NOT PLAYING BALL

Some older members of the fraternity will know who Stan Cullis was and if you look back through the 290 odd blogs, Stan gets a mention earlier on. He was the international captain during the war years and later master-minded Wolves in a successful period in the 1950s. Nicknamed the “Passionate Puritan”, Cullis was from modest beginnings in the Wirral and made himself into an “academic” and in 1939 he joined up to the War effort.

Diagnosed with a low pulse he was kept at home and he went to Aldershot, The Home of the British Army, to help with the Physical Trainers' Corps. Alongside him were other non-combatants, Tommy Lawton who had a steel plate in his head as a result of a traffic accident, Joe Mercer who later came to be a successful manager of Manchester City, Denis Compton of Arsenal and England cricket and Wilf Copping, now known as the Vinnie Jones of his time, all terrific players.

So Aldershot suddenly became a top team in the war years, playing in the newly formed Southern League. When England played Scotland in a war time international in 1943, a brawl broke out, inevitably the Scots were losing 0-4. Clyde's Dougie Wallace grabbed Cullis' “crown jewels” and not even the bucket and sponge man could help. Cullis jumped two feet in the air and had to wear a special bandage for two years. His blood stained shorts were used as evidence as the English FA talked to the Scottish FA and had Wallace banned for life.

Vinnie, of course, famously did this to Gazza but it was just playful of course. He didn't mean it.