Hat Plus One
The football books all said it,
And they wouldn’t make it up –
The more-than-hat-trick scorers
In the world of the World Cup.
Ten were these men of honour,
From ’38 to ’94,
Though mostly pre-the 60s,
When they still knew how to score.
Back in the days of black-and-white,
And the studs were more like claws –
Before the need for penalties
To settle the goalless draws.
Leônidas, Wilimowski,
Wetterström, it said,
Schiaffino, Ademir,
and Kocsis, so it read –
And Just Fontaine was next,
And then Eusébio was last –
And nothing more for twenty years –
Those stars were in the past.
But then, from out of nowhere,
Butragueño made his 4,
And then Oleg Salenko
Made it 5 to up the score.
And this was universal,
It was there in ev’ry book –
But then the list got shaky
When they took another look.
Match reports from early days
Were sloppy things back then –
No camera to play it back,
Just notebook and a pen.
So hard luck Leônidas,
You were scored a goal for free,
And likewise poor old Wetterström,
Your storm was only three.
And Schiaffino, even worse,
Was left with just a brace –
And on those all-time scorer lists,
These three leave not-a-trace.
Are four goals one-too-greedy ?
Should a teammate get a chance ?
But the Great-Man view of history
Is all in the romance.
I’ve always thought there should be a specific name for four-in-a-game. Boot-trick ? Quad-trick ? Maybe top-hat-trick ? I hear the Spanish refer to it as a ‘poker’. And if a ‘perfect’ hat trick is one scored (in any order) from the right foor, left foot, and head, what would a ‘perfect’ fourer be ?
Rhyming Couplets 