Originally Posted by
jimmyscoular
LOL. A fun read.
I once "played" against Ray "Butch" Wilkins, and, like you, wrote an account of it:
Here it is:
Some years after I realized that I was not, never had been and never would be Superman — that tying a raincoat around my neck cape-style did not confer the gift of flight — my second bubble burst.
These are hard lessons on the long, sad journey from the wonderfully mystic world of childhood into the garish light of reality, but they must be learned.
Lesson number two was delivered decisively on a warm summer day in 1972, when I attended soccer camp at a seaside town in south Wales. The camp was led by Stan Montgomery, a professional English footballer long retired.
We trainees were a bunch of 16-year-olds who thought rather highly of ourselves. And not without reason.
We had won every local league and cup competition and were the team to fear.
So when the universe ordered itself so that the youth team of the great and mighty Chelsea football club happened to be touring south Wales during our camp, and caused them to challenge us to a game, Coach didn’t back down. The debacle that ensued is for the ages.
We made two mistakes during that game. The first was agreeing to play it. The second was scoring the first goal. When that header near the far post went soaring past the Chelsea goalkeeper, a cloud of apprehension descended on me. We had poked the bear. This would not end well.
I know that sounds defeatist, but, hey, these were the cream of Britain’s soccer-playing youth, culled from innumerable rag-tag local teams like ours and placed firmly on the professional track, beneficiaries of the best that professional coaching had to offer. These kids were the future of the game.
My job that day was to guard their left winger, which I gamely attempted to do. The first time the ball landed at his feet I approached him cautiously, but suddenly he was no longer there. Like something out of Harry Potter, he simply disappeared. I looked over my shoulder and he was 20 yards downfield, the ball at his feet. I have no idea what he did to accomplish this Houdini-like feat, but it was the end of any fantasy I might have indulged that the professional game beckoned.
We lost 8-1, and my fecklessness guarding Houdini had much to do with it.
Afterward I asked the name of the kid who had so thoroughly humiliated me.
“Ray Wilkins,” I was told. “He goes by ‘Butch.’”
A year later, at the age of 17, Butch Wilkins was playing for Chelsea’s first team. At the tender age of 18 he was team captain. In 1979, Manchester United came calling.
He captained the England national team 10 times and played in the 1982 and 1986 World Cups.
His career, and universally praised temperament, caused the queen to make him a Member of the British Empire, the same honor once conferred upon The Beatles.
So it naturally caught my attention when I read on April 4 that he had died unexpectedly of a heart attack at the age of 61, my age.
His passing was universally mourned across the English game.
It is perhaps a small claim to fame that Ray “Butch” Wilkins once subjected me to 90 minutes of humiliation, but it’s about the only one I have.
So, good luck to you, Butch. If St. Peter gives you any trouble, which I highly doubt, then just do what you did to me, whatever it was, and you’ll be 20 yards inside the gates before he has a clue what’s going on.