This thread is quickly getting changed to the top traditional centre-forwards... As requested, legendary "pyramid"-mould C-F Hughie Gallacher: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/NEWCgallacher.htm http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/may/20/seven-deadly-sins-football-gluttony-hughie-gallacher http://www.soccerhistory.org.uk/Hughie Gallacher.htm http://www.scotzine.com/2010/09/hughie-gallacher-hero-legend-tragic-genius/
[An excellent little tidbit about the difference(s) in approach between a "pyramid"- and "W-M"-type No.9s from Gallacher: in that Spartacus Educational profile:] '6) Jackie Milburn, Jackie Milburn's Newcastle United Scrapbook (1981) Years later I was fortunate enough to wear Hughie's shirt and virtually every Saturday he'd be waiting for me outside the main entrance, always at the same time in the same place, ten yards from the door. "Hi, Jackie, you're doing fine," he'd say, "but l've got a little tip for you..." Then he would mention something he had spotted in my play the previous game. "You're standing with your back to the centre-half and your team-mates don't know how to play the ball up to you. Why don't you half turn to give them a clue which side you want it and then run. They'll never catch you."' [Gallacher is suggesting that Milburn stop (or at least give some variation to) playing in the then-current preferred method of a ("W-M") No.9 by pushing as far up the pitch as possible and then turning their back to the opposition's goal and waiting for service. Gallacher is telling Milburn to take advantage of his combination of initial quickness and top-gear pace by utilising an old "classic" centre-forward approach: set-up on the half turn so that your team-mate w/the ball knows which side of you to play a telling through pass. Then just turn on the "JETs" and blow past opposition players: "They'll never catch you." There's other little bits of info about "classic" C-Fs in that profile as well...]
Since we're on a "classic" centre-forward trend; the Spartacus Educational bio & profile of Bill "Dixie" Dean: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FdeanD.htm As it pertains to Dean lining up as a "classic"type No.9: notice how the likes of Eddie Hapgood and Sir Matt Busby had such fulsome praise for Dean as an "amazingly accurate layer-off of chances for others" and that he roamed the width of the pitch looking to do damage to the opposition...
One of Johnny Haynes' No.9s to find w/the ball from a precision pass; Fulham and England cult hero "Beddy" Jezzard": http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2005/jun/09/guardianobituaries.football http://www.fulhamfc.com/history/legends/bedford-jezzard http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1491335/Bedford-Jezzard.html http://www.friendsoffulham.com/forum/index.php?topic=12277.0 Jezzard was an outstanding No.9 who was quite unfortunate to be available for England selection w/the likes of Nat Lofthouse, Jackie Milburn, Stan Mortensen & Tommy Taylor playing the same position...
[Some stellar commentary on Mortensen wearing the No.9 shirt from Tommy Lawton and Sir Stanley Matthews:] "10) Tommy Lawton, My Twenty Years of Soccer (1955) I have never been able to work out whether Stanley Mortensen was a centre forward or an inside man. Whatever he was, he was just about the most dangerous attacker of his day. Stan, just about the only player of Norwegian ancestry, came from the North East, where they breed some great footballers, and during the war he was the only survivor of an air crash. He was then an air gunner in the R.A.F., and few people gave him much chance of making the big time in soccer after that. But spring-heeled Morty had the heart of a pack of lions. With that curious, energetic run he has burst open more defences than any other man of his time, and I don't think I know a player who was faster off the mark than this Blackpool Bombshell was. Knocks and injuries meant nothing to Morty, and I am sure that Blackpool supporters will talk for years about that wonderful trio which used to form the right wing at Bloomfield Road - Harry Johnston, Stanley Matthews, and Stan Mortensen. (11) Stanley Matthews, The Way It Was (2000) With some people you meet there is an immediate chemistry and you bond straightaway. With others, although you have dealings with them every day and get on perfectly well, there is nothing. With Stan Mortensen and me, the former was true. With the passing of each game, we developed a greater understanding of one another's style of play. A couple of years down the line it was as if we could read one another's minds. The on-the-field relationship was uncanny. When such a partnership is formed in football, it produces magical moments. Later, he kindly said that his career blossomed through his on-the-pitch relationship with me. In teaming up with Morty the same can be said of my game. Whether in the shirts of Blackpool or England, we worked it the same. Wherever I was on the wing I knew where Morty would be in the middle. For a forward renowned for his goalscoring, he would often drop off quite deep to collect the ball and once he had it I'd take off down the wing. Invariably I'd never look back, the ball would be pushed in front of me to run on to, or come looping over my shoulder beautifully weighted with back spin on it so it slowed up ready for me to collect without breaking stride. Morty would head off for the left of the penalty spot, then with a burst of lightning speed head towards the near post. His change in direction and speed threw defenders and more often than not it meant he arrived at the near post in space. He wasn't the tallest of forwards and this I think helped him in his ability to swivel and turn his body for the arriving ball. He was lethal in the box and pretty lethal outside it as well. He possessed a monstrous and explosive shot with either foot. For a man of his height, five feet ten, he was a match for anyone in the air. He had the uncanny knack of all great predatory strikers of being able to predict where the ball would arrive and this meant he often met it without having an aerial duel with the towering centre-half whose job it was to mark him. Once airborne, it was as if the thumb and first finger of the right hand of the good Lord had reached down, nipped the shirt on his back and held him there because Morty seemed to defy gravity and hang in the air for ages. Denis Law in his heyday with Manchester United in the sixties is the only other player I've seen do that. Morty could despatch headers like bullets from a gun and for all he wasn't the biggest of forwards, his beer barrel chest, cornflake box shoulders and legs like bags of concrete made him a formidable opponent for the toughest of defenders. I can't ever recall him being knocked off the ball and when he went after it, he did so with demonic enthusiasm. There were some tough centre-halves about at this time - Bill Shorthouse of Wolves, Allenby Chilton at Manchester United, "Whacker" Hughes of Liverpool, Newcastle's Frank Brennan, Joe Kennedy of West Brom and, lest we forget, on the international front, Scotland's Willie Woodburn, a player whose exploits ended with him being banned sine die. Morty got stuck into them all and they into him! "If blood be the price of Admiralty, Lord God we have paid in full," wrote Kipling. Morty was a class act but if blood and bruises can be construed as a necessary part of winning games, then Stan Mortensen's account was paid up in full. Not once did I hear him complain about his lot. "All part of the game, though happily the larger part is played out with the artist's brush," he used to say and how right he was. For all he was a man of great physical strength and fortitude, more often than not his contribution to the canvas of a game had all the delicacy and elegance of a painting by Renoir." [Both passages are from the Spartacus Educational bio and profile of Mortensen that I linked to back in post No.50.]
[Once again, Heskey was one of the most target-like "target-playing" centre-forwards that was ever targeted for a pass by one of his team-mates... ]