Chris Nicholl – Own goals, a great goal and the heavy price to pay.
There’s an indisputable glamour about being a professional footballer in the top ranks of the game. There’s fame, fortune and the adoration of fans to bask in, offering a glowing warmth to soothe away any aches, pains and bruises earned on the exercise of the occupation. Of late, such riches and rewards have galloped away into the stratosphere, a place hardly seen, let alone comprehended by us lesser mortals, standing and watching. Roll the clock back 40 years or so though, and whilst there’s still adulation and at least an element of wealth and celebrity, for so many players of a certain genre from that era – and perhaps others to come – the price now being demanded of them is truly catastrophic. There are many slips and stumbles, often painted as disasters in a career, but it’s only when real tragedy strikes that such things attain their true perspective. Continue reading →
“What’s this geezer doing? He’s hopeless!” – Ali Dia’s 53 minutes of Premier League infamy.
If you’re the manager of a Premier League club and your secretary wants to put a call through to you from “George Weah” odds are you’re at least going to take the call. When, to many, it quickly becomes clear that there’s doubt whether it is the estimable Mr Weah – three-time African Football of the Year, star of PSG, AC Milan and Chelsea – and you realise that the man on the other end of the line is asking you to sign ‘his cousin’ for your club, it may be time to hang up the ‘phone. Continue reading →
Matthew Le Tissier – ‘Le God’ who lived among the Saints.
Often described as one of the most naturally talented players of his time, Matthew Le Tissier has a career record that invokes both envy and bewilderment – in equal measures. A scorer of spectacular goals his trophy cabinet is virtually bare, but there’s no regrets from the player who decided to devote his whole career to Southampton Football Club. Continue reading →
Heroes of the beautiful game – Peter Osgood.
Peter Osgood, king of Stamford Bridge was my boyhood idol.
A while ago, I was invited to submit a guest article to the ‘grumpyoldfan’ website looking at a Hero of Youth. Here’s what I came up with:
I know this may make me sound like some curmudgeonly old moaner, locked into the past but casting my mind back around five decades or so, there was of course no computer games and kids’ TV lasted for a mere hour before the six o’clock news. Plus, if you had no interest in ‘sticky-back plastic’ or empty washing-up liquid bottles, such things could be of limited interest anyway. There was therefore little else to do other than go outside and play with a ball. Cricket in the summer – well sometimes, but overwhelmingly, football. Continue reading →
Gary Thacker 