SPECTATOR SPORT
Steve takes the lead
Frank Keating
ONE autumn seven or eight years ago, I poured a succession of stiff nightcaps and, heaven.help me, began counting the christ- ian names of all English League footballers listed in soccer's irresistible Rothmans Football Yearbook. Gary won hands down, routing Terry and Gerry, Warren, and Dayle. I've been at it again this week. The newly minted, first Rothmans of the 1990s shows a real turn-up. There are now 92 Garys playing league soccer; but they have surrendered a healthy lead and fallen into third place after an astonishing surge by Steve (134), and a dashing run from midfield by Mark (112). The Darrens (46), Deans (29), and Waynes (25), who looked so eager to go the whole way around 1982, are now slipping down towards the clapped-out relegation zone where lan- guish those 1970s title-chasers like Barrie and Kevin, Terry and Gerry. My tips for the mid-Nineties: watch out for sustained attacks by Lee, Craig, Jason, Shane, and Shaun: they are already each massing confidently around the half-way line. The late-night, small-print swot leaves you punchy and drunk. But still sober enough to realise suddenly where the Mills & Boon romantic novelists filch those magnificent monikers they award their heroes and villains. Well, want a strong, silent, evenly gazed, gleaming toothed non pareil, who strides across moors, and sorts out trouble at t'mill before enfolding virgin heroine in his strong arms in the final paragraph? How about Christian McLean (Bristol Rovers) for a start? Or Jason Longstaff (Leeds Utd)? Certainly Wakeley Gage (Crewe Alexandria) foots the bill. So too Zac Hughes (Rochdale), Craig Shakespeare (West Brom), or the well dressed Dean Crombie (Darlington). And Scott Sellers (Blackburn Rovers) has a genuine paperback butchness about him. I am afraid, however, that Darren or Gavin Peacock (Bournemouth and Here- ford Utd respectively) would never bed the belle by the end — much too smooth. Also exposed right down to their correspondent hush-puppies by the last chapter would surely be Jade Sinclair (Hartlepool), Romeo Zonderan (Ipswich), Dale Jasper (Crewe), Rufus Brevett (Doncaster), and Clayton Blackmore (Manchester Utd) If the Misses Mills or Boon wanted, say, a bibbing Celtic poet with unrequited love in his heart of gold, how about Sean Reck (Wrexham)? Or a real, hairy-scary Caliban-type? Step forward Kenneth de Mange, of Hull City.
No supremo of the squad can over-fancy his chances of promotion with a centre- forward named Iffy Onura (Huddersfield Town) Or a full-back called Andy floun- ders (Hull). Or have too much faith in these three goalkeepers — Gary Leake (Huddersfield), Andy Leaning (Bristol City), or Laurence Batty (Fulham), though the latter seems nominally at least in the great Fulham tradition of eccentric custo- dians of the rigging, like Teflon (Non- Stick') Macedo, and dear old 'Snowdrop' Mellor (who came out but once a year, and then only after Christmas).
Mum's mid-Sixties Hollywood yearnings could be responsible for Marlon Beresford (Sheffield Wednesday) and Mitchum Ward (down the road at United); and most certainly, I should say, in the case of Gary Cooper (Maidstone) and Jeff Chandler (Cardiff City). Talking of stage names, surely Bristol City's physiotherapist sports one? In Rothmans this mystic masseur is listed as Buster Footman.
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