1990 Trophy Line-up

[barrowfan_chris]

You don't know for sure they would walk into the team. The standard they were excellent in my day must be good now is tosh, fitness has massively changed from those days maybe they had the talent but they probably wouldn't last 5 mins now.

[Reg]

It is absolutely beyond question that man for man, that team had way more talent than the current lot.

I never buy the old 'they wouldn't be fit enough' argument.

They would be as fit as the next man if they were playing today. There is no reason to think otherwise.

[ant]

You don't know for sure they would walk into the team. The standard they were excellent in my day must be good now is tosh, fitness has massively changed from those days maybe they had the talent but they probably wouldn't last 5 mins now.

Nobody knows for sure but confident.

[ruins]

It is absolutely beyond question that man for man, that team had way more talent than the current lot.

I never buy the old 'they wouldn't be fit enough' argument.

They would be as fit as the next man if they were playing today. There is no reason to think otherwise.

I bow to the Reg

[ruins]

How could you judge the argument?

Anyone know how many times a week they trained in the late 80`s / early 90`s?

Was drinking culture different? Looking at the dvd of the final non of them looked overweight and looked very fit? In fact is it not proving the point the squad made it all the way to wembley and no doubt played more games than any current crop?

Anyone saying that modern football is better (be it fitness etc) are surely proving the point that we have more inept, pointless players turning up in a shirt. Loans, Bosman, emergency shit, Russian deadline, Scottish Soccer etc etc........

A load of pap.

[pjdaly]

There’s fitness and there’s talent and ideally you want to see both in a player (in accordance with the level you are observing). It’s too easy to say players x,y and z would not get into today’s teams because of a fitness issue; if a certain “fitness” level was an imperative then both Cowps and Farrell from 1990 would certainly not make our team today. Both were a bit lacking in the fitness department!

Cowps had no pace, he couldn’t use his right foot and he was even comical sometimes when regularly mistiming his “leaps” (?) into the air for balls punted upfield (when he would be on the way down as the ball arrived). Despite all his flaws he was a magnificent target man, strong as an ox and with the ability to shield the ball and hold it up better than any Barrow striker I can ever recall. And the left foot was magical. We would, and should, die for his like in our front line today. If he had had the general fitness then he would surely have gone many leagues higher than he did. At one time I seem to recall that Chelsea were interested in him. I have to say that I was a bit surprised when Grant Holt went all the way to the top level because although he was certainly good for us I never envisaged him going as high as Premier League. If Holt could have done it then Cowps, with radically increased fitness, maybe could have done it too.

Farrell was perhaps slightly different; his lack of “fitness” probably wasn’t lack of fitness at all and more a case of being a bit past it when he came to us (after a long League career). He did sometimes, at first glance, look like an old man labouring out there on the park. But, like Cowps, he was magnificent and a second glance revealed a sublime little operator. In my opinion he was a tremendous footballer and for me he was MOTM in the 1990 Trophy Final (which the excellent Steve Higgins was awarded). For me, he controlled the middle of the park that day and even outshone the gifted Kenny Lowe. Perhaps it was because he did the “simple” things in a simple unfussy way, and was just in the right place all the time, meant that his authority could have gone relatively unnoticed. There was a certain similarity with Darren Sheridan in recent years as he too was just always there in the right places tidying up and picking up the ball and laying it off and generally pulling the strings and maintaining a shape and order to the midfield. They were both football “brains”. I liked Farrell and even more so some years later when he made a statement that he would have crawled over broken glass to come and manage Barrow.

Both the above would walk into our team today even with their relative lack of fitness. Of course the idea of both those players playing for us, given heightened fitness levels, would be a fantasy - - - and exactly that because higher fitness levels to go with their talent would have meant they would have been too good for us and operating many levels higher.

[barrowfan]

Good post pj

[spirit of 1990]

Good post pj

They always are!

[russell_anderson]

Mike Cloudsdale is a relative of mine, mams cousins husband. Nice bloke, bit of a nutter on the pitch in his day I'm told.

Spot on. I played against Mick for many seasons (me for British Legion and Mick for Swarthmoor) and we all thought he was an animal. In fact, we thought most of the Swarthmoor team were animals! However, I did play for Swarthmoor for one season and you couldn't have met a nicer chap than Mick. A gentle giant off the field!

[barrowfan]

Is Mick still in the building trade?

[DaveC]

I think he has retired now, but I'll find out.

[Arvo]

I liked Farrell and even more so some years later when he made a statement that he would have crawled over broken glass to come and manage Barrow.

If only. Anyway...

Now coaching at Brentford.

Just down the road. Somebody give us the nod and I'll go and have a word.

[pjdaly]

I was singing the praises of major talents from our past (Cowps and Farrell were the two I deliberately picked because of their notable shortage of fitness) and how they would walk into our team today if they could be transplanted through time from 23 years ago.

Of course fitness is important but the irony is that players such as the above mentioned might only ever have played for us (or at least stayed with us) because they were “unfit” (relatively speaking). With the talent they had, a better fitness level would have meant we would have had no chance of signing them (or at least keeping them). I look around currently at some of our fast (?) energetic (?) players and find myself wishing that we could get some really unfit (but talented) players at Holker Street.

I am being somewhat TIC here of course and don’t wish to downplay the value of fitness, just to say that high talent should not be rejected if fitness is a little bit wanting. And I also appreciate that lack of fitness can only be tolerated to a certain degree. I do of course agree that, generally speaking, fitness levels are higher across sport generally nowadays but I reckon that if the Cowps’s of this world were in the game today they WOULD be fitter because they would be subject to modern training methods, sports science, dietary understanding and the professional demands insisted to survive at any particular level.

Take a few examples; grainy old footage of somebody like a Fred Perry from the 1930’s is laughable now. He would not be able to live with a Nadal or a Djokovic or a Murray. But of course if he was playing today he would avail himself of modern methods and requirements to reach a certain level and I would hazard a guess that whatever is meant by “talent” or “champion spirit” would lead him to being a contender today if he were just starting out.

Another example would be Bobby Moore. He was never seen as “super fit” and on that basis alone would not get into the England team now. In fact, back in the day it was thought by many that his nearest rival for the position, Norman Hunter, tended to play better on a week-in week-out basis at club level. But Moore had an almost mystic quality, an indefinable talent, when it came to performing at top international level. I have got to believe that, with that quality, if he was starting out today he would develop himself to the required level of fitness so that he could display his talents on the world stage. So the Moore of old might not get in the England team but the champion spirit that was Bobby Moore would, I believe, take the steps necessary to change himself and shape himself to get to the top and shine as he did back in 66, 70 etc.

Greatness has to be assessed within the constraints of the time period and the knowledge and understanding of those time periods. I believe that champions of whatever time era had “something” very special and they would, if given the chance, find a way to engineer the maximum from their talent in accordance with the methods available in any particular time period.

Finally, there will come a day when Usain Bolt’s achievements will be surpassed by the sprinters of the future. But if Bolt could transport, say, 30 years into the future and find his records have been shattered, that indefinable champion spirit within would mean that he would avail himself of all manner of techniques to improve himself and turn himself into a contender and a winner.

So yes, fitness is definitely greater now but champion spirit is champion spirit in any era, and, if it were possible, would adapt and change so as to rise to the top in any given period.

[Moonwatcher]

As always, I read Mr. Daly's musings and thoughts with interest, and agree wholeheartedly with them. I believe the 1990 side, man-for-man would wipe the floor with today's team (mind you that's no big deal...) and would be a force, certainly at CN level. I think the Wilkie team, or good players from any other team from a bygone era would adapt to today's higher fitness demands....as long as their employment status allowed it - many of Wilkie's team held down full-time jobs, remember. The back four from the 1990 team (back five if you include Peter Mac) seem in retrospect a stark contrast to the revolving-door of lightweight and poorly organised defences of the Bayliss years (and yet ironically Bayliss himself I recall was a steady, reliable centre half in the handful of games I saw him play in...) They were arguably the most solid unit the club has seen in the 40 years they've been a non-league outfit. The two centre-backs, Gordon and Skivington although both tough and uncompromising, complemented each other perfectly - one an uncomplicated, reliable workhorse who rarely missed a header, and the other a more cultured ball-player who could fill the sweeper role when required. The two full-backs, Higgins and Chilton, would WALK into ANY team at CN level today. Chilton at his best (I say "at his best" because he did decline in his latter years) was a hard-as-nails defender who loved to bomb forward. Only a fool or a brave man would go into a 50/50 challenge with Chilts. Higgins, who was also a great overlapping full back, wasn't a hard-man, but made up for it with intelligent tracking and precision timing. Both had pace.
However, where I think some of the 1990 players might struggle in today's game is on-the-field discipline. Today's "no contact" football has no place for the Kevin Proctors, Tony Chiltons and to a lesser extent Glenn Skivingtons. The fearsome Proctor was the original "midfield enforcer" a perfect counterpoint to the industry of Farrell and the craft of Lowe, but took no prisoners. The present AFC team would benefit from a Kevin Proctor, but sadly his type of player are outlawed today. Chilton was a marked man in the refereeing fraternity even then, and one of Skivington's few weaknesses was the occasional (ie one every match) cringe-inducing two-footed lunge...frowned upon even twenty years ago, but simply not tolerated nowadays. For those players to compete today they would need to tone-down their act considerably, and who knows what effect that might have had.

[EHB]

Read these posts with interest and agree to a lot has been written and no doubt that 1990 would wipe the floor with the class of 2013 or any of Bayles last couple of years, because let's be honest we are gash.

However, what I would say is they couldnt have been that good, I mean they only finished mid table in the Conf. Surely they're only on a par with the class of 2009? With everything taken into account it is still the same level on the footballing pyramid?