Solskjaer Memories: “I thank Ole for every single one of his goals”

This the second of the series of Ole memories, the first was posted here last week. The second story comes from another tweeter Andreas Budianto (follow on twitter @mr_ias) who is a regular member of the forum United Indonesia (follow on twitter @UtdIndonesia).

Over to Andreas.

“I thank Ole for every single one of his goals”

I believe that everyone will agree with me that the night in Barcelona 1999 was the most dramatic moment for all United fans. I hate to admit that I cried the last time I watch the 1998-1999 Season Review dvd and made my wife laugh at me.

But for me, Ole deserves to be remembered for more than merely a goal in the 1999 Champions League Final. I couldn’t remember all of his goals but the one that I will never forget was on March 31^st 2007, it was against Blackburn at home in the Premier League. That was the first season of AIG on our kit.

I was new in town and would always watch our match at the Manchester United bar here with my girlfriend. A good place that I’ll never visit again until the club is sold. As a United fan from far, what I can do to boycott the Glazers is not go into that bar, not to buy the kit and I have stopped buying Inside United magazine.

We had ordered pizza and beer while waiting for the match as I was always there about an hour before kick off. Derbyshire had made us 1-0 down and I watched as he ran celebrating to the left corner flag screaming in front of the Stretford End. I am always afraid if we are down in the first half against a mediocre side, they’ll park the bus in the second half. 1-0 to Rovers at the end of first half. We did have a lot of shots in the second half; until on 61 minutes Scholes ran through three Blackburn players, one outside and two inside the box before he shot the ball to Friedel’s lower right corner. That was a beautiful goal. The Stretford End arising and I screamed out loud.

On 73 minutes Ronaldo passed the ball from the left through five Blackburn players and three United players inside the penalty box and it got to Carrick for his shot to make it 2-1 for us. Not a strong shot by Carrick but very accurate to (again) lower right corner. On 83 minutes Ronaldo did a strong free kick right from outside the penalty box and forced Friedel down to block the shot. The ball then went to Park and he easily made our 3^rd goal that night. With the score at 3-1 Fergie decided to take Ronaldo and Giggs off after the 3^rd goal for Smith and Solskjaer.

I was always waiting for another goal from Ole everytime he came up as a sub. Ole only needed 6 minutes before he made the score 4-1. Park crossed the ball right to Ole in a counter attack move, Rovers had decided to attack us in full strike after our 3^rd goal and no one marked Ole at that moment. Another goal to (again!) lower right corner of the bar. Ole didn’t celebrate it too much, he only smiled to Park.

Nothing special beating Rovers at home but that day was Ole’s last goal for us, a finishing goal in his football career. I never imagined that it would be the last time I would watch him celebrating his goal. I was still waiting for another goal until the news came that he had decided to retire and I realised that I had already seen his last goal. I feel very lucky to have watched his last goal that night (yes, from a TV), a goal from a Super-sub because I don’t believe there’s any super-sub in football nowadays.

Thanks for all the goals, from the first till the last one…

Thanks for bringing joy and beautiful memories to all of us.

Thanks to Andreas for this great story. Stay tuned for more over the next few weeks.