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One-time TFT Podcast guest Rob Langham is one of The Two Unfortunates. Rob’s My Favourite XI is, as you’d expect, a work of Football League beauty. There are a couple of continental stars in there too, and a dreaming Argentine.

Previous Favourite XI: Rob Marrs
Next Favourite XI: William Abbs

Sketchy evidence, if not paranoia, has led me to imagine that my age is greater than that of the average football blogger. When Jonathan Wilson was recently revealed to me to be a mere 34 years old, I was shaken to the core. But, picking myself up from this mire of misery, I began to examine ways of putting this to my advantage. One method was to construct a Favourite XI that delves considerably deeper into the past than that of most. Here is the outcome – my one self-imposed rule was that I had to have seen each player in a live game.

Goalkeeper: Shaka Hislop

When this graduate of Howard University replaced outgoing keeper Steve Francis for Reading at Huddersfield in August 2003, it was love at first sight. I have always preferred tall keepers who perform the nuts and bolts of the job with a minimum of fuss and have never been particularly impressed by shot-stopping flash harries. Hislop, as he was later to prove, was every centimetre a top flight custodian and must have saved the club a good 15 points or so that year, the Royals marching to a stylish title win at the expense of Plymouth. The following season, he was equally as good and his adeptness in one-on-one situations in particular saw the club finish second only to lose in a classic playoff final against Bolton.

Right Back: Trevor Cherry

Despite losing two teeth to a Daniel Bertoni hook, Cherry was sent off in a grainy and tempestuous encounter for England in Buenos Aires in 1977 – one of the last matches I ever watched in black and white. The Leeds man was roundly criticized as not good enough by TV pundit Tommy Docherty and he was certainly a latecomer to the Leeds glory years, featuring in that ill-fated European Cup Final against Bayern Munich in Paris in 1975. But this was a model professional, equally comfortable in either full back position and blameless as Leeds suffered their late seventies decline. I also seem to have captured his autograph on about three different occasions.

Left Back: Andy Hinchcliffe

As a new student at Manchester University in 1987, the whirlwind of Madchester still awaited me, but City’s young but vulnerable second division side bewitched me immediately. It was a team of greenhorns, but Hinchcliffe was a buccaneering presence from the start, curling in dangerous crosses and linking up well with the midfield promptings of Paul Lake and Ian Brightwell. The phrase “modern full back” is often ridiculed but Hinchcliffe was later to make his England bow under that most forward-thinking of coaches, Glenn Hoddle.

Centre Back: Ronald Koeman

Having reacted with alacrity to the sudden availability of neutral tickets for the Barcelona v Sampdoria European Cup Final in 1992, I was perched on the edge of my tip-up seat; perspiring after ninety mesmerising minutes. Into the extra period and Koeman flashed in a free kick to send the trophy to Catalonia; the occupants of the berths around me exploded with joy. Earlier, he had ticked like clockwork at the heart of that Dutch European Championship winning side of 1988 – a quintessential leader.

Centre Back: Micky Droy

As the closest First Division club to where I lived in the late 1970s, I was a regular visitor to Chelsea back then. The club were perennial whipping boys at the top level, suffering some horrendous defeats despite the youthful verve of Ray Wilkins and Tommy Langley and the ageing presence of Ron Harris and Peter Osgood. Seemingly a good two feet taller than anyone else on the pitch, Droy was the original man mountain, bearded and fearsome – a man who honed his defensive technique by watching combine harvesters.

Central Midfield: Alain Giresse

A 1984 holiday to France’s Gironde region gave me the opportunity to take in a match between Bordeaux and Nantes in sultry evening heat, further boosted by the intensity of the crowd; flares burning brightly. The Bordelais were irresistible that night but still they relied on their little Napoleon of a midfielder, one of the Three Musketeers (with Michel Platini and Jean Tigana) that had scooped the European Championships just a month or so earlier. France was drunk with success and a new found love of football; Giresse bent in two exquisite free kicks and Bordeaux won 2-1. O for three creative men in a midfield these days.

Central Midfield: Paul Gascoigne

Gazza narrowly elbows out another Spur, Osvaldo Ardiles, but after a miserable European Championship in 1988, England finally had a properly creative midfielder. Seeing him surge past defenders in the moral victory of a 0-0 draw with previously vaunted Holland at Italia ’90 was a revelation. He was the pulse of arguably the nation’s best ever World Cup display, all the more thrilling for being undertaken away from home. Gazza blotted his copybook thereafter of course, becoming little more than a luxury cup player and suffering from injuries and ill fate, but how many Englishmen could dribble like him from the centre of the pitch?

Right Midfield: John Barnes

When Barnes led Liverpool to a toothsome 2-1 win at Old Trafford in 1990, one could hardly have foreseen that this would be the end of the Merseyside club’s dominance over their rivals. I have always argued that the late era vintage; post Ian Rush and following the signings of Barnes, Peter Beardsley and John Aldridge was the most pleasing Liverpool side of all. Barnes was the jewel in that formation, bringing a charisma to a Merseyside team that won them new fans among those who resented the machine like efficiency of their earlier line ups.

Left Midfield: Michael Gilkes

Gilkesy starred in two Reading promotion teams. First, in Ian Branfoot’s muscular 1985-6 record breakers, he supplied much of the ammunition as Trevor Senior plundered goal after goal; then he featured heavily in the aforementioned 1993-4 triumph. In between, he scored from a famous breakaway as Reading won the Simod Cup in 1988 and he came third in a TV contest to identify the league’s quickest player – for Gilkes was rapid indeed. Throughout some of the club’s bleakest seasons, he was often the only reason to show up at Elm Park – a legend.

Striker: Karl-Heinz Rummenigge

Rummenigge struggled with injury at the 1982 World Cup where a decidedly mediocre West German side had nonetheless reached the final. The blond Westphalian was a deft presence around the penalty area and I had the privilege of seeing him net twice as a green-shirted Nationalmannschaft won out over an experimental England at Wembley in 1982. Sadly, he also limped through much of the 1986 tournament – had he been fully fit for either of these competitions, then we may be looking back on a period of even greater German success.

Striker: Kevin Keegan

Retrospectively derided as a workhorse who made the most of meagre talents, it seems that many confuse his later managerial naivete with KK the player. But we should remember that European Football of the Year Award, his duck-to-water adaptation to life in the Bundesliga and his pivotal role in the ascension of Liverpool to national and European dominance. Keegan was a whirlwind when I saw him destroy a then respectable Northern Ireland in a European Championship qualifier at Wembley at 1980 – an unforgettable performance to a star struck youngster like myself.

Substitutes:

Osvaldo Ardiles

This man skimmed through the midfield; his upright running style one of many highlights as Argentina swept to the 1978 World Cup – the squad numbers were alphabetical and he sported the Number 1. When my Dad woke me from my slumbers to tell me that he and Ricky Villa had signed for Spurs, the excitement was unimaginable – and seeing him at White Hart Lane was a real privilege.

Kevin Doyle

The finest player Reading Football Club has ever fielded – a less romantic and deluded choice than Robin Friday but fully deserving of his Young Footballer of the Year nomination in 2007 – Doyle purrs across the turf and it’s impossible not to use the word “class” in any sentence in which he is mentioned.

Pat Nevin

Already gaining my approval by dint of his being a Cocteau Twins fan from the preferred side of the political spectrum, the floppy haired waif astonished me when he took on the whole Newcastle team in a Chelsea win back in 1984. Feeding my recently departed Reading hero Kerry Dixon with goals, the winger has maintained his reputation post-career through his thoughtful punditry.

Gordon Strachan

A supreme creative force as Leeds won their surprise title in 1992, just two years after emerging from the second division. Sergeant Wilko brought the wee man in at the back end of the 1988-9 season – signifying a significant step up for Leeds after their Eighties doldrums. He also hit the heights at Old Trafford and Pittodrie as well as being Scotland’s best player in the 1986 World Cup.

Dave Kitson

£150,000 from Cambridge United, he first came to my attention at the Abbey, conducting a one man vigilante mission to upset a Reading promotion bid. As with Jamie Cureton before, I love it when one’s club signs previous tormentors but even I had no idea how good Kitson would turn out to be – even going close to an England call up after a spurt of Premier League scoring.

Tags: Alain Giresse, Andy Hinchcliffe, Dave Kitson, Gordon Strachan, John Barnes, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, Kevin Doyle, Kevin Keegan, Michael Gilkes, Micky Droy, Ossie Ardiles, Pat Nevin, Paul Gascoigne, Ronald Koeman, Shaka Hislop, Trevor Cherry