please log in to view this image Whilst pondering the best full-back combo question, I looked this up. Before the time of most on here, but can anyone put this line-up into a recognisable modern-day formation? Hazell and Langley were full-backs and OG Hunt was a centre-back. Lazarus and Morgan were out-and-out wingers, but where would you classify the others? Keen and Sibley DMs? Marsh number 10 and Allen false 9? Where would Sanderson fit? How could this possibly have worked?
I remember being taught this as the "football formation" whilst at junior school (in Kensal Rise). I have no idea how it worked, but it is the basis of the first team 1-11 numbering system: ----------------- 1 ---------------- --------3---------------2---------- ------6 ---------5 ---------4----- --11 ----10----9 ----8 ------7-- It would be great to see how that formation and team played and adapted in reality.
I remember playing 2-3-5 when I started playing in a team, aged 8. I really can't remember how it worked, but I suppose it was ok if all the other teams played the same formation. I seem to remember that we soon started to play 4-4-2.
When I started playing i was number 8 but you were expected at times to play behind 3 and 2 At youth level I played against Highbury Arsenal boys who thrashed us by 5 goals and they set up 442 and we learnt what offside was as our number 9 back then was effectively a goal hanger. The game has changed a lot more than formations as I once had a Puma screw in stud sticking out of my shin and only took it out after a bath at home and still have the scar. Steve Jones played back then in our team and went onto be signed for QPR. I failed a medical at Fulham because of my eyes as they wouldn't accept contact lenses and I used to play in glasses great memories
When I played at school in the early-mid seventies we set up 4-3-3. We were heavily beaten almost every week, but that was because we were ****, I can't blame the formation. I was either a panicky right back, a lazy right winger or an ineffective centre forward. When we played teams like Alperton and Willesden, who had teams consisting of giant West Indians with kids and cars at age 14, it was carnage. Was that Steve Jones from the Pistols Dave?
When I started playing at primary school in the early 60s we lined up 2-3-5, kicked off and all 20 outfield players went for the ball, it was like watching a pack of hounds...
I'll have to dig out the programme from the semi final against Birmingham because from memory that was the only programme that had some formation on it....the rest of the programmes that season were a single sheet of paper folded in 3 to effectively give 6 pages and the teams were just a list of names......so much more simpler in the 60's..... Wasn't Hunt and Sibley the centre halves, Sanderson & Keen the midfield engine room and Allen and Marsh the forwards......I suppose the modern 4231 would be Springett Hazell, Hunt, Sibley, Langley Keen, Sanderson Lazarus, Allen, Morgan Marsh Couldn't honestly see Rod playing the loan striker......
Have a look at this from 1953, look at the England team from behind their goal just after kick off and it is a very symmetrical line-up. Didn't do them much good as the Magyars with a portly looking Puskas took us apart...
Just for a bit of nostalgia watched the brief highlights on British Pathe News, Mike Keen was described as "Right Half" and Les Allen as "Centre Forward", also looked like 3 at the back so that would make it something like.... Springett Hazell, Sibley, Langley Keen , Hunt Sanderson, Marsh Lazarus, Allen, Morgan
That's probably something like it. I'm sure Hunt was CB though, with Keen and Sibley CDMs in today's parlance. Allen wasn't an out-and-out CF in my recollection - he played in the same Spurs side as Bobby Smith.
You can clearly see that the game has changed. For me it is most noticeable that now much faster with much more "closing down" of the players. However, I see that our beloved team sometimes also tends to be "nostalgic" with its defending!
