Golden fail on the Golden Goal

It was while reading the excellent Norwich City blog Sing Up The River End the other week that got me thinking back to the golden days of the Golden Goal cards at Carrow Road.
As a kid I used to watch the games and then wonder why they always read out the goal times and why, a couple of minutes later a couple of old boys in white coats would trudge around the ground holding up a board with the exact time of the goal displayed with plastic numbers on hooks. Fast forward a generation or so and I’ve got to say I’m hooked on the Golden Goal cards on sale at Carrow Road. Forget the punters gathering around the various outlets of Ladbrokes trying to guess the first goalscorer and correct score, I’d rather invest some cash in these rather addictive little scratch cards.
For the uninitiated, you for £1 you get two goal times, one in each half. Match the time of the first goal and you win £500. The prizes tail off dramatically after that – goal two secures a Freeview Box, goal three a signed football, and then it’s down to a £25 voucher, followed by a tenner if there’s a fifth goal or more.
But you also get a lucky number which wins you the man of the match’s signed shirt. That’s the bigger draw for me and I’ve developed a mini-obsession with trying to win it.
Normally I pick up a couple of cards – at £1 each, they make the perfect use of the £7 change I’d get from buying a programme with a tenner. I don’t eat or drink at the football and, rather than burning my lips on a Cornish Pasty (Ipswich at home, 2006) or scorching my mouth on a pie (Nottingham Forest away, 2001) or buying a beer (can I be the only man who at the age of 35 has never had a beer at a football match in England) I’d rather spend the cash on Golden Goal cards.
I’ve been so close on so many times – against Colchester last year (the 7-1) I was six seconds away from getting the opening goal time correct and twice this season I’ve missed out on the shirt by less than three numbers.
Last Saturday against Porstmouth I decided to go for it. I invested £20 in the cards, which I picked up from four different sellers around the ground. I made a note of the goal times and lucky numbers in my phone and scratched them off after the game.
I knew the lucky number was 0772 and that would win Wes Hoolahan’s signed shirt. After 19 unsuccessful cards I came to the last one, scratched it off really slowly and the first three numbers were ‘077’. My heart started to thump. From a one in a thousand chance I was down to a one in ten chance.
In more ways than one, I just needed a number two!
With one big brave scratch I scraped a way that last bit of silver foil to reveal a number.... four.
Damn you Golden Goal cards, you’ll be the death of me until I win, but I’ll keep on going!