Longest Goal Celebration

The longest ever goal celebration lasted 3 months. In the final match of the season between the Spanish local league clubs San Leppe and El Porcos on the 15^th June 1982, Porcos midfielder Salvatore Despuidas scored an injury-time winner, helping his club avoid relegation. Removing his shirt, he ran screaming off the pitch, straight down the road to a Carmelite monastery, where he took a vow of silence and became a monk. It was assumed that he’d left the club, but, during a training session before El Porcos’ first match of the next season, Despuidas appeared, running, screaming onto the pitch, wearing the same kit he’d worn on the 15^th of June, and took a place on the substitutes bench. When his story made the local paper he told the interviewer, 

“I promised myself that if I scored I would have a very special celebration. This came to me in a flash, and although I maybe regretted it at a couple of points, I felt I had to see it through.”

copyright © 2008 James Mathurin