Johnny Haynes
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| Johnny Haynes | ||
| Personal information | ||
|---|---|---|
| Full name | John Norman Haynes | |
| Date of birth | October 17, 1934 | |
| Place of birth | Kentish Town, London, England | |
| Date of death | October 18, 2005 | |
| Nickname | The Maestro, The Perfect 10, Mr. Fulham | |
| Position | Midfield | |
| Club information | ||
| Current club | Retired | |
| Number | 10 | |
| Professional clubs* | ||
| Years | Club | Apps (goals) |
| 1952-70 | Fulham F.C. | 658 (158) |
| National team** | ||
| 1954- 62 | England | 56 (18) |
|
* Professional club appearances and goals |
||
John Norman Haynes (October 17, 1934 - October 18, 2005), better known as Johnny Haynes, was an English footballer who played a club-record 658 games and scored 158 goals for Fulham Football Club between 1952 and 1970. An inside forward, Haynes is widely regarded as the greatest footballer ever to play for the London club, particularly noted for his exceptional passing skill and ability to read a game. An accomplished international, he made 56 appearances for his country, including 22 as captain (many of them while playing for Fulham in the Second Division!). Haynes remains arguably the best player to remain at one club throughout his professional career. Pele described 'The Maestro' as the "best passer of the ball I've ever seen".
Contents |
[edit] Biography
Johnny Haynes was born in the Kentish Town area of London, and attended The Latymer School in Edmonton during his youth. After spells at amateur sides Feltham (in the Middlesex League), Wimbledon (Isthmian League) and Woodford Town (Delphian League), he joined Fulham as a professional in May 1952, at the age of 17 and made his debut at 18. Unusually, and despite many offers from other clubs, he remained at Fulham for his entire professional career, until leaving for South Africa in 1970, where he played for the now defunct Durban City, alongside former Fulham teammates Johnny Byrne and Bobby Keats.
Johnny Haynes was the first footballer to appear for England in every class of football available in his playing era - school, youth, under 23, `B` and full international level. His debut for the full senior side came on October 2, 1954, scoring a goal in a 2-0 England victory over Northern Ireland at Windsor Park, Belfast. An accomplished career saw him making 55 further appearances for the national side, with perhaps his best game being 1958 at Wembley when he scored a hat-trick against the Soviet Union in a 5-0 win.
He became captain of the side in 1960, and a year later led his team to a famous 9-3 victory over Scotland at Wembley Stadium. His final appearance, for England was on June 10, 1962 - a 3-1 defeat by Brazil at Estadio Sausalito in Viña del Mar, Chile. A car crash in the same year caused cruciate ligament damage which prevented him from playing for a year, and is widely regarded to have been the significant cause for the end of his England career.
In his record 658 appearances for Fulham, 594 of which were in the Football League, he rose to become club captain and scored a total of 158 goals, another club record and one which was only surpassed by striker Gordon Davies in 1991. Haynes' best scoring season was 1958-59 with 26 from 34 games.
Haynes had a single spell in football management, taking charge of Fulham for a brief spell in November 1968 after the dismissal of Bobby Robson.
Long after his departure from Fulham, Haynes remained an immensely popular and respected figure at the club whose supporters had dubbed him "The Maestro". Unquestionably far more gifted than his colleagues in a relatively low profile team compared to the best of the day, he is fondly remembered for his tendency to fail to disguise his exasperation with his teammates and their frequent lack of understanding of his intentions and ideas.
On October 17, 2005 (his 71st birthday), at approximately 2:55pm BST (1:55pm GMT), Haynes was driving his car along Dalry Road in Edinburgh, Scotland, the city in which he had lived since 1984, after leaving South Africa and returning to the UK to be with the one woman that he had truly loved, Avril, when he suffered a brain haemorrhage, which effectively rendered him brain-stem dead almost instantaneously. The car veered off into the oncoming traffic and hit a light goods vehicle. Although the accident was witnessed by a doctor who managed, using CPR, to restart Johnny's heart, he was effectively dead. Although kept on a ventilator for some 30 hours, all tests that were undertaken by the medical staff in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, showed negative activity in the brain and, as per his family's wishes, after he had donated some of his organs, the ventilator was turned off at approximately 9pm GMT on the evening of October 18, 2005. Earlier afternoon reports that day from several major news sources, and the Fulham FC official website, suggested that Haynes had already died, but these were retracted within an hour, with Haynes' condition subsequently described as "serious". His third wife, Avril, who had been travelling in the passenger seat, was also injured in the accident, and was described later in the day as being in "stable" condition, having suffered five broken ribs and a punctured lung.
[edit] First £100-per-week Player
Johnny Haynes, as one of the finest players of his era, was of constant interest to other football clubs, which contributed to the pressure which led to the demise of the £20-per-week maximum wage applied to the game until 1961. Fulham chairman Tommy Trinder had boasted that Haynes was worth £100 a week, not expecting that the £20 pay cap (equivalent to £1200 in 2005) would be abolished. When it was removed, Trinder paid up without complaint to make Haynes the first English footballer to earn £100 per week.
[edit] Tributes
On the day of the death of Johnny Haynes, Alan Mullery, another high-profile Fulham and England player, made the following tribute: "He was the only reason I went to Fulham as a young boy of 15 leaving school. He was my hero, the captain of England and Fulham. The word great rolls off the tongue quite easily these days but he really was. He was the best passer of a ball I have ever seen - I don't know anyone who could pass a ball as accurately. Anyone who saw him will know what a great player he was."
The Fulham Supporters Trust stated: "His dedication, skill, professionalism, grace and charm - both in his playing days and in retirement - serve as a poignant reminder to many of today's footballers about what true greatness really means."
George Cohen, a World Cup winner for England in 1966 and a Fulham teammate of Johnny Haynes, stated: "I have a hundred individual memories of the beauty of John's play. One stands out for the sheer perfection of his skill. It was a charity match which, but for that one second, has faded completely from my memory. The ball came to him at speed on a wet, slippery surface but with the slightest of adjustments, one that was almost imperceptible, he played it inside a full-back and into the path of an on-running winger. I looked at our coach Dave Sexton on the bench and he caught my glance and shook his head as if to say 'fantastic'. Haynes could give you goose bumps on a wet night in a match that didn't matter."
In 2002 Haynes became an Inaugural Inductee to the English Football Hall of Fame in recognition of his football talents and impact on the English game.
[edit] Craven Cottage
Weeks after its centenary year, on 27 November 2005, it was announced that the Archibald Leitch-designed Stevenage Road Stand at Craven Cottage would be renamed The Johnny Haynes Stand. Other suggestions had included a redesign of the gates of Craven Cottage, the retirement of the number 10 shirt worn by Haynes throughout his time at Fulham, and a statue being erected in his honour.
| Preceded by: Billy Wright |
England football captain 1960-1963 |
Succeeded by: Bobby Moore |
