Looking at other greatest XIs (scoff, how can they be a greatest without any Villa players?), I’ve noticed that most of them contain a mixture of players they’ve seen play and those from club folk-lore - with one notable exception. Adam Yates, a supporter of perhaps the dullest team to grace the Premier League, has decided to field a team made up of players he’s witnessed in the flesh (http://www.catflapfootball.com/Football-Blogs/Liverpool/CategoryView,category,GreatestXI.aspx).
Well, never one to follow the crowd, I was going to pick a bunch that I never actually saw play the beautiful game, picking players purely on reputation, success and the word of me Grandad. However, that seems like the worst idea since Deadly Doug thought O'Dreary was a competent manager. Instead, I'm gonna follow my heart/copy someone else and go with players from my footballing lifetime. Anyway, we all know football only really began in 1993 with Sky and the Premier League.
Goalkeeper - Nigel Spink
After joining the club some 5 years earlier and playing little more than 90 minutes in the first team, Nigel Phillip Spink, aged only 18, had to come on after only 9 minutes, in the greatest game of all - THE EUROPEAN CUP FINAL. Making an adequate understudy for the injured Rimmer, he also kept a clean sheet against an impressive Bayern Munich. Things don't get much better than that. And for Spinky, they didn't. Apart from a couple of runner-up medals and a Coca-Cola Cup, he would never again reach the heady heights of that night in Rotterdam.
He makes the grade because of this, and despite the fact he ruined my life. As a young boy, looking through my pannini sticker book, I found out that his birthday was the day before mine. Excited that one of my own celebrated that most important of days only 24 hours before me, and intrigued by a position deemed so dangerous they could use their hands, I decided to become a goalkeeper. Little did I know, I'd been condemned to a life of back problems and standing around in the cold. Thanks Nige!