Yesterday, Arsenal’s Aaron Ramsey scored in a 3-3 draw with Liverpool. This morning, the world learned that Alan Rickman—one of the greatest working actors, world-famous for roles like Hans Gruber, Severus Snape, and the Sheriff of Nottingham—was dead at 69. His cause of death: Aaron Ramsey, maybe.


The death certificate will list cancer, but that doesn’t mean Ramsey didn’t play a role, perhaps. There’s this theory Out There that Ramsey, an all-action midfielder with a curiously sharp nose for goal, is cursed. The main evidence for this is that Ramsey, a Welshman, is very good at soccer, and it is indeed possible to count every very good Welsh soccer player in the history of the sport up to and including Ramsey on Jason Pierre-Paul’s right hand. Being a very good soccer player of course isn’t easy. It demands sacrifice. For a Welshman, it demands grave sacrifice indeed: Ramsey goals coincide with the death of one of mankind’s rich and famous.

This may sound like so much poppycock to the motherless nonbelievers among us, but examine the evidence. Ramsey scored yesterday; Alan Rickman died today. Ramsey scored last Saturday; David Bowie died Sunday. Look for yourself:


Another scholar has an even more exhaustive accounting of this curse, noting occurrences where Ramsey goals precede the deaths of greats like Robin Williams, Paul Walker, Ken Norton, H.R. Giger, and more.

Ramsey has scored other goals, yes, and other famous people like, say, Michael Jackson, have died in the summer, when Arsenal aren’t playing. These are valid-seeming points, but there are people Out There who would posit that this is what makes the Curse of Aaron Ramsey so fraught. There’s no telling when or where the curse will strike. If Ramsey knew that every goal he scored would lead to death, it’d be a simple matter to play all the time and never score, like Jesús Navas. The curse is in the not knowing, and if Ramsey is to answer his calling, he has no choice but to play, to score, to kill. It’s a great sacrifice indeed, but in return, the 25-year-old is world-famous himself, physically fit, and very, very rich, and so he treks on, scoring in games big and small, leaving a tattered trail of our most beloved in his wake.

Photo Credit: Associated Press