Sunday League team unique corner routine led to an extraordinary goal goes viral

A unique corner kick routine that worked to perfection in a Sunday League game has gone viral on social media.

The match saw AFC Hackleton playing in the Nene Sunday League in Northamptonshire this past weekend, and during the game they received a corner.

As both teams lined up in the box to await the corner, one of AFC Shackleton's players walked over to the quadrant and placed the ball down before rolling their studs over the ball and walking away.

His team-mate ran over, with the opposition clearly thinking he was about to take the corner, but instead he started dribbling the ball towards the penalty area after realising the set-piece had already been taken.

As he got to the edge of the box, he fired a left-footed shot across the goalkeeper and into the far corner, having hardly been closed down at all by the opposing team who had reacted far too late to what was going on.

As his shot hit the back of the net, the scorer wheeled away and was mobbed by his team-mates as they celebrated their clever corner kick routine resulting in a goal.

After the clip of the goal was watched by hundreds of thousands of fans online, scorer Calvin Green explained how he managed to pull it off.

'It wasn't in the plans at all,' he told the BBC. 'I was just running over to take it [the corner] as I normally do and he said "I've taken this".

AFC Hackleton manager Dan Porter was delighted that his team's corner led to a goal, but admitted he would be 'furious' if his side allowed a similar goal to go in.

'If I was the defending team, I'd be more furious that my lads were switching off than the other team being, in my eyes, cleverer.

'I think, just as the defending team, you're probably frustrated at that goal for switching off.'

It could not have gone better for AFC Hackleton this weekend, but Green conceded they have been made to look foolish when trying it in the past.

'We've done it a few times for Bugbrooke on Saturdays, who we play for, and the lad that actually took the corner he plays for Bugbrooke as well,' he added.

'Dan actually tried to do it the other week and the lad saw and he just got the ball obviously before I could get there. You win some, you lose some.

'I feel like we've completed that one now so we don't need to do it again. We'll find something new, I think.'

The same corner kick trick as been used in the Premier League before by Manchester United against Chelsea in the 2008-09 season.

On that occasion, Wayne Rooney tapped the ball lightly before Ryan Giggs ran with it towards the box and crossed for Cristiano Ronaldo to head home.

However, the assistant referee was not happy with the routine and flagged for the corner to be re-taken, leaving United's players apoplectic.

Yet United actually scored from the next corner through Nemanja Vidic, and went on to beat the Blues 3-0 at Old Trafford thanks to second-half strikes from Rooney and Dimitar Berbatov.