Ray Wilkins picks his best XI
Just a few days ago, there was a very interesting interview by Matt Lawton for the Daily Mail - the subject was Ray "Butch" Wilkins.
It is my opinion that whenever I see Wilkins on TV that he has nearly always come across as being level headed and probably a calming influence in any dressing room. I must admit to being surprised about his driving offences a few months ago as this seemed to be out of character and for an ex-player with so much knowledge of the game, it does seem somewhat surprising that he has found managerial roles really tough to come by.
When I was about twelve years old, a friend of mine had a younger brother who was only about five or six years old at the time. He was in the process of losing his baby teeth and had a massive gap at the front and on the top side of his mouth - he was instantly given the nickname "Joe Jordan".
Joe himself became known as "Jaws" or "Lo Squalo" (the shark) when he later played for AC Milan having lost his front teeth during a Leeds United reserve team match. In his time as manager of Bristol City, fans produced giant inflatable teeth instead of the more traditional bananas that for some inexplicable reason were all the rage in the late 80's.
Apart from Manchester United fans, there were not that many people in England that particularly liked Eric Cantona. The Frenchman portrayed arrogance and an eliteness that he embodied any time that he put on a shirt for United with his collar up swooning around the pitch with a prescience suggesting he owned it and looking down on all other players.
But this article is to do with one particular episode of Cantona's career - the infamous sending off at Crystal Palace in 1995 when after being red carded he then proceded to kung fu kick a Palace fan in the crowd. I can still recall being on the phone at the time and as the 9 o clock news started the first thing shown was the video footage of this incident that had just happened moments earlier. I told my friend on the other end of the line to quickly turn on his TV because I was in a state of disbelief as to what I had just seen. For the next half an hour or so we were still on the phone talking about all the possible ramifications that Cantona now faced.
Legendary Irish defender Paul McGrath was a guest on the couch for Sky's "Goals on Sunday" during the spring of 2012 and during the interview he talked about his international career and playing in the World Cup 1994 and beating Italy in New York.
McGrath came to England in 1982 when he signed for Manchester United from St. Patricks Athletic. A combination of knee problems and alcoholism led to McGrath being side-lined quite often during his seven years at Old Trafford although he still did make over 200 appearances for the club. Despite the option of retirement and a nice little pay-off in the process, McGrath decided that he wanted to continue to play on and in August 1989 he was bought by Aston Villa for £400,000. Even though the knees still were causing him problems, McGrath managed to make over 300 appearances in the next seven years and won the PFA Player of the Year award in 1993. McGrath finished his career with short spells at Derby County and Sheffield United finally retired at the age of 39 in 1998. He was selected in the shortlist of players for the best Premier League defenders based on the first twenty years of the Premier League. |
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