When Footballers Were Skint: A Journey in Search of the Soul of Football

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But I get the sense that in common with most men who regard their masculinity as the ultimate badge of worth, he holds women in the highest regard, even fears them a little.

‘It was in the character and spirit of Duncan | Biteback

At the peak of his powers, former left back John Arne Riise was bombing down the channels for Liverpool not to mention Fulham. These are things that obsess him over and above the considerable success and popularity he achieved at his three League clubs – Sheffield United, Nottingham Forest and Coventry City – as a speedy left-winger, and occasional centre forward, with a bullet shot.Late in his career, when Matthews was nearer 50 than 40 and back at Stoke, Eddie Clamp was responsible for protecting the club’s ageing asset. Not just because there were no substitutes allowed and they were needed to make up the numbers, but because they were expendable.

When Footballers Were Skint - Google Books When Footballers Were Skint - Google Books

This took him to a wealth of clubs from Newcastle United to Queens Park Rangers, Coventry City and Everton. Players and fans would even sometimes be next-door neighbours in a street of working-class terraced houses. But what was uppermost in Bale’s mind was that he was fed up with not being a regular member of the starting 11.It was Buckley who came up with numbering on shirts, the first structured scouting system and developed a youth policy complete with a nursery club in Yorkshire, Wath Wanderers. The drugs ban imposed this week on a Salford City player is just the latest example of a footballer – just as athletes do in a range of other sports, and have done down the years – trying to improve performance in any way he can.

When Footballers Were Skint: A Journey in 9781785904660: When Footballers Were Skint: A Journey in

Not only did United handsomely avenge their 2-1 Cup Final defeat at Wembley earlier in the year, in which their goalkeeper Ray Wood was injured, Edwards exacted a little retribution of his own. It took place during the 1957 Charity Shield match at Old Trafford between Manchester United and Aston Villa – won 4-0 by United – and disposes of the idea that Edwards was without a single rough edge. A patriarchal home life when he was a lad and a tightly knit mining community forged in him what I soon learn is an uncomplicated set of values. Who were great Footballers and stand alongside the likes of Aquero ,Kompany , Zabaleta , DeBruyne and David Silva in today’s game.He taught me nicely but the only thing was at school I was always in scraps because someone wanted to fight me. Moments after helping Real Madrid beat Liverpool in this year’s Champions League final, Gareth Bale gave a TV interview. Collindridge is in the kitchen brushing leaves away from the back door when his wife, Glenice, lets me in. Another ex-Manchester United man makes it onto the list and this time it is former midfield ace Eric Djemba-Djemba. About the Author: Jon Henderson has written about football as a journalist and author for more than fifty years.

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My 1950s XI (traditional WM or 2-3-5 formation): Gordon Banks (Chesterfield, Leicester City, Stoke City); Bill Leivers (Chesterfield, Manchester City, Doncaster Rovers), Walley Barnes (Arsenal); Danny Blanchflower (Barnsley, Aston Villa, Tottenham Hotspur), John Charles (Leeds United, Juventus, Roma, Cardiff City), Duncan Edwards (Manchester United); Stanley Matthews (Stoke City, Blackpool), Jimmy Greaves (Chelsea, AC Milan, Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham United), Brian Clough (Middlesbrough, Sunderland), Jimmy Hagan (Derby County, Sheffield United), Tom Finney (Preston North End). The Manchester City defender Bill Leivers, in completing a story about tangling with Bolton’s Nat Lofthouse, quotes the unwritten etiquette of how a player used to react to a heavy tackle, particularly a retaliatory one: ‘You got up and grinned about it, you didn’t roll about on the ground for ten minutes. Footballers may have been tougher back then – Allcock talks with pride about playing 75 minutes of a League Cup game with a broken leg – but they had to be. Having spent millions on luxury cars as well as lavish mansions, he was declared bankrupt in 2012 after a series of escalating debts including repossession of his properties.They were coming to the end of their resources – they weren’t a big PFA in those days, they were a small PFA, the money wasn’t coming in like it does now – but they offered to pay my expenses if I carried on. As the melange of adoration, money and off field activities can reveal, a footballer’s existence is certainly a charmed one at best.