5: Mark Hughes, Manchester United, Match 2000 Millennium Collection

Today Richard Aliinson brings us a tribute to one of the greatest arts in football and one of its most able exponents. The caption to go with today’s deliberately niche card even starts with the line “specialising in spectacular volleyed goals” which gives you an idea of how little respect this man had for a football in flight. Over to Rich.

When I was cleaning out my old bedroom recently, I came across a load of football memorabilia that had been gathering dust for decades. Amongst the pile of almost everything that was produced to do with Italia ‘90 was a 1989 Tonka figurine of Mark Hughes. Naturally ‘Sparky’ was executing a volley. 

Hughes hitting the ball on the full was such a noteworthy image from his era, that it is no surprise that he was immortalised in cheap plastic in this pose. It is probably still the same nowadays, where I expect kids will be collecting figures of the iconic poses of their generation too: Paul Pogba raising a hand to apologise for a mishit pass; Dele Alli searching for his form; or Jack Grealish sitting on a bench. Such was Sparky’s fame for volleying a football in the eighties and nineties, he even inspired the ring name of a kickboxer: David ‘Mark Hughes Volley’ Vickers. I know literally nothing about Mr Vickers beyond this moniker and a five-minute-long YouTube clip of him kickboxing in 2011, but I think it is such a fantastically niche and descriptive nickname. I know if I was his opponent, I would be very wary of getting absolutely Mitre Deltad into the middle of next week. 

Volleys are just great, aren’t they? I mean, I was absolutely terrible at them, and whenever we played Headers and Volleys at school I always went in nets as Mistimed Leaps and Wild Aimless Leg Swings just isn’t as fun a game. I’d imagine Sparky didn’t have the same issue in his formative years growing up near Wrexham, however. 

Throughout two spells at Manchester United, and his time with Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Southampton, Everton and Blackburn Rovers, Hughes perfected the art of battering a ball on the full. The first one that stands out for me is his bicycle kick versus Manchester City in 1989. The blue half of Manchester triumphed 5-1 that day and Alex Ferguson has described it as the most embarrassing result of his career, but all I remember is Sparky’s acrobatic brilliance from Russell Beardsmore’s cross. It is similar in that respect to his volley against Oldham with 52 seconds left of the 1994 FA Cup semi-final. I can’t recall the rest of the match but even now, nearly thirty years on, I can still remember how gutted I felt for the Latics as his shot hit the back of the net. Having rewatched it, Hughes’ strike that day was nothing short of exceptional. The ball dropped over his shoulder, he had two defenders crowding him and then quick as a flash the ball was in the back of the net. 

It is worth noting that Hughes wasn’t just a one trick pony though. This video really shows off his strength, skill, power and eye for goal. As well as shitloads of volleys. Risky move that, as I bet half of the readership haven’t returned for the rest of this post now. 

Throughout his career, Hughes won the Premier League twice, four FA Cups, three League Cups and a couple of European Cup Winners’ Cups. He also won 72 caps for Wales scoring 16 goals, one of which was an insane volley against Spain. On an individual level, he won the PFA Players’ Player of the Year twice and an OBE (presumably for services to volleying) before retiring in 2005. Overall, he played 799 games and scored 224 goals over a 25-year period. He was a true great of his generation, of that there can be little doubt. 

So there you have it, Mark Hughes, his volleys and a plastic figurine that sat on my windowsill for over thirty years. Who knows, there may still be more posts to come about the football memorabilia that I threw in a skip. For the record, I immediately regretted my spring-cleaning actions and I’m gutted that I will never get to flick the Subbuteo casting of Ireland’s John Aldridge ever again.