10 Important Last Minute Goals That Should Never Have Happened
6. Roy Essandoh - Leicester City 1-2 Wycombe Wanderers (10 March 2001)
Back in the caveman days of 2001, Wycombe Wanderers manager Lawrie Sanchez responded to an injury crisis that had decimated his striking options, by putting an advert on Ceefax. His advert sought a striker that had to match two criteria: Be fit, and don't be cup-tied ahead of an FA Cup quarter-final visit to Leicester City.
Respondent Roy Essandoh was one of football's true journeymen. The Northern Irishman started his career in Scotland with Motherwell, and he'd visit Austria and Finland before returning to the UK, playing a couple of games for Rushden and Diamonds in the season they won the Conference. But without a club, his agent noticed Sanchez's advert, and took a chance.
Essandoh was on the bench in the quarter-final after signing a two-week contract, and would come on with the score at 1-1 after Paul McCarthy's header was cancelled out by Muzzy Izzet. After a stonewall penalty for handball was turned down, Sanchez was sent off for protesting, which would create an amazing visual of its own.
Watching a TV in the depths of the main stand at Filbert Street, Sanchez was filmed celebrating wildly as out on the pitch, his Ceefax striker headed home in injury time to send Wycombe to the semi-final. With his only goal in 17 appearances for Wycombe, Essandoh created a memory that would last a lifetime.