177: Vinnie Jones, Wimbledon, Merlin’s Premier League Kick Off Sticker Collection, 1997

Today Mat Jolin-Beech takes on a long overdue request post on behalf of long time supporter of the blog Peter van Garderen. Today’s subject achieved a lot in his career on the pitch including twelve red cards, the fastest ever recorded yellow card and international captaincy as well as Hollywood fame and the starring role in a Westlife video after his retirement. The last of those maybe takes away from his overall image but you could also argue it displays his impressive range. Over to Mat with the rest.

Now, here is a man of many hats. I would say talents, and I will just in case he reads this and decides to hunt me down like we’re in some Cockney gangster movie. Now, to those my age or older, there will be memories of Jones as a footballer. And no, I do not use the term loosely. Not at all. To those my age or younger, and according to his Wikipedia page, he is an actor.

I obviously misremember him as a footballer. I thought he was a centre back, but he was actually a defensive midfielder. Also, I thought he was just a Wimbledon player, back when Wimbledon was an actual team and not the relocated MK Dons nor the phoenix AFC Wimbledon. Again, he had a much more varied, and higher profile, career than just the Dons. He had stints with Leeds United, Sheffield United, Chelsea, Queen’s Park Rangers, IFK Holmsund, and the mighty Wealdstone. 

Wealdstone is where he started his career, claiming the first ever ‘non-league double’ of the Alliance Premier League and the FA Trophy. His stint in Sweden came with IFK Holmsund in the Scandinavian country’s third division. He also had one season with each of the Yorkshire clubs, and the two in the capital. That might be why I don’t recall them. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking with that. His first stint with Wimbledon saw that Crazy Gang FA Cup victory in 1988. He wandered around Yorkshire and West London before a return to Wimbledon when the Premier League, and for a lot of people the whole of football, began in the 1992/93 season.

Jones, let’s make this clear, was born and bread in Watford. Watford in England where the North begins and yet, through FIFA rules, and having Irish and Welsh ancestry, he elected to play for Wales. Much like his Wimbledon and English teammate Robbie Earle he also decided that the country of his birth was not his country to represent. His Wales career was not the best with a total of nine caps, no goals, no wins, one draw and seven defeats. This includes defeats to the likes of Bulgaria and Georgia although the 1-1 draw did come against a pre-Euro 96 Germany in Dusseldorf.

Now, Jones was not known for his silky skills and cultured manner of playing the game. He had a reputation of being a hard man on the pitch. Just ask Gazza’s knackers. This reputation took him to the big screen. In 1998 he retired from one career and began another. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels was hitting screens and director Guy Richie (did you really need me to tell you that), needed a hard man. Enter Jones as mob enforcer Big Chris. Other similar roles followed – all with, shall we say, limited dialogue. Bullet-Tooth Tony in Snatch, Gone in 60 Seconds as Sphinx, a henchman in Swordfish, and Juggernaut in X-Men: The Last Stand. Seeing a theme here? There was also some odd hard man in football roles – in Mean Machine, Eurotrip and She’s the Man.

I do wonder how a footballer becomes an actor. Did he put on a front on the pitch to act as the hard man, meaning there was some acting ability in there, or is it purely as simple as someone needed a hard man, and a quick Yahoo search later revealed Vinnie Jones? We’ll never know. I mean we will and probably already do if you have read his autobiography – but you know what I mean.

So, that in a nutshell was Vinnie Jones’ career. More than I realised, but still essentially a hard man with an imprint of Gazza’s testicles on his palm, who branched out into acting – as a hard man. Typecast much?