ERECTED FOR EVER

Christiano Ronaldo sat for, paid for, and unveiled his own statue at his own museum in his home town, Funchal on Madeira, yesterday. The life size statue graces the local town and his family were there to see it in full display. He stands poised to take a free kick with his feet characteristically hip width or more apart, tall and ready to strike-visualising. The unfortunate thing is that his head looks more like Joe Hart or Gareth Bale and he appears to be sporting a codpiece. Apart from that it's jolly nice and joins a number of statues erected to remember great players like Fred Keenor at Cardiff City, Johnny King at Tranmere and Roy Sproson at Port Vale. OK, you may not have heard of them, but you will know who William McGregor is? No? he founded the Football League for goodness sake; and Arthur Wharton-surely to god you know that he was the first "black" professional footballer in England? What about Joe Shaw at Bramall Lane, the one legged Dereck Dooley? (he even has a road named after him in Sheffield). Well,let's try Jimmy Johnstone at Celtic, famed for his part in that brilliant European Cup win, decades ago. He has two statues in Scotland, he was so famous and so do the following: Bobby Moore, Ted Bates, Stanley Matthews, Bobby Robson, Geoff Hurst, Jackie Milburn and ol'big head, Brian Clough, has three! The trio of Hurst, Jimmy Armfield and Simone Perrotta (an Italian) are remembered in a statue in Tameside, Manchester because all three were born there and went on to play parts in World Cup winning squads. Must be the water?
Go on, find out why Fred deserved his.

What's going on here between Zidane and Materazzi? See previous blogs for other statues.