In my profession (other than idling away a few hours typing football blogs) Christmas has been on the agenda since June but I know for the rest of you it’s only as November dawns that you are prepared to contemplate the festivities that wait.
For most it’s a time of unremitting joy and the occasional heavy head, though know that there are pockets of misery up and down the land, places where Santa is rebuffed by family arguments, midnight shopping in supermarkets and finding the dog toying with the remains of the turkey on Christmas morning.
Ignoring those who think Christmas should begin on December the 24th and end sometime in the middle of Boxing Day, I thought I’d get the rest of you in the mood with a yuletide muse.
The recent form of Stephen Hunt’s younger brother Noel at Reading prompted me to think on this most festive of forenames. The boy has been catapulted from obscurity to the edge of the Republic of Ireland squad with some explosive performances for Madjeski United and frankly you don’t get many Noel’s these days or indeed, any days!
I knew one at school, though he escaped the ridicule that goes with virtually any unusual name by having an older brother called Quentin, all right for the Home Counties but in a Northern Comprehensive an impossible moniker.
So I decided to dig out the significant Noels in footballing history, some from memory but like everything else these days, the rest came with the help of t’interweb!
Unless we include Gaelic Football, the name Noel isn’t he most popular, in a sea of Kev’s Gaz’s and Wayne’s, Noel is a rather prosaic footnote in football history. I was going for a top ten but managed to scrape together a first XI for your delectation. Here they are in chronological order.
The first Noel (ho ho ho!) that I could discover was Noel Kinsey. Given that Noel played in the 1950s I’m guessing that there are earlier players than he, but he’s where this story begins.
As far as I can tell, Welshman Kinsey is still with us, well into his eighties and still telling those who will listen about his goal for Birmingham in the losing1956 FA cup final. While success of sorts came with Birmingham, he’s most fondly remembered at Norwich where he was an inaugural inductee in their Hall of Fame (although confusingly he’s listed as English despite being capped seven times for Wales).
Noel Dwyer would probably have been aware of Noel Kinsey, the Dublin born keeper was trying to make his way into the Wolves team whilst Kinsey was at Wembley with Birmingham. I’m not sure Kinsey would know Dwyer mind. Five appearances for Wolves, then a trawl around West Ham, Plymouth, Charlton and Swansea making little impact on the way. Good enough to make fourteen appearances for the Republic of Ireland and play stopper in our Team of Noels.
Both Kinsey and Dwyer would have known and revered the most successful of our Noels. The splendidly named Noel Euchuria Cornelius Cantwell had the weight of expectation heaped upon his shoulders from his first breath with a name like that. He didn’t disappoint, playing cricket for Ireland and football for a number of the better Irish clubs before joining the Irish exodus to London to play for West Ham. Eight successful seasons at left back for the Hammers culminated in his leading them back to the top division in 1958.
He developed a reputation as a reliable full back with an appetite for getting forward that saw him play some of his 38 internationals for Ireland as a centre forward (scoring 14 goals in the process). So it wasn’t surprising that Manchester United, building a team from the remnants of Munich saw Cantwell as an ideal recruit. From 1960 to 1967 he played a significant role in re-establishing the club as a force in English Football winning two league titles and captaining the club to the 1963 Cup final success.
A spell as chairman of the PFA was followed by a reasonably successful career in management that saw him dabble in the fledgling soccer leagues in the US.
Satisfyingly he eventually retired to run a pub in Peterborough, a proper Footballers retirement. Noel Cantwell is Left Back, Captain, Player Manager and Entertainment Secretary for our Noel United.
Demanding somewhat less wordage is Noel Peyton, another Irish export who found brief success with a Don Revie inspired early sixties Leeds outfit. Partnering the far more exotic Albert Johanneson on the left side of attack, Peyton’s hitherto undistinguished Leeds career seemed to be taking off, but Revie had just gone from player to manager at Elland Road and Peyton’s days amongst many others were numbered. He was shipped on to York City in 1963 playing a further two seasons.
The only Noel not currently playing, that I remembered without recourse to technology was Noel Brotherton. The Blackburn winger was more Co Co the Clown than Cristiano Ronaldo, his bald dome framed by a bubble of tightly curled red hair. But his appearance just served to highlight his effective style of play. Jinky is a word no longer associated with Football but Brotherton was a master of the mazy dribble and scorer of important goals, not least the goal that got Northern Ireland to Spain in 82. He retired to become a painter and decorator in his adopted home town of Blackburn, but suffered a fatal heart attack in 1995, aged just 38 (blimey, I never knew that... – somewhat saddened Ed).
Noel Blake I ought to have remembered, he’s only a couple of years older than me and as a solid, uncompromising defender for Aston Villa, Shrewsbury Town, Birmingham City, Portsmouth, Leeds United, Stoke City, Bradford City, Dundee, and Exeter City, he’s almost certainly been on the end of my annoyance as he upended a favourite player or two of mine. Since retiring he’s developed a reputation as a coach and now works with England’s U16s and U19s.
As a guide to how difficult it was to find enough Noels, try Noel King. A man whose most illustrious contribution to football is his spell as manager of the Irish Women’s national team. Not that Noel wasn’t a decent player in his own right, a journeyman in Irish football, he had a glimpse of glamour with French second division club Valenciennes before returning to begin a more successful coaching career.
If some of our Noels made the most of what they had, the same cannot be said of Noel Whelan. Spearheading a raft of talented Leeds youngsters who broke into the first team in the early nineties, much was expected of Whelan, but somehow he’s never really delivered and his career is neatly summed up on Wikipedia, the last line of his profile reads ‘Whelan competed in an episode of Celebrity Masterchef, broadcast in July 2008, but was eliminated in the first round’. Now I know Wikipedia isn’t always true, but I’d be disappointed if that wasn’t.
Every team needs a splash of exotic European glamour and Noel Turner is as close as I can get. A stalwart of Maltese football, he anchored both Sliema (a favourite from my old subbuteo club chart) and the Maltese national midfeld for years. I know precious little else about him, but we’ve a vacancy in midfield and as a one-club man he’s probably reliable.
In order to keep our physio busy we’d need a sicknote and Gifton Noel-Williams fits the bill (I know, a tenuous Noel, but it was a struggle). This Noel sports a couple of serious middle names that would give Cantwell a run for his money, Reuben Elisha! It’s a pity this bull of a forward couldn’t have been blessed with more reliable knees. Pace, power and a reasonable goal record ought to have been a passport to a lucrative career but he’s shipped up as the new hope at many clubs, including a recent run out in Spain. Williams is now trying to resurrect his career at Millwall.
Despite our inspiration Noel Hunt finishing off our Eleven, I found an interesting candidate for the sub’s bench. Noel Eduardo Valladares. A Honduran goalkeeper who made their 2000 Olympic squad yet was a striker when his present club signed him a few seasons back…that’s the kind of adaptability you need in a 12!
Finally we are back to the player who inspired this meander, Noel Hunt. Reading appeared to have stumbled on a bit of a gem here. He wasn’t without his admirers and his exploits with Dundee Utd would have eventually found a suitor. Reading, maybe in an effort to keep his brother at the club, put their money where their mouth was and he’s already repaying their faith.
I just hope he realises how special his forename is, and it’s not just for Christmas either.
That Noel team in full
Noel Dwyer
Noel King / Noel Blake / Noel Cantwell
Noel Brotherton / Noel Turner / Noel Peyton
Noel Hunt
Noel Kinsey / Noel Whelan
Gifton Noel-Williams
Sub: Noel Eduardo Valladares
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