NB: The point of the Joy of Six is not to rank things, only to enjoy them

To write a piece on overhead kicks without mentioning Klaus Fischer would be as remiss as doing an essay on Scottish psychos with imaginative use of pool cues and beer glasses and not citing Francis Begbie. When it came to acrobatic goals he was the Fischer King or, as the Germans put it Mr Fallrueckzieher (Mr Falling Kick).

Fischer was an underrated player who scored 32 goals in 45 games during that semi-forgotten era of West German football between the sides of Franz Beckenbauer and Lothar Matthäus (what any other country would give for a semi-forgotten era that included a European Championship win and two World Cup finals), and he is largely remembered for one thing: an extraordinary, incomparable portfolio of scissor kicks. In fact, ridiculously, he’s still doing it at the age of 60. (Sexagenarians are advised not to try this at home, unless they are into the pain thing and want to pull 15 different muscles simultaneously.)

His most important came in the epic 1982 semi-final against France, but his most celebrated came in a friendly against Switzerland five years earlier: a ridiculous effort that was voted Germany’s Goal of the Century. Fischer scored an even better one a year later in 1978, but it was tediously disallowed for dangerous play. He could manufacture an overhead kick from almost any position in the box; it gave a whole new meaning to the idea of pumping it high towards the big man.

The Germans have loved such acrobatic efforts ever since Fritz Walter’s famous scorpion kick in the 1956, and they were frequently voted Goal of the Season. But only one person won the prize on three different occasions with them: Mr Fallrueckzieher.

The internet has largely been a disaster, turning us into dumbed-down, self-indulgent eejits, but it does have some good going for it. Before YouTube and the like, it was extremely rare that you would be able to see that second tier of great goals, because they were never shown on TV. Growing up, Mark Hughes’s life-changing scissor volley in Wales’s famous demolition of Spain in 1985 had an almost mythical quality: it was so adventurous and full of derring-do that every time it was described he seemed to get higher in the air until it got to the point that he was doing it from a parachute, having been dropped out of a fighter aircraft in the middle of World War II before time-travelling back to 1985 while in mid-air.

For once, reality didn’t disappoint. It’s an incredibly athletic effort, and even more remarkable because the ball actually spins sharply back towards Hughes when it bounces, yet he still manages to control the volley perfectly. Quite how Hughes was able to consistently lift those tree-trunk thighs so high is anyone’s guess, but when it comes to scissor kicks he is right up there with the likes of Hugo Sanchez, just a rung below Fischer. He even managed to partially redeem a 5-1 defeat in a Manchester derby. But this will always be his masterpiece. Not even a commentator screaming “brrrrrrrrrrrrrrilliant!” in the most extreme Welsh accent this side of the Fast Show doctor can tarnish it. God bless the internet!

This is a scissor kick, but not as we know it. For two reasons. One, Guti is vertical - which evokes similar turn-of-the-millennium efforts by Paolo Di Canio and Gus Poyet - but more importantly because he uses the side of the foot rather than the laces. Athleticism, improvisation, grace and most of all perfect control: this goal is as unique as a snowflake.

The hosts of major tournaments split broadly into two types: those who hope to win it (1988, 1990, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2004, 2006), and those who know they won’t (1986, 1992, 1994, 2000, 2002, 2008, 2010). The latter group have two aims: to overachieve and to have one moment that will keep them warm as the grim reaper lumbers towards them with that look in his eye. Mexico certainly managed both in 1986. They reached the quarter-finals (the only occasion came in 1970, when they also hosted the tournament), and Manuel Negrete scored one of the World Cup’s most memorable goals, a gloriously accurate scissor-kick against Bulgaria.

To most of the world it was revelatory, but to those who knew Mexican club football it was not a surprise, for Negrete had scored a much better effort (no, really) 13 months earlier. Scissor kicks are notable for their physical dexterity, but here he also shows remarkable mental dexterity to work himself into position, like a speed chess grandmaster, while under extreme pressure from two defenders. It was a crucial goal too: a late equaliser in the second leg of the Liguilla quarter-finals that took the game to extra-time (Negrete’s U.N.A.C. eventually won on penalties). When it comes to scissor kicks, non, Negrete ne regrette rien. Sorry.

Some goals are bigger than others. For almost a century, Chile and Peru have been arguing over who invented the bicycle kick, like neighbours squabbling over a backyard fence. (Although, bizarrely, the former Aston Villa P45 manufacturer Doug Ellis also claimed to have created it.) And while Juan Carlos Oblitas’s legendary goal in 1975 doesn’t really change anything in historical terms, it’s such a perfect moment that Peruvians can ignore all logic, show this video and endeavour to end this argument with imperious, Brentish ‘NEXT!’.

It’s also, just ahead of the inevitable Fischer and Dennis Tueart, the earliest overhead kick of which we could find footage. We might take such goals for granted now, but back then they were as young, fresh and new as The Beatles’ song structures. And, almost as an afterthought, it helped Peru to win their only Copa America of the last 70 years.

It is a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s a bloody Walsall footballer! The scissors kick isn’t always the most graceful of manoeuvres, involving as it does the sort of whirl of arms and legs you usually only see when horny* freshers play drunken Twister, but sometimes it can look impossibly beautiful. Marco van Basten, a man who could make an extended sojourn around the inside of the nostril with the index finger look elegant, scored a wonderful effort against NAC Breda, but we’ve gone for this flying effort from Roger Boli, part of a memorable hat-trick for Walsall in 1997.

It’s goal that you can, to tweak one of the naffest album titles of the 1990s, file under easy viewing; a negligee-smooth feast for the retinas. It is also, we can say without fear of contradiction, the greatest goal ever scored against Southend by a man whose brother put the head on Stuart Pearce.

* Yes, on reflection, this word probably is tautologous

Rob Smyth is joint editor of retrombm.com, a site devoted to football history.