STICK WITH BASTOCK

by Richard Smith

Has anyone else noticed Bastock is physically metamorphosing into an alien? [errr.....we mean that in a nice way - just in case you're reading Paul, some our best friends are aliens].

It's just that the well-known Italian FIFA referee who officiated the 2002 Brazil/Germany final - oh come on, you know the one I mean.... he has a shiny oval scalp and eyes disproportionately larger than his head, which ensures he resembles something the US Air Force deny finding at Rothwell... and subsequently attempted to suppress, well, we think he does... and we don't care if you run and tell your dad that we said so.

Anyway, we're not alienist.....so we welcome all colours, creeds, race and planetary life in our team. Bastock is an exceptionally good goalkeeper - an old school goalkeeper who was always capable with his feet before it became a mandatory compulsion with 'keepers following the back pass legislation. Significantly, the outlawing of the back pass coincided with the immediate end of Dave Cusack's playing career - he must have felt a bit like the owner of Britain's largest Rotweiler breeding kennels the day that the Dangerous Dogs Act was passed.

As we are constantly reminded by pundits, you do have to be mad to be a goalkeeper. Indeed, an ability to display incurable insanity is obviously de rigour at the interview process, but we prefer to re-brand Bastock's moments of madness as, well, eccentricities.

Occasionally he will go AWOL, sprinting towards the Spayne Road tea bar like a man who has just that second decided to end a joyless 6 month diet, and about to order as many burgers and over-sugared foods that he can carry back to his goal. Sometimes he does this whilst an attack is progressing very well down the middle of the park. Of course, Bastock has also mastered the other essential characteristic of the Goalkeeper Character.

Goalkeeping characters are fondly admired, and subsequently remembered with affection years after they've hung up their gloves, thanks to their desire to entertain. All the great character Keepers (Bruce Gobbera, Fabian Bartez, that ironically named Polish Clown of the 1974 World Cup campaign) know that after a series of awe-inducing saves, it is equally important to collect an under-hit shot, picking the ball up like it is a particularly vicious cactus, and then fall over backwards whilst permitting the ball to trickle through your legs with just sufficient momentum to cross the line.

It is, of course, vital to follow these comedic antics with three or four saves of the calibre of Gordon Bank's save for England against Brazil in the 1970 world cup finals (only better). Nevertheless, we are duty bound to remind readers of that ...err... ha-hum ..(cough)... "fumble" against Forest Green last December.

And yet........there are many of those wonderful saves from Mr Bastock. There were several great ones at Morecambe, all preserved for posterity by the visiting BBC cameras, and without that point at the seaside there would be no Football League match at York Street today.

Our first introduction to Bastock was at Fisher Athletic in the early 90s. Instead of playing for Boston, though, he was turning out for the opposition (as, indeed, was ex-Pilgrim Stewart Hamill - Stewart entered the social club afterwards and asked which visiting Boston fan had booed him throughout the duration of the game; given that there were only 3 of us there that afternoon, it was a distinctly uncomfortable moment).

I certainly remember Bastock as, following a Martin Hardy screamer from fully 30 yards, a late penalty gave us a deserved 2-1 victory. Bastock's immediate reaction to the penalty being hit home, was to turn around to the Pilgrims' fans behind the goal (remember, there were only three) and enquired "do any of you want a fight?". I've subsequently tried to convince myself that he was joking, but I've never really known.

A favourite Bastock story - which may well be of dubious reliability, but hey, we're the press - was recounted to me years ago by a Boston fan at Welling United's "ground". He told me that he was in the Town Pump in Boston one night, who should turn around - rather worse for consumption of legal substances and ask him for a light - but our hero. Good to see our man adopting a less reverential approach to the bodies-as-a-temple sporting doctrine.

This reminds me of another story, faithfully imparted to me fay members of T.R.A.S.H. (that stands for Tranmere Rovers Away in Silly Hats - admit it, you were curious) that I met on a train travelling back from a featureless 0-2 defeat at Bath City once. They were in their social club one evening when a serious extension had been granted to host a club official's wedding reception. It was 2 am, and one man had consumed so much beer that he was struggling to leave his chair unaided. My train companion related that, on closer inspection, this was no other than bona fida 70s footballing legend Frank Worthington.

Anxious not to let this moment of meeting a genuine football icon pass, he assembled the necessary courage to approach him and indulged in attempted conversation. "So, you're obviously not playing tomorrow then, Frank". "No," replied the moustached forward, "I've got a thigh strain", a fact he illustrated by standing up so that he could point to his thigh, before promptly falling over.

And who should be shaking hands with the opposing captain in the centre-circle a mere 13 hours later that Saturday afternoon at Tranmere's Prenton Park ground? That's right, a moustache 70s iconic footballing legend.