10th August 2016

The Glovers may have won 2-0 at League One Walsall in the First Round of the EFL Cup on Tuesday night, but the limelight was stolen by Matt Dolan’s stunning extra-time strike.
 

With Town already leading 1-0 courtesy of an own goal, Dolan capitalised on the home keeper Neil Etheridge being out of position to find the net from inside his own half – a distance totalling all of 50m.

 

The effort immediately drew comparisons to David Beckham’s halfway line goal against Wimbledon on the opening day of the Premier League season back in August 1996, with Dolan’s strike coming a spooky eight days before the 20 year anniversary of the then Manchester United player’s wonder goal.

 

But with the Yeovil midfielder finding the back of the Saddlers’ net from virtually a different postcode to the rest of the Banks’s Stadium, what else could Dolan’s shot have sailed over?

 

For fans of architecture, the Christ the Redeemer statue that stands above Rio de Janeiro is a mere 38m leaving 12m spare, whilst the Statue of Liberty – from base to torch – is 46m rendering it unable to prevent a Dolan-esque effort.

 

His shot would have just about trickled over the top of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris which stands at an equalling 50m, whilst the original Godzilla (used between 1954 and 1975) would’ve been picking the ball out of the back as it also only stands at 50m.

 

Somerset-born Siobhan-Marie O’Connor claimed silver at Rio 2016 in the pool in the early hours of Wednesday morning, but the swimmer wouldn’t have been able to complete a length of the 50m Olympic sized pool before Dolan’s effort cleared the distance of the water.

 

Back to football, and you would need to count up Yeovil’s goals dating back to late April in League Two, in terms of distance from goal, in order to equal the 50m Dolan effort on Tuesday night.