Keeper’s Reaction To Penalty Area Raid With A Difference

More information has come to light about the misfortune of a keeper who played one first-team match for Wolves – and around 225 for their next opponents.

Chic Brodie’s full-time playing career was ended by a dog – but that was not the only unusual way in which he found himself endangered.

When playing for Wolves’ weekend hosts, Brentford, the Scot once had the alarming experience of a hand grenade being thrown into his goalmouth.

Other players with Molineux connections were bystanders to the incident, which came during crowd trouble at a 2-1 Third Division victory for Millwall at Griffin Park on November 6, 1965.

Backpass recently disclosed that the grenade was found to be harmless, with the firing mechanism apparently having been removed.

But the keeper tossed it into his net anyway, from where a policeman put it into a bucket of sand and took it to his local station.

It was reported that pieces of wood, bottles and even a full can of oil were thrown into the penalty areas patrolled both by Brentford’s Brodie and his Millwall counterpart, Alex Stepney.

The unlucky Brodie had his Football League career ended when he suffered a serious knee injury after being hit by a white terrier that had run on to the pitch at high speed in the Bees’ game at Colchester in 1970.

The proudest day of his time in the professional ranks had come when he faced Manchester United at Molineux in a 2-1 home win in February, 1961 in the one game he played in Wolves’ first team.

He subsequently appeared in more than 200 League games for Brentford and shared a pitch in that notorious fixture against Millwall with two others who were well known at Wolves – or came to be.

Playing at no 8 as a team-mate of his for the West Londoners was Joe Bonson, the forward who scored five goals in 12 senior Wanderers matches in the 1950s.

And among Millwall’s line-up and goalscorers was Hugh Curran, who moved to Molineux in January, 1969.

Brodie, who was able to play on in non-League after his freak knee injury, died in 2000 at the age of 63.