they did not.
Wherever the truth lies, it can be stated for certain that Emmanuel Adebayor’s £25m switch from North London to Manchester earlier that summer had not been a particularly harmonious transfer and just four games into the season here he was, facing his former employers.
With ten minutes remaining, the hero-turned-villain thumped home a terrific header and had only one response in mind, a celebration that later saw him banned for three matches.
Showing a turn of foot that surprised both sets of fans, Adebayor raced the entire length of the pitch to knee-slide in front of his tormentors. It’s fair to say, they didn’t take it very well...
4) Ketsbaia Goes Crazy
Returning from a long-term lay-off, the highly-strung Georgian was immensely aggrieved to find himself on the bench as Newcastle took on Bolton in 1998, his mood only darkening as other players got on ahead of him.
Ketsbaia finally got the nod late-on and promptly slotted home a last-minute winner, a goal that sent the St James Park hordes delirious.
Their delirium immediately changed to bemusement however on seeing the player’s reaction to scoring, an outburst of unfettered fury that had him throw his shirt into the crowd and repeatedly kick the advertising hoardings. His team-mates even needed to dissuade him from taking his boots off.
Our Premier League predictions have Newcastle safe this season. With some of Temur’s passion the Magpies surely won’t go down.
3) Fowler Fails To Tow The Line
Robbie Fowler’s derby-day goal celebration in 1999 resulted in the then biggest fine ever dished out by the FA to a single player. It made the back pages for days after. It got everyone talking.
Which was precisely why the forward, known to all at Anfield as ‘God’, did what he did on netting against his club’s arch-rivals and bitter neighbours Everton.
After being subjected to scurrilous rumours across the city concerning alleged off-field behaviour, Fowler dropped to his knees and pretended to sniff the white pitch markings right in front of an incensed away end.
Hilariously, his manager Gerard Houllier attempted to play the incident down, claiming it was a grass-eating celebration learnt from Fowler’s Cameroonian team-mate Rigobert Song.
2) Why Always Mario?
For a good while back in 2012, every other day saw a new story emerge concerning Manchester City’s enigmatic striker Mario Balotelli. Most of them were very probably not true.
He was, apparently allergic to certain kinds of grass. He was in the habit of paying for stranger’s petrol when filling up his supercar. He once used a passing youth player as a moving target when playing darts.
On the weekend of a Manchester derby at Old Trafford it was revealed that a firework had been set off in the bathroom of the player’s Cheshire mansion causing considerable damage and with the whole country finding this extremely amusing the Italian set about scoring against Sir Alex Ferguson’s Reds.
On doing so, he nonchalantly lifted up his short to reveal a now famous message written beneath.
The latest Premier League betting odds have the Blues down as favourites to win their fourth Premier League in five years come May. Why always City?
1) Klinsmann’s Dive
Jurgen the German had accrued quite a reputation in Britain for diving from several instances of flinging himself dramatically to the ground for his country at major championships.
On his debut for Spurs therefore in 1994, the likeable forward had a point to prove, first scoring with a superb header before executing a celebration concocted beforehand by his new team-mate Teddy Sheringham.
Klinsmann’s exaggerated fall to the Hillsborough turf that afternoon has gone down in the annals of English footballing history, a classic moment that changed a multitude of opinions at a stroke.
