525: Dean Holdsworth, Wimbledon, Merlin’s Premier League 95 Sticker Collection

Whether you love it or loathe it the tabloid press is an integral part of both British society and the beautiful game. While the decline of print media, and the Leveson Enquiry, has curbed its power its influence extends far beyond its dwindling readership and, perhaps, no more so than in its contribution to the English language. Robert Hutton’s excellent ‘Romps, Tots and Boffins…The Strange Language of News’ goes further to define the language of the press as a separate entity, known as ‘journalese’, where formal discussions are always “crisis talks”, large sums of money are routinely “trousered” and all award ceremonies are “glitzy”. In amongst these are the “bigwigs”, “chiefs” and “tsars” who dominate the worlds of law, business and the civil service, the “crooners” and “rockers” who make up the music industry and the “playboys”, “vice girls” and “love rats” held up for public disdain.

Football (or, more often for the press, “soccer” or “footie”) has accordingly always provided a number of “love rats” for us to judge just in case their exorbitant wages or poor performances in international tournaments weren’t enough to turn us against our heroes. A simple Google search for the term suggests that Kyle Walker, Steven Taylor and Jermaine Pennant are all examples of this unique species of rodent due to their recent romantic endeavours. Ashley Cole was famously branded a “love rat” after he did the dirty on “the nation’s sweetheart” Cheryl while fellow members of the distinctly tarnished Golden Generation such as John Terry, Wayne Rooney and even manager Sven Goran Eriksson were all taken to task for their extramarital liaisons. The celebrity profiles that came with Premier League riches meant that the press were all over anyone caught, figuratively or metaphorically, with their trousers down and this was no different for Dean Holdsworth.

Holdsworth started his career at Watford alongside his twin brother, David, but it was at Brentford where things began to take off. After a loan spell during the 1988/89 season he made the move permanent and found the net 28 times in 45 appearances. While the following campaign was quieter he spearheaded the Bees’ promotion charge in 1991/92 with 38 goals in 52 games and was snapped up by Wimbledon ahead of the inaugural Premier League season. Holdsworth more than managed the two-tier step up with 19 goals in 40 for the Dons and upped his game with 24 in 51 in 1993/94 to help his side to a record equalling sixth placed finish. He continued to chip in with impressive returns as Wimbledon defied expectations under Joe Kinnear and became Bolton Wanderers’ record signing, moving to the Reebok Stadium for £3.5m, following their promotion to the Premier League. Although the Trotters were relegated he was a big part of the rebuild under Sam Allardyce, returning double figures for three consecutive seasons, and helping establish them in the Premier League before the side developed a more continental flavour. Holdsworth first moved to Coventry City in 2002 before a journeyman latter career, including a return for Wimbledon’s last season before the move to Milton Keynes, and finished his career in 2008 with 260 goals from 733 professional appearances.

With his sweptback hair and chiselled jawline, however, Dean Holdsworth was never going to be content with dominating the back pages. In 1996 he entered the “love rat” pantheon when news broke of his extramarital affair with Page 3 model Linsey Dawn Mackenzie. There’s an awful lot to unpack with this one. Mackenzie stated she had no idea that Holdsworth was married when the two began dating and was outraged when she found out, going as far to say she’d “never trust another (footballer) again”. Holdsworth’s wife Sam began divorce proceedings but gave her husband one more chance for the sake of the couple’s two young children. Most alarming was the fact that Mackenzie, at seventeen, was ten years Holdsworth’s junior. Her rise to stardom involved a countdown to her sixteenth birthday, and topless debut, in the Sunday Sport which raises all kinds of safeguarding questions about the tabloid press as a whole which perhaps also highlights the double standards of much of the moralising rhetoric regarding football’s romantic rodent population.

Following his move to Bolton Dean Holdsworth publicly acknowledged his wrongdoing and made assurances to his wife to focus on his family. Sadly, following her reaction to his advances towards another woman during a charity gala, he snapped this olive branch by assaulting his wife leading to an eighteen-month probation sentence. According to his defence solicitor, Mike Hagerty, "Mr Holdsworth doesn't attempt to condone in any way what he has done and greatly regrets his action.” Years later it appears that Holdsworth is a changed man, happily married to his second wife, and has remained in around football as a manager, director of football and entrepreneur. While his football career was impressive it would be a stretch to consider him a leading star of an era brimming with talent but, thanks to his “love rat” tendencies, he was briefly elevated from the back pages to the front.