Festus Baise’s scorpion kick – football’s first viral own goal
- Improbable strike past his own keeper in a Hong Kong league match in December 2011 has been named the ‘greatest own goal ever’
- Goal racked up more than 1 million views in days afterwards with defender describing it as ‘funny, but terrible too’
The very first viral own goal was scored right here in Hong Kong – and it might still be the best ever.
Before YouTube it was a time when videos of goals were handed over in playgrounds and pubs, the day of Goals Galore and The World’s Greatest Goals on VHS.
Such was the clamour for goal videos in the late 1980s and early 1990s that there was deemed to be a gap in the market for goals scored at the other end and a slew of videos followed Danny Baker’s Own Goals and Gaffs in 1992.
The world moved on from VHS (and VCD and DVD, too), but it has not moved on from its desire to share eye-catching goals at either end of the pitch. Enter YouTube.
The site changed everything when it came to sharing such a goal in seconds – and the viral video was born.