LuaLua vows to continue backflip goal celebration

Brighton & Hove Albion winger, Kazenga LuaLua, is not ready to ditch his trademark backflip goal celebration despite a recent knee injury.

Footballers have been known to injure themselves while celebrating a goal and Indian player, Peter Biaksangzuala, even died after he fell backwards on his head as he performed a series of somersaults after scoring in a match.

But LuaLua is unmoved and will not stop his chosen form of goal celebration.

“I know the staff don’t like it when I do a backflip,” he told BBC Radio Sussex.

“But I don’t think anyone can stop me – it is how I celebrate.”

His elder brother Lomana, formerly with Colchester, Newcastle, Portsmouth and Olympiakos and now playing in Turkey, is also noted for a similar act.

“It is something in the family blood – it is always going to happen,” LuaLua said.

The 24-year-old, who was out of action for 10 weeks, scored for the first time in more than three months in Tuesday’s 2-0 victory against Derby County.

And he owes his new found confidence to the team manager, Chris Hughton.

“The gaffer has been superb with me since he got the job,” he said.

“He said not to rush anything and come back when the time is right, which I have been doing. I’m happy to get the goal.

“Since I got back from injury it has been tough, I’ve been desperate to play and to start but there have been people ahead of me that had done well. You could see from how I celebrated that I was really happy.”