Written by: Rik
Date posted: December 31, 2012
Although looking at the game itself wasn’t as much fun as I’d hoped, FIFA 07 did provide an alternative source of entertainment in the form of frenzied Wikipedia searches for members of the Leeds United (yes, that’s my team – sorry) playing squad in 2006-7.
Even by the standards of the team’s less-than-illustrious recent history, that season was a stinker. Leeds had finished the previous season one result away from securing promotion to the Premier League, yet somehow contrived to be relegated the following year.
Revisiting the squad in FIFA prompted murmerings along the lines of “He didn’t play for us, did he?” and “Whatever happened to him?” – with internet research providing the answers to those questions as, “Oh…he didn’t, much” and “He drifted down the leagues and then retired from football”, respectively.
Apparently, burly northern targetman, Geoff ‘the Horse’ Horsfield (also known as – ahem – ‘Big Horse’) had a spell at Leeds. In real life, it wasn’t a success: he managed only 2 goals in 14 appearances and his loan spell was terminated early, before he enjoyed a similarly fruitless spell at Leicester City.
If nothing else, though, football games offer you a chance to re-write history, and by the end of the 2006-7 season in FIFA-land, ‘The Horse’ had been reinvented in my mind as a powerhouse goal-machine, leading the mighty whites to the Championship title. Go on, ‘The Horse’!
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