Who would be a goalkeeper?

‘We are all goalkeepers now,’ declares Robert McCrum, and who could seriously argue with that? Every day we try to defend our own goal against the hurtling ball of fate, but too often end up fishing it out of the back of the net. Then again, we are also all strikers, hopefully hoofing, occasionally taking a bit of a dive in the box. Or central defenders, muddied but valiant. Or nippy little wingers, making mazy but pointless runs down life’s touchline, whingeing at the referee. Come to think of it, we are all, in a very real sense, referees too.

There is no end to the football-as-metaphor game. For the football metaphorist, every pass and kick, tackle or foul represents some grand, universal truth about life and the wider world. McCrum is a metaphorist to his fingertips, and the penalty kick is a particularly rich source of material. For Freudians, we learn from his book, a penalty represents desire and penetration.