It may sound a bit morbid but the recent demise of a number of Megastars who in some way played a part in my upbringing has brought such things into sharp focus.
I am not, I stress, part of a consortium who, at the turn of every year select a number of celebrities ,prominent personalities and characters for their "Sweepstake Death List" but rather just a bit nostalgic, reminiscent and yes, I can feel grief for the loss of someone through illness, accident or natural causes.
In my latest trawl of the recent obituaries I came across the name of Gary Sprake who passed away, aged 71 on the 18th October.
I know the name well, and any football fan of the period 1962 to 1973 will recall him as the goalkeeper for Glory, Glory Leeds United in a halcyon and dominant period for that club in the top English League where he played until a record transfer fee for a goalkeeper, £100,000,saw him move to Birmingham City where he played for another two years.
Sprake was well respected for his skills in between the goalposts but a couple of howling errors placed him firmly in the wrong category of football folklore. A poll of fans for the fifty worst players ever in the English game saw him at number 32.
The following is a description of his most prominent mishap.
It was a snowy day at Anfield in December 1967 as second-placed Liverpool led fourth-placed Leeds United 1-0. Just before half-time, Leeds goalkeeper Sprake gathered the ball and attempted to throw it to Terry Cooper but, when the full-back was closed down by Ian Callaghan, instead threw it directly into his own net.
Referee Jim Finney said Leeds defender Jack Charlton, further up the field and unaware of the incident, asked him what had happened. When Finney explained, Charlton replied: "You're not going to give a goal for that?"
At half-time, the speakers at Anfield blared out the Des O'Connor song Careless Hands and The Scaffold's Thank U Very Much and, though Sprake was inspirational in the second half, Leeds went down to a 2-0 defeat and 'Careless Hands' stuck as his nickname.
"That day at Liverpool I actually had a good game," Sprake later said. "At half-time the lads told me: 'Come on, get yourself together. We can do better'. I never got much stick off the supporters, then or now. It has mainly been the ex-players' books."
Sprake was never really able to shake off that unfortunate occurrence in spite of an illustrious career in league and also International football for Wales for whom he made 37 appearances.
Controversy also seemed to overshadow his footballing and having retired due to a persistent back injury he was in 1977 alledgedly offered £7,500 by the Daily Mirror to make allegations against former Leeds manager Don Revie and club captain regarding match-fixing.
Sprake refused to repeat the allegations under oath in court.
After his footballing career Sprake worked for Solihull Council as a training officer and in 2006 published his biography recalling his Anfield error under the title of "Careless Hands: The Forgotten Truth of Gary Sprake"
I have just retrieved from my storage box my Soccer Stars picture stamp album for the season 1972 to 1973, a collection that I assembled with great enthusiasm aged 9 to 10 at the time.
Leeds United had just lost out in the 1972 season to Derby County in Division 1 by a single point over 42 games.
Picture Card number 135, poorly fixed in place with cellotape some 44 years ago, is Gary Sprake- I remember him well.
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