They Called Him Big Cyrille

Few players are ever afforded the honour of being universally known by their first name. But mention the name Cyrille and everyone knew who you meant. A man who united all, whether you supported his club or not, you admired him for his strength, desire, determination and courage.

These were the late seventies and early eighties when football fans could still relate to the players they watched every Saturday. These weren’t too far from the days when Tom Finney used to travel with supporters on the bus to matches. These were the days when you could’ve played against a player as a kid, who then made it as a professional footballer. We lived through our heroes then, they were us. We dreamed about being them, we pretended to be them in our kick-a-bouts in the street. We mimicked their posture, their peculiarities, their mannerisms, their celebrations.

This was when players were all different, there were tall ones, short ones, fat ones, thin ones, bald ones, ginger ones, lazy ones and those faster than the proverbial off a shovel. Players could be plucked from non-league or just the lower leagues and turn out for the big boys and we it helped fuel the belief the dream was possible for all of us.

They were us. We were them, and we loved them for it.

Sure we had clubs we hated, our rivals, those we despised. But more often we admired other clubs and other players. Down the years some have transcended rivalry, have fought through bigotry to be roared on by fans from all sides.

Cyrille did that.

Born in French Guiana, a French territory on the South American mainland, in February 1958, Cyrille came to England in 1963. Cousin of John Regis, the 200 metre record holder, he trained as an electrician when he left school and then at the age of eighteen he joined Molesey in Surrey. A year later he moved to Hayes and this was where he was spotted by former West Bromwich Albion legend and now Chief Scout, Ronnie Allen. He encouraged the club to take a punt on the youngster, although they baulked at the four figure sum being suggested. Allen was so certain Regis would make it that he offered money from his own pocket to get the deal done. In May 1977 Regis joined West Brom for the princely sum of £5,000. By way of comparison, a couple of months later Liverpool broke the British transfer record when they signed Kenny Dalglish to replace Kevin Keegan for £440,000.

Allen then took over as manager at The Hawthorns when Johnny Giles resigned. Regis scored on his debut for the reserves and so Allen threw him into the first team for the League Cup game against Rotherham United in August 1977. He scored twice in a 4-0 win. He earned a starting place against Middlesbrough the following weekend, and scored again.

The goal? Well, it was to become his calling card, his blueprint. If you ever watch highlights of his goals so many are like this.

He picked the ball up near the halfway line, ran towards the penalty area and unleashed an unstoppable shot past Northern Ireland international goalkeeper, Jim Platt.

It was a goal just like this which was voted goal of the season for the 1981-82 season against Norwich. Norwich played the ball forward into the Albion half and centre-back, Ally Robertson, knocks it back into the Norwich half where Cyrille has dropped back to take the ball on his chest. He his almost on the edge of the centre-circle with his back to goal. The ball drops to his feet and he turns tightly to leave one defender floundering. You then have the hilarious sight of another Norwich defender trying desperately to get hold of Cyrille in a manner reminiscent of Lilliput people trying to grab Gulliver. Cyrille is now away and driving towards the Norwich defence, those legs pumping, the crowd roaring him on. Thirty yards out he looks up, sets himself and unleashes a fearsome drive which roars into the top corner of the net.

These days many a player can fire a shot from that far out as the balls and the boots have changed. But back in these days the balls are heavier, the pitch muddier and less chance of a sweet strike. But Cyrille larrups it to such an extent that if this was a park kickabout, you’d need to take a couple of bus rides to fetch it. You can tell from his teammates reaction they’d seen it all before and that was just Big Cyrille.

Cyrille was an imposing figure. Many teams had big strikers, or “the big number nine” as they were known, but few as mobile or as fast as Cyrille. He had huge thighs and he would just run at defenders in a way which left you believing he would need the fans on the terraces behind the goal to move aside just so he had room to slow down to a stop. Defenders would bounce off him, be left in his wake, floundering to reclaim whatever glimmer of self-respect may be left.

But perhaps more importantly for the time, Cyrille broke boundaries. When he signed for West Brom there had never been a black player represent England at full level, although his teammate Laurie Cunningham, was capped by the Under-21 team a month before. Viv Anderson finally broke into the full side in November 1978. Cyrille became the third black player to represent England when he came on as substitute against Northern Ireland in February 1982. He would never complete a full ninety minutes for his country, winning just five caps at a time when there were plenty of strikers to choose from. Maybe this enhanced his cult status. Records are littered with players supporters rated who successive England managers did not.

At West Brom manager Ron Atkinson was building a team which would take on the might of Liverpool and Nottingham Forest in the First Division. Along with Regis and Cunningham he had a young right-back, Brendon Batson. The three of them would become known as The Three Degrees, a popular black female singing group. They were undoubtedly an inspiration for many young black kids who had believed the world of professional football was not for them, would not welcome them.

December 1978 at Old Trafford they unveiled their own brand of champagne football, or samba football as they embarrassed their hosts in a 5-3 win. Cunningham graced either wing, Tony Brown buzzed, harassed all day in midfield and above it all was Big Cyrille. He scored the fifth but shortly before that he lashed a left foot shot first time from outside the area which rattled the post. The fifth was typical of the game. United had resorted to trying to kick lumps out of these young upstarts who should’ve known better than showboat at their manor. The ball is down by the West Brom right corner flag when Ally Robertson nicks it off Steve Coppell. The ball runs to Cunningham who just turns and runs and runs and runs into the United half. He slows down then passes the ball forward to Ally Brown in the inside right position. Brown turns inside then plays a lovely weighted pass for Regis who is now thundering forward like a juggernaut. United captain , Martin Buchan, has given up the chase by now and Regis meets the ball first time eight yards out and without breaking stride he fires it into the roof of the net.

I can remember listening to Sports Report on Radio Two sometime in late 1979 when West Brom had won and they announced that the club had gone to the top of the First Division for the first time in their history. Atkinson had built a wonderfully attractive young side with the likes of Regis, Cunningham, Robson, Statham, Batson, Owen along with more mature and wily knowledge of Wile, Robertson and the two Browns. They never won anything, with an FA Cup Semi-Final in 1978 being the peak. After finishing third in the League in 1979 they also reached the UEFA Cup Quarter-Finals.

Cyrille brushed off racist abuse like he brushed off defenders when he was marauding towards goal. When he was called up for England for the first time he was sent a bullet in the post. Undaunted this just made him more determined to make something of himself and prove the haters wrong, and boy did he. “I kept it as a reminder of the evil some people had inside them. For the rest of my playing days it was a motivation that they weren’t going to stop me”.

After seven years, two hundred and thirty three appearance and eighty two goals, Cyrille moved to Coventry City where he played almost as many games. His crowning glory was the FA Cup win in 1987. Twelve goals in that season earned him a surprise recall to the England squad as Bobby Robson gave him one last hurrah against Turkey. Unfortunately Cyrille never found the net for his country but this didn’t diminish his legend one bit.

In the summer of 1991 he moved to another Midlands club, Aston Villa where he played two seasons before ending his career at Wolves, Wycombe and finally Chester City. It was a career which spanned almost twenty years, with plenty of memories and many inspirations.

15^th January 2018 it was announced Cyrille had died from a heart attack, a month short of his sixtieth birthday. The tributes have poured in.

Jacqui Oatley, journalist and presenter

There are not many West Brom legends who could walk through the door at Wolves and be idolised from day one. Such was the respect that Cyrille Regis commanded. Revered in the West Midlands and way beyond

Pat Murphy, journalist and broadcaster

In all my decades of covering Midlands football, there has been no figure more admired and loved among we reporters than Cyrille Regis. He scored goals we dreamed of while lying in the bath, routed the racists, respected the fans – and smiled.

Players such as Dion Dublin, Shaka Hislop and Mark Bright were equally reverent in their acknowledgment of the inspiration of the man and how he was the reason they went into football.

In 2008 Cyrille was awarded an MBE for his services to football and charity.

It is very difficult to accurately put into words the mark this man made, but rest assured if you choose to look up his record, his moments, his career, you will not be disappointed.

Football has lost a colossus today.

What is Going on Out There?

This season has been different right from kick-off.  Up to the halfway point there is no runaway leader and the previous big four are now spread throughout the table.  Chelsea’s awful season has opened up opportunities for other clubs, but also Leicester City’s emergence has thrown the form book out the window.  Right from the early part of the season Crystal Palace and West Ham have occupied top seven places, and Watford’s recent run has seen them move into that once longed for esteemed group.

The big clubs have struggled to put consistent runs together as what was thought just a strange start to a season has become a constant source of frustration for those who believed they knew the script.  For some this is a welcome alternative to believing you could predict the top four or top six before a ball has been kicked.  For others, the trend of each team beating each other has created the sense that despite losing a few matches, a club can still climb several places with a few wins.  My own club, Liverpool are a case in point.  Despite taking just one point from games against Newcastle, West Brom and Watford, we are only five points off a top four place.

So what is it about this season that has made it so close?

I believe there are several important factors which have all contributed.  During this article I will make reference to ‘bigger’ and ‘lesser’ clubs.  This is not to denigrate or disrespect any club, it is merely to demonstrate how some clubs are perceived to be perennial achievers or strugglers and how some clubs performances this season has been very different to how they were expected to perform.

Fancy Dans

First of all the Premier League is a poorer place as far as world class players are concerned.  When you look back a number of stars of the world game have left these shores over the past five years or so.  Players such as Suarez, Modric, Bale, Mascherano, Tevez, van Persie, Drogba, Gerrard and Lampard have all vacated the league and it is poorer for it.  The likes of Aguero, Toure, Hazard, Ozil, Sanchez, Di Maria, Falcao have come in with varying degrees of success but it is difficult to say who is the best player in the league right now.  Hazard was fantastic last season and a deserved player of the year but this season has been a shadow of his former self.  Aguero can’t seem to string more than a couple of games together, Di Maria came in and was a complete failure and Falcao looks as if he’d be better off in another country.  Ozil is beginning to show his class and Sanchez has been excellent since his arrival at Arsenal, but he’s suffering an injury at the moment.

My point is there are some decent players, some very good ones but world class?  Not sure.  But what does seem to have happened is we have gone back to the type of player from abroad who is given the label “he’s good but can he do it on a cold Tuesday night at Stoke?”

When the Premier League began to plunder foreign leagues for new talent this was a common problem.  Often it would take foreign players a season or so to adjust to the pace and physicality of the league.  Which is what made Fernando Torres debut season for Liverpool all the more stunning.  Of course there have been a whole host of players who have come in and hit the ground running, but for those who possess ‘potential’ or maybe just average ability then they can take a while to settle in.  Some of the ‘bigger’ clubs have gone for this type of player, a fancy dan rather than a grafter. 

TV Deal

The new TV deal, a reported £5.14bn, has given many clubs the ability to buy players who once may have been out of reach.  The equality with which the Premier League dishes out the prize money from TV has contributed to many lesser clubs being able to sign players who may only have previously come over here for the bigger clubs.  Yohan Cabaye at Crystal Palace is an example.  He was at Paris St. Germain and with Champions League football almost guaranteed every year, but he chose to return to England to play under Alan Pardew who’d been his boss at Newcastle. 

Stoke City is another example where they have been able to sign the likes of Bojan Krkic and Xherdan Shaqiri.  Bojan was signed from Barcelona, having spent time at Roma, Milan and Ajax, yet he chose Stoke City for his chance to play in the Premier League.  This in no way is to suggest there is anything wrong with Stoke but Bojan is not the type of player they have attracted in the past.  Shaqiri, a Swiss international, was at Basle when there was intense speculation over his next move.  He was reportedly a target for Liverpool but when Bayern Munich came calling he found it too tempting to turn down.  He then moved onto Inter yet Stoke managed to lure him from Serie A. 

The new riches enjoyed by more clubs within the Premier League has enabled players like Cabaye, Bojan and Shaqiri to go to clubs not really considered ‘big’.  The FFP rules have also had an effect on stopping the bigger clubs from just hoovering up all the best talent, and so this talent can now be spread more evenly within the league.

Counter Attack

Many of the lesser clubs no longer just turn up at Old Trafford, Anfield or The Emirates believing they should just lay down and hand over the three points.  They believe if they have a go they might be able to get something from the game.  The other major contributory factor with this is the adoption of the counter attack as a tactic.  Teams are happy to sit back and soak up the pressure and then hit their opponents on the break, at pace.  Leicester City is a prime example of that.  This has been particularly effective in enticing the bigger clubs to keep the ball, knock it around and generally show off but then when they lose it, they’re hit on the break and found to have not left anyone manning the fort at the back.

If you put these two factors together you have a toxic mix, as far as the bigger clubs are concerned, where many league games can be like cup ties with a baying crowd urging their team on as they smell the blood of big names who have spent the past ten to fifteen years lauding it as if it’s some sort of birth right.

It makes for an exciting season and with points seemingly more generously spread throughout the table then few can be sure of where they will finish until we move towards March and April.

Is this a trend or a freak? 

Going back to the point about the type of foreign player who has been recruited by Premier League clubs, many of them are young and come under the ‘potential’ category.  Within a few seasons many of these players should start to realise this potential and become stars.  We may well find those clubs who have recruited more wisely will begin to pull away from the others again, but until this happens we can enjoy a much more equitable competition than we have had to endure for the past five years or so.

A Moment in Time - Liverpool vs Aston Villa - FA Cup Semi-Final 1996

Now Liverpool has beaten Blackburn Rovers in their FA Cup Sixth Round replay, they face the prospect of a Semi-Final clash with Aston Villa.  For me, this brings back memories of our last meeting in the competition in 1996.

In a rather convenient twist of coincidence, today happens to be Robbie Fowler's birthday, so it's fitting he is remembered here.

The two were in the top four in the League, Villa had just won the League Cup (sponsored by Coca Cola) beating Leeds United at Wembley, replacing Liverpool as holders of the trophy.  They were two of the top sides in the country at the time.

The other Semi-Final kicked off earlier in the day at Villa Park where league leaders, Manchester United beat Chelsea, 2-1 with goals from Andy Cole and David Beckham.  Attention now turned to Old Trafford for the second Semi-Final.

Liverpool and Aston Villa were meeting for the third time in the three months.  At the end of January goals from Stan Collymore and Robbie Fowler gave Liverpool a 2-0 win at Villa Park.  Five weeks later, in one of the most pulsating starts to a Premier League match ever seen, Robbie Fowler was again on target, twice, as he and Steve McManaman destroyed Villa within eight minutes of the kick-off.  At that stage Villa had only been beaten twice since just before Christmas and Liverpool had been their avengers on both occasions.

This Semi-Final was Villa’s first since 1967, but Liverpool were at this stage for the second time in five years and their fourth in the previous ten.

Villa, managed by former striker Brian Little, suffered a blow in the first half when Gareth Southgate injured a knee in a challenge with Mark Wright.  He hobbled off but responded to treatment and was able to come back on a few minutes later.  His first duty was to defend a free-kick and that’s when Liverpool took the lead.  Jamie Redknapp, playing his first match for four months, floated the ball into the area and that man Fowler got on the end of it, as his diving header went under Mark Bosnich.  Fowler was being marked by Southgate but got to the ball first and scored his seventh goal in just six games against Villa in his short career and got Liverpool off to a great start.

Southgate eventually succumbed to his injury and was replaced by former Liverpool defender, Steve Staunton.  Staunton, who won an FA Cup winners medal with Liverpool in 1989, had, had a torrid time against Fowler in their recent meetings but he needed to try and shore things up at the back.

The goal seemed to galvanise Villa and they had a shout for a penalty just three minutes after going behind.  Dwight Yorke headed the ball on for Ian Taylor to burst in between McManaman and John Scales but as McManaman got his foot to the bouncing ball, Scales’ challenge from the other side appeared to impede Taylor.  Referee Paul Durkin adjudged the ball the chance to have gone before Scales challenge came in and he waved away the protests.

David James saved bravely from close range to deny Yorke from a corner as Villa were getting the better of the chances.  Liverpool still lead at the break and Collymore might have put the game beyond Villa’s reach just after the re-start if Fowler’s pass had found him.  The second half was real end-to-end stuff.  On the hour Villa had another great chance when Milosevic headed down a cross and Ugo Ehiogu tried to turn the ball in from three yards out but again James got down to smother the ball.

As the game moved into the final quarter of an hour, Paul McGrath’s tentative backpass almost allowed Fowler in but Bosnich managed to tackle him inside the area and the chance had gone.  Minutes later Collymore was sent through but this time McGrath timed his tackled perfectly to deny the Liverpool striker.  Milosevic was lucky to get away with a Beckham-style kick at Jones before Ehiogu was again denied by a crucial block from Scales just six yards out.

As Villa struggled to keep Liverpool out John Barnes, in a central position 25 yards from goal, bent a shot which crashed against the upright with Bosnich beaten.  There was a scramble in the Liverpool area when James decided to come for a corner but found the ball curling away from him and by the time he got a hand to it he was almost out of the area.  Needless to say he dropped the ball and after a frantic moment, Liverpool cleared.  In a rather surreal passage of play, at one end there was James trying to get to a corner regardless of where the ball was going to land in the area, then when it was cleared downfield and out of play, the opposite keeper, Bosnich, took the resultant throw-in for Villa.  Strange breed these goalkeepers.

With four minutes to go Liverpool then sent on the competitions record goalscorer, Ian Rush and his first action came when Liverpool were awarded a free-kick wide on the left about 15 yards from the bye-line.  Redknapp took it right footed and Staunton headed it away from his six yard line and probably thought he’d cleared the danger, but Fowler, as if he’d almost read an advance copy of the script, was waiting there to chest the ball down and volley it left-footed in off the post.

It was his 33^rd goal of the season and his fifth against Villa this season.  As Villa then pressed forward, McManaman broke away and squared for McAteer to roll the ball into the net to complete the scoring.  Liverpool won 3-0 and earned their eleventh FA Cup Final appearance.  Fowler had scored twice at Old Trafford back in October when Cantona returned after his ban, and he was here again against a side who must’ve been sick of the sight of him.

Liverpool’s dream of a sixth FA Cup triumph came to an end when Cantona’s late goal gave Manchester United their second double in three years.

Liverpool had prevailed in the Semi-Final against Aston Villa playing three at the back, Wright, Scales and Ruddock, with two wing-backs, McAteer and Jones.  Wonder if they’ll play the same formation in a few weeks’ time and get the same result?