513: Peter Fear, Wimbledon, Merlin's Premier League 95

Covid-19 has forced many of us to reflect on the things that really matter in life. It has also forced us to finally do jobs that we’ve been delaying for months due to the enforcement of social distancing. This combination of phenomena has led me to sort out the box of football related ephemera I’ve accumulated though years of misspent youth (and adulthood) and, without regular captive audiences due to school closures, a need to talk about things that happened a long time ago.

Which brings us today to Mr Peter Fear. The sticker above shows a fresh-faced midfielder on the verge of his third season with Wimbledon FC having joined the club as an apprentice straight out of secondary school. He went on to make over 100 appearances in the Premier League, as well as picking up three England U21 caps, before gradually working his way down the league pyramid to Sutton United where he retired from football at the age of 34.

Peter Fear had a much more impressive football career than I could ever have dreamed of having but I think it’s fair to say it was hardly memorable. I even saw him play once, against Coventry in 1996, and I don’t remember Fear’s name from this occasion. In his defence he only came on for the last 17 minutes against Coventry and, Homes Under The Hammer star and talented percussionist, Dion Dublin had just scored the equalising goal in an exciting 2-2 draw. And Steve Ogrizovic signed my programme after the game so, in Fear’s defence, it was an eventful day.

Nevertheless I do remember Peter Fear and, sadly, not for his two goals for Wimbledon to put his side 2-1 up against Spurs in 1998 (they lost 2-6, Ben Thatcher got sent off and Jurgen Klinsmann scored four – poor bloke). For some bizarre reason Match magazine, which provided me, and countless other people of my age, with the extraneous content the Premier League generated way before the internet, had a running gag entitled “What if Peter Fear…” with the midfield maestro superimposed into a different situation every week. You could tell they had run out of ideas when they came up with “What if Peter Fear was a potato?” I am gutted that Google Images cannot answer this question for us.

But Peter Fear’s cult heroism does not end there. A quick visit to the fount of all knowledge, Wikipedia, reveals that this legend of the late 90s has made not one, but two appearances on the notoriously tricky Radio 2 quiz Popmaster as well as taking on the vicious tongue of Anne Robinson on The Weakest Link. Again, Google lets us down with a lack of footage for the latter but, for a man who played alongside the likes of Vinny Jones, I presume he was not particularly intimidated.

Fear is apparently now working as a cab driver. Football has changed since his heyday and I somehow doubt that the likes of, say ,Todd Cantwell or James Ward-Prowse will be ringing Ken Bruce in twenty years time to answer music questions on Radio 2. Thankfully, there’ll always be a Peter Fear to identify some Haircut 100 singles on a weekday morning.