August 4 - The League’s Top 100

TODAY in 1998 The Football League was engaging in a bit of reflection on the past as they marked 100 seasons of the League. It all started of course in 1888 but ten seasons were missed during the world wars so the League reached its century ten years late.

It was on this day that, as part of their celebrations the League released a list of the top 100 players ever to have plied their trade in England’s divisions throughout the 100 seasons. Thankfully they resisted the temptation to let Jimmy Carr narrate the list on a four hour Channel 4 special.

The list was compiled by football journalists who must have had some stormy debates over who to include in the final draft. The Football League chief executive Richard Scudamore said that he thought the list was “almost impossible to better”, but Jack Charlton, Trevor Brooking, David Seaman, Ian Wright and Peter Beardsley probably all disagreed with him as they did not make the illustrious list.

Dixie Dean, Tommy Lawton and Sir Stanley Matthews were there, as were Nat Lofthouse, Billy Wright, Sir Bobby Charlton, Geoff Hurst and Denis Law.

Players from the 1980s or 1990s included George Best, Malcolm McDonald, Peter Shilton, Kevin Keegan, Glenn Hoddle, Kenny Dalglish and Gary Lineker, while the most recent stars included were Dennis Bergkamp, Alan Shearer, Ryan Giggs, Paul Gascoigne, Tony Adams, Peter Schmeichel, Eric Cantona and John Barnes.

Member of the list who were still with us were all invited to a special centenary dinner where they were presented with a special award to mark their achievement.

Sir Stanley Matthews, who played from 1932 to 1965, said: “I think this is a wonderful initiative and it’s great to see so many of my footballing friends and colleagues on the league legends list.”

Sir Tom Finney added: “It’s a great honour to be nominated as a Football League legend among so many outstanding players.”

If you want to know what else happened on this football day, go here. We will leave you with a montage of the skills Eric Cantona used to pay the bills while at Old Trafford, for no other reason than he is on the list and all our other entries about him are all about his take on martial arts so it’s sometimes good to watch him at work to remind yourself that despite all the baggage he was a bloody handy player.

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