Sports clubs here in the U.S.have a tradition of retiring a players jersey if the player has given the club years of great service. It may be a little difficult in th UK as most soccer team for years only had ! to 11 but seeing that Lampard has left Chelsea he would be a prime candidate. For QPR there would be a few players that could be given that honour. What do you think?
Our very own Ray Jones's shirt (31) was retired following his death. That seems to be the only time when this is done in this country though as far as I'm aware.
Sad yet glad we retired a shirt for Ray Jones. Glad we did it, but so sad that we had to. Part of the problem, is the 'legends' in football (for me, Kevin Gallen) will often wear shirts you simply can't retire, like 10, 8 etc.
You can retire the 10 shirt with the names of the players on them and not use them again. You just dont retire a shirt of a player that comes to a club for 2 years and leaves. I mean you wouldn't retire Zamora's shirt just because he scored a goal.
Think Alan Mac's would have been the only one in recent memory that would have been justified.? Any others?
Shirts should only be retired in extremely exceptional circumstances. In football this is a very recent thing anyway, because up until 1993 we still used 1-11 to signify position. It was only in the '93 League Cup Final (when Tony Adams infamously broke Steve Morrow's arm whilst celebrating the win) that squad numbers were first used, so only 21 years ago. Before that no player had their 'own' number. I personally dislike it when you see ridiculously high numbers anyway. If we allow too much shirt retirement, we'll soon have three figure squad numbers and it'll look ridiculous. It'll also make things harder for the commentators, who often rely on shirt numbers to help identify players.
Johann Cruyff wore the number 14 shirt for both Ajax and Holland from 1969. AC Milan have retired the number 6 (Franco Baresi) and number 3 (Paolo Maldini - though should any of his sons play for the club they will be allowed to use it) Manchester City, Lyons and Lens all retired the shirt number used by Marc Vivian Foe after his death. There are many retired numbers. Only FIFA does not allow international teams to retire numbers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retired_numbers_in_association_football I like the Japanese tradition of retiring the number 12 and dedicating it to the supporters. If people wear replica shirts it would be great to see them all with the number 12 on the back.
Sorry, didn't know the rules of your game. I misread your statement 'in football' to mean 'in football', not 'in English football'. My mistake. Only the Cruyff bit related to your post, the rest is just information. What do you think about retiring the number 12 shirt for the fans?
It should only happen for legends, otherwise you'll end up like the yankies where 1-20 are retired. I don't think Ray Jones number should have been retired, I don't think it is officially. Dmitry Tertishni was killed in a nasty accident and the Flyers didn't retire his number. I can't think of a player in the last 20 years who deserves a retired number for us, it should be reserved for the likes of Gerrard who are top players and virtually one club men. Wed have some fans wanting retired numbers for the likes of bircham etc.
QPR's number 10 shirt is famous and one of the most marketable asset the club has and its just a case of filling it ... Come home Adel No player iMO should keep a shirt ... the club is always bigger IMO .... its the club's job to make legends and understand how to market them
It's more a permanent assignment rather than a retirement, so clubs can do that if they want. They refer to us as their #12 anyway, which surely would have annoyed our actual number 12 - had we given that number out this season. We jumped from 11 (SWP) to 13 (YSY) so maybe the owners were thinking about this anyway.....
