Same old same oldMany of the old players you mention also had bad games....strings of them, with the same complaints...
OT: Pope another thorny issueStill not getting your feelings on this: For two thousand years Catholic parents have had to suffer the living purgatory that their dead unbaptised babies will not enter heaven but instead spend eternity...
Same old same oldEvery time Engerland get turned over by an alleged *mediocre* team the usual outcry goes up. How can we get beat etc etc etc Look at the players we've got etc...
DR You COWARDOh dear Diablos. Amazingly, you post *after* I go to work -- and then say you are consigning me to your killfile when...
Mad Dog Mad Dog Willie "Fatty" Foulkes was Chelsea's first goalkeeper and first captain. He was 6ft 3in, and weighed in at over 22 stone! Stamford Bridge was the first ground to employ ball boys - these were mainly employed in order to help out Willie. The first Chelsea manager, John Tait Robertson always maintained that a couple of skinny, under-nourished ball boys would make Willie look even more gargantuan. To emphasise his bulk even more the club's smallest player, a tiny winger called Moran, would trot behind the great man. Willie was nearly 30 when he joined Chelsea from Sheffield United, where had won two Cup medals He had played for England and had also played cricket for Derbyshire. He could also have played for England if they had fielded eating team. One of the many stories that about him concerned an early away trip to Burton. At the team's hotel, Willie decided to go down for dinner early. Crowds that chant "Who ate all the pies?" would have been in hooligan heaven, because that is literally what the keeper did. When the rest of the team came down they found that all eleven plates had been cleared. It's just as well that there were no subs then. Mr Foulkes redeemed himself the next day, though, by stopping two penalties. The Burton manager raged at the poor forward who had missed two penalties, screaming that both kicks were straight at Foulkes. "Yeah, but where else could I place the kicks? There was nowhere else to aim," replied the forward. Such was Foulkes' size that he was often the recipient of team mate "banter" but Foulkes would punish any player who tried to tease him in training by sitting upon him until he apologised. Foulkes stayed at Chelsea for just one season (1905 - 06) before moving on to Bradford City, his last club. Whilst playing against Accrington Stanley in February 1907, it is said that Foulke's jersey clashed with the red of Stanley and no-one could find a jersey large enough to fit him, so he played wrapped in a sheet, procured from a nearby house. Bradford won the game 1-0 and Foulke didn't dive during the match, so he kept a 'clean sheet'. It was during his time at Bradford that he snapped the cross-bar in two while saving a goal, causing the match to be stopped. When he left football he fell on hard times and was reduced to working a sideshow near the donkey rides on Blackpool beach. It was the old "beat the goalie routine" and the Big Man ended up diving on the sands, shot-stopping to keep him in burgers .............. There were no millionaire footballers in those days ! In 1916 Willie Foulkes, Chelsea's first superstar, died at the age of 40 after catching a cold that turned into pneumonia. -- "A horse a horse my kingdom for a horse, I haven't had a winner in six months". MD
