The top fullbacks who put wingers to flight

Continuing his nostalgic look at the island's great footballers, Rob Batiste casts his eye over the fullbacks who have very different roles today than in yesteryear RIGHT back behind the goal, or even left back.

Picked there by your mates and it was the first sign you were considered useless at football.

It was, though, only marginally worse than being put in goal and being shot at all afternoon or, when it came to the full 11-a-side, being picked right or left back.

Unglamorous is the word I'm searching for.

Not so these days.

The modern, professional left back gets to earn £70k a week, marry a glamorous singer and write his life story in his mid-20s. Shame so few read it, 'Cashley'.

But certainly no position on the football field has metamorphosed more over half-a-century than the fullback.

Up until the 60s they generally came in one size - very large. They were the last covering defenders and had two tasks: defend and destroy.

Then, like the dinosaurs, they became extinct.

For the best part of the last 40 years the position has been filled by quick, nimble and generally smaller players, able to get forward at every opportunity.

Given the two totally contrasting roles, it is nigh impossible to settle on an all-time top 10 and on this occasion I have crossed the eras of 2-3-5, 4-3-3, 4-4-2 and any other formation concoction and chosen simply to pick five quality right backs and five at home on the left.

Who was the best?

Well, I doubt if anyone truly knows, such are the vastly differing virtues of the modern and old-time player.

In days of yore and with the protection of referees who saw something admirable in bullying and were happy to turn a blind eye, the big brutes thought nothing of kicking the winger over the Track touchline and halfway to the Marais.

Many of them were 6ft, built like outhouses and gobbled up the meek.

Their general slowness probably made the flying wingers of the day look like Derby thoroughbreds.

Rangers' Dick Vaudin and Northerners legend Lloyd Duquemin were two of the best. By all accounts, they were not for the faint-hearted forward.

Henry Davey, my eyes from the 1950s, recalls Vaudin as 'a class act who was strong as an ox'. His time was 1954-61 and it is unlikely there has been a better defensive right back.

Duquemin, a brother of former Spurs great Len, might beg to differ on that point, but his strength lay in his versatility and the fact that he had a useful habit of invariably being there to head off the goal line.

When not required to play right back in eight Murattis between 1956 and 63, he was made centre forward in one of the more bizarre mass-selectorial decisions made.

Allan Hamon was another tough, rugged right back.

A converted right-winger, the former Rangers and Vale Rec man enjoyed two fantastic Murattis in England's World Cup summer.

He marked the splendidly named and classy Topsy Cronin out of both the original Springfield clash and the replay at The Track, where the green-and-whites won 3-1.

For the purpose of this nostalgic reminisance, Hamon is reserve right back - my other three No. 2s coming from the early 70s and into the mid-80s.

I guess if there was a right back who would have been at home in both the days of belt and brawn and the overlapping modern game, it is Colin Hargreaves.

Small, tough and mobile, he did not always play right back, but when he did, Guernsey won.

Three times Hargreaves wore the Guernsey two shirt - 78, 83 and 85 - and each time the Caesareans went home beaten.

Mick Cotter was another flyer down the right for Vale Rec and was a revelation in the attacking role as the yellows took over from St Martin's as kings of the local game in 1973.

As a converted forward, Cotter had speed and could run all day, but he was not quite the best in my book.

That title goes to Kevin Allen, the chunky, wonderfully skillful, quick and adept crosser, who paraded the Saints and Guernsey right flank in the early 70s and, in a late comeback to the island side, the 5-0 1979 thrashing of Jersey at The Track.

Allen was the best footballing fullback of the modern era and such were his skill levels, he was perfectly at home around and beyond the 18-yard box.

None of the left backs I have chosen were quite as skillful, but all purred down the flank with grace, speed and effectiveness.

Indeed, it is hard to judge who was the best offensive back combination the domestic league scene has seen.

Cotter and Malcolm Marquand for Vale Rec, Allen and the silky smooth Alan Bannister for Saints?

Twenty-odd years later, the Martin Gauvain-Mark Coutanche combo for Sylvans was tasty, too.

Marquand, Bannister and Coutanche are all my picks, along with the tall and speedy Northerner, Alan de Jersey, and the solid, defensively dependable John Herpe.