Lists.
People just seem to love them at the moment. Look at the TV on any given weekend and you'll get the 'Favourite TV Sporting Moments', the 'Best TV Cop shows' or 'Top Children's Programmes'. The music industry seems to be following a similar pattern too - just look at the number of 'Best of .' CDs on our on-line shopping site, or in the local record shop if you don't believe me.
It's the age in which we live. As we left the 20th Century and plunged headlong into the 21st, the thirst for nostalgia has grown ever stronger. Maybe it's all part of the human condition - perhaps Victorians felt the same urge when they experienced a change of century; we may never know.
Football supporters, representing a cross-section of society, are no different, hence the bar room and terrace discussions to select the 'Best Ever XI', but this is an area of the genre whose beginnings can certainly be pinpointed to the mid-'80s and the advent of the fanzine.
With fanzines springing up almost every day at that time, the problem for the editor was how to fill the pages. Certainly many fanzines dealt with serious issues, but at some point every single one will have discovered that there's a limit to how many times the same person can write about the same players, or the same pies bought from the same refreshment kiosk. What the editor really wanted was contributions from other fans . and that's where the problem was.
To be truly inclusive, a fanzine had to be a vehicle in which as many fans as possible felt able to contribute. But how many were really going to sit down and write a 250- word article - and how many could? The answer, of course, was 'not enough' - but what plenty could and would do was pick a 'dream team'. After all, who of hasn't, at some time, thought they could pick a better side than the manager.
The 'Best XI' soon became part of the staple diet of the fanzine and, as the fanzine generation grew up and got jobs in the media and record industry, the idea grew like topsy.
Like any team selection, ability is in the eye of the beholder but, unlike the first team manager, your nostalgic selection can never be wrong - after all, they will never play in reality and so can never lose a match. This means, of course, that there will never be a definitive 'Best XI'.
Like an international manager who never considers players from 'unfashionable' Clubs, most 'Best XI' selections are, unfortunately, picked from a very similar range of players - and you can always tell the age of the supporter picking the list from the names on that list. The simple, and logical reason for this is that supporters only tend pick players that they have seen.
Let me give you an example. If I were to ask you to name the best Cambridge United strikers of all time, who would you pick? John Taylor? Martin Butler? Dion Dublin? How about Steve Claridge, Steve Butler, Alan Biley, David Crown or even Brian Greenhalgh? I suspect nods of agreement got fewer and fewer as you read through the list. The reason, of course, is time. The further back the list goes, the fewer supporters reading the article would have seen the player and be in a position to make the judgement.
Go back further and older fans will tell you that Brian Moore and Wilf Mannion was the best front line ever to play outside the Football League - let alone at the Abbey - but few reading this will have seen them play, so even though Mannion is considered by many to be one of the most gifted England internationals of his generation, how many would put him in their all-time Cambridge United side?
How does the quality of opposition factor in? Brain Moore scored 68 goals in 1957-58 - including an incredible 49 in just 36 League matches - but how do you compare those goals scored in the Eastern Counties League with 24 goals in 46 Division Four matches by David Crown in 1987-88?
Then there's the question of formation. Do you use wingbacks, 4-4-2 or throw an extra man up front because you have so many favourite strikers? There are just so many things to think about! But that's the point - if there was a definitive answer, we'd all have to find something else to talk about in the snug bar of the Queens Head!
You can guess what's coming next! That's right, I'm about to invite you to e-mail your Best Cambridge United XI to us here at web@cambridge-united.co.uk with a few words about why you picked who you did. But before I do, for what it's worth, here's my offering.
Formation: 4-4-2
Goalkeeper: Malcolm Webster
Right Back: Brendan Batson
Left Back: Jamie Murray
Centre Halves: Steve Fallon and Dave Stringer
Centre Midfield: Steve Spriggs and Richard Wilkins
Right Wing: Michael Cheetham
Left Wing: Derrick Christie
Strikers: David Crown and John Taylor
Manager: John Docherty
So what do you think? Why not log onto the Message Board to share your views?
Mark Johnson
Previous Main Features:
24Feb02 - The Future of Football?
17Feb02 - U's Fans On Sky TV's Soccer AM
10Feb02 - U's Fans Feature On ITV Digital Quiz
02Feb02 - A Week In The Life of PR Manager Graham Eales
20Jan02 - U's Players Get Darth Vader Treatment
13Jan02 - Kit Carson Explains His 'Head of Talent Development' Role
05Jan02 - Dale Brooks Enjoying New Role
04Dec01 - U's Players Try Out Premiership Physio Machine
10Nov01 - U's Launch New Away Kit
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