During his decade-long stay at West Ham, Michail Antonio chipped in with plenty of memorable goals among the 83 strikes he netted for the Hammers.
But often his celebrations would generate as much attention as his finishes ever did, whether it was the Jamaican international jumping on the latest trend, or producing elaborate props.
For Hammers fans, there were two celebrations that really stood out.
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Antonio on his most famous celebrations
Antonio did his homework when it came to celebrations, even if it meant not all of his team-mates were on the same wavelength.
A point in case comes when he is asked to name his favourite goal celebration from his West Ham days.
“It would have to be the first one, Homer Simpson – that was quality,” Antonio recalls to FourFourTwo. “The night before, I think The Simpsons Movie came on, and I saw Homer doing it, spinning in circles on the ground.
“I thought, ‘If I score tomorrow, I’m going to do that’. I told the boys, and they went, “Shut up, you’ll never do it! But I managed to put it into the bottom corner, ran over and started doing it!
“Aaron Cresswell had no clue what I was doing, he managed to kick me in the back of the head. He was looking at me, so confused!”
Antonio would go on to become West Ham’s record Premier League goalscorer when he bagged a brace in the Hammers’ 4-1 win over Leicester City in August 2021, using this as an opportunity to pull out another classic celebration.
This time it involved him running to the sub’s bench and hoisting up a cardboard cutout of himself above his head in the style of Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing.
“In lockdown, I had an idea and thought, ‘Because there are no fans, I’m going to make two cardboard cut-outs of myself, put them in the crowd and when I score, I’ll jump into the stand, sit next to them and applaud myself.’ On the day of the game, I was told I wasn’t allowed to go into the stand, it would be an automatic red card, so the cut-outs were just sat in my house for two years. I was thinking, ‘What am I going to do when I break the record?’ Then I thought of that. I’ve got a very imaginative mind!”
Antonio’s creativity was curbed in recent seasons however, as football’s most controversial modern development gave the nay-sayers another reason to rally against it.
“When VAR came in, it ruined my celebrations,” he adds. “I couldn’t run off and do the worm or something, knowing the goal could then be ruled out…”
Michail Antonio’s autobiography 'Humans Not Robots', published by HarperCollins, is available now
