The Goldstone Wrap

In Soccer Monthly magazine, Albion fan Alan Hanking from Lewes puts enormous faith in the abilities of Israeli international Moshe Gariani. Maybe he ought to invest in one of these t-shirts?

Perhaps a footballer being ‘blinkered like a racehorse’ may give a reason as to why Moshe did not make it in First Division under Mullery or Bailey!

No matter, Moshe has cult hero status for Albion fans of the 1980s, not to mention this blog. One substitute appearance against Southampton, and that was it for Mr Enigma.

In a ceaseless search for the Israeli midfielder, one online interview for Gariani has been found. Apologies for the broken English:

1981-1982 season and he’s 23 years old, The little playmaker of Maccabi Netanya is taking a plane and lands in Brighton. It’s true, He didn’t see much pitch but 22 years ago it was something great for the Israeli football.

Q: Moshe, You are in cold and buttoned England?
A: You see what it’s like, Yes, me. In England, either you win or you loose – You finish the match day in the Pub, drinking and laughing. The score doesn’t matter. You went off of the pitch and that’s it! After a loose – You will not find a face of Av the 9th (a face of sadness cause Av the 9th is the day the Temple was ruined) like in Israel. In England they make a separation. You could see players, 45 minutes before the game, calling from the club to a gambling agent and put money on Horse Gambling. I also put money once and won 20 pounds.

Q: Hey, Listen. You actually have it.
A: Yes, eh? We were always together. Going to eat, playing Tennis,Golf, Squash, Horse racing and Billiard.

John Gregory was there, who became the manager of Aston Villa and Derby County after. You can be sure that it wasn’t boring, although in the end of the day everyone got back to their families and I was stuck alone, climbing on the walls.

Q: How is the English audience?
A: The audiance was alright. Not to much fanatical. Not once the fans met me on the street and told me that they don’t understand why the coach don’t let me play and that I deserve to play. In the newspaper there – I wasn’t to take an interest in so much cause they had only half a page of Sports and anyway, I didn’t know how to read the language so it didn’t interested me. But the Guys there were wonderfull.

There were couple of tricksters there, like the full back – Steve Foster. He had a very weak forehead. Every game he was getting on the pitch with a bandage on his head. He was also tricked in the runnings of the Cross Country and hiding behind the tree, till everybody came back. Those things remind me the things we used to do in Israel but the poor guy got fine on those things.

There was a great thing in Christmass. There is some kind of night there that everyone is getting masquerade. I was flow with that thing and put a costume of an American Indian and we got to couple of walks in Pubs and Discotheques, the guys went wild, ever place we left – we left chaos but we were forgive cause we were football players.

Q: In the end, You didn’t make it to the second season.
A: It could have been that if I was established I could have stayed but being alone drive me crazy. I was making pre season trainings in the second season and was in the reserves team. I remember we scored 9 goals to Dallas Texas, I scored 6 goals and the Americans offered me a contract of 150,000$ per season. Big money, but I was thinking at that time to go back home so I told them that I thank them for the money but I’m prefering to come back home.