Ex-Liverpool man Brannagan on scoring four penalties

“I don’t think it has ever been heard of before,” Cam Brannagan tells Sky Sports. “Four penalties? How often does that happen?”

The answer is that Brannagan’s achievement in Oxford’s 7-2 win at Gillingham last month was unique. The 25-year-old midfielder became the first player in the 134-year history of the Football League to score four penalties in the same game.

It is all the more remarkable given that these were the first penalties Brannagan had scored. James Henry had been the club’s regular taker for years. “He got injured and had missed the last one.” Matty Taylor took responsibility next. “He missed.”

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It was Brannagan’s turn. “I just said, ‘I am going to take the next pen.’ We all agreed that I was on penalties. Lucky enough, we got four in a game. It was crazy. Every time we got a penalty I just had a little chuckle to myself. You have got to, haven’t you?”

Brannagan is conscious that he has gone from penalty-taking novice to achieving something that no other player in English football ever has. He is reluctant to talk up his skills. “The keeper dived the wrong way, that made it a little bit easier,” he says.

“I had to do my job and put them in the net and I did. I slotted them all away.” Nevertheless, there is an unusual psychological contest being played out between kicker and goalkeeper when having to take four penalties against the same opponent in the same game.

“The first one, I went right,” Brannagan explains. “To be honest, I did not think that first one was a great penalty I was just lucky that he dived the wrong way.” In a sense, that helped. It encouraged him to try a different penalty, while sowing a seed in the goalkeeper’s mind.