Off the Wall

The announcement of the Team of the Century tonight will be one of the highlights of the centenary celebrations of our great game.

But the naming of the team needs to be put into context. It represents the views of a panel of 28 men - though why there could not been input from at least one woman is beyond me.

The team represents the views of a group of former players, former and current officials, former coaches, and media writers and commentators. None of the panel would have seen players from the first 30 or 40 years of the games 100 years in action. A minority - such as Ken Arthurson, Cyril Connell and Ron Massey - will have seen players from the immediate post war period.

So it is inevitable there will be a bias in favour of players drawn from the 1960