Lee Hughes & Other Old Rockers

Typical.  You wait years for one ex Premier League player to feature in a Poppies game, then two come along at once. Last Saturday we had the unusual sight of a Halesowen side featuring Lee Hughes, ancient slaphead and former jailbird, showing absolutely none of his ex top flight prowess, complemented by the late introduction of Sylvan Ebanks-Blake, who must be wondering where it all went wrong. Premiership striker in his 20s, coming off the bench six leagues lower in his early 30s. And making that look like a sensible career move.

Whilst this added curiosity value to things, there was a time when it was far from unusual to rock up at a semi pro game and witness an aging star going about his business. This was probably mostly down to money: even at the top level, very few players got rich and most needed to eke out their careers as best they could, even if that meant being kicked by part timers. Plus there were the ones with injury payoffs that prevented them from playing again at a professional level, but still had something to offer or so they hoped – often short lived.   

Finally there was the category of recovering/lapsed alcoholics – see Greaves (Barnet), Best (Dunstable) and almost but not quite Gascoigne (Threshers).          

Over the years we specialised in attracting the services of fading big time players, right back to the marquee signing of Tommy Lawton as player/manager, an event so big it was live on TV in the days of two channels, which must mean that it was watched by a large part of the population with nothing better to do. Derek Dougan was similarly big news – here was a man who not only had played in America against the likes of Pele, he was a regular on the telly as a World Cup pundit. For the first time, Rockingham Road and glamour appeared in the same sentence. Or even on the same page.

Then there was Don Masson, former Scotland captain, who was just passing through, and the Daves Watson and Needham, uncomplicated old rockers who ended their playing days in KTFC pinstriped nylon – slower than in their pomp but giving off enough static to power a small generator.

Plus who can forget the answer to an excellent quiz question: which non League club at the same time boasted a former European Cup winning captain, and Britain’s one time most expensive player?

Can you imagine the equivalent now – John Terry and Andy Carroll? Don’t even go there.

 

Half the answer to that quiz question

 

And the other