Johnny Haynes was buried today, October 27th 2005, and the world is a poorer place for his passing. How ironic that he should die and be buried in his adopted home of Scotland after his greatest footballing moment was leading his country, England, to a 9-3 thrashing of the old foe in 1961, still the heaviest win between the two auld enemies and very likely to always remain so.

As most football fans will know Johnny Haynes played all his games for the one club, his beloved Fulham, but when you look back at that side in the late fifties and early sixties it was full of decent players. Bobby Robson for a start, another regular England international and of course good old Jimmy Hill who did so much to have that maximum wage abolished. Johnny carried that tag of the first hundred pound a week player to his end, and I suspect that annoyed him a little.

Not many people realise that Johnny was only 31 at the time of the England World Cup win in 1966 and that he would almost certainly have played in that side but for a serious car accident that he never truly recovered from. But whose place would he have taken? Stiles perhaps, or Roger Hunt, or god forbid, Sir Geoffrey, or even the man who was always ahead of his time, and my probable guess, Martin Peters? It