Defoe delivers unmistakable touch of class

You always remember the first time you set eyes on a player of true class.

You always remember the first time you set eyes on a player of true class.

On New Year's day at Dean Court a buzz went up from the crowd every time Jermaine Defoe, a slightly built teenager on loan from West Ham to Bournemouth, received the ball.

Defoe has been widely tipped for stardom, and it was easy to see why. He had scored nine goals in nine games and was brimful of confidence. He ran at the Luton Town defence from every angle and was happy to go past his man on either side. He only needed a yard of space before letting fly from any distance.

For the most part, the Hatters' defence could handle him on his own, but the cumulative effect of Defoe's bursts of pace and skill and the massive presence of the muscular Steve Fletcher gradually told. Fletcher opened the scoring with a typically powerful header and Defoe sealed a 3-2 victory with, to Luton eyes, a scruffy tap-in. No matter, the youngster left the stadium he had illuminated, clutching his man of the match award, and nobody who had witnessed his exciting display was inclined to argue.

In build, Defoe is similar to Michael Owen, and is probably already his equal in guile, if not in sheer blistering pace. I first saw Owen from the terraces at York's Bootham Crescent, standing behind the goal in which he put a hat-trick for the England Under-16 side against a hapless Northern Irish defence, which had no answer to his speed, determination, and clinical finishing.

When I was an aspiring professional footballer at Accrington Stanley, if that is not a contradiction in terms (I was, in fact, the YTS scheme), I was taken to Maine Road to watch a young Dennis Law in one of his early games for Manchester City, who were playing Burnley. The quicksilver Scot shone like a beacon on the sort of murky, miserable night that only Manchester can produce in August. I can't remember the result, but I can picture Law skating across the puddles as if it were yesterday .He possessed a compelling magnetism .

A player who modelled himself on Law was Alan Ball, who I saw on, I think, his debut for Blackpool at Anfield. The mighty Liverpool defence held no terrors for Ball, who snapped at their ankles, and their pride, for the whole game. The terrace that day was so packed that, without consciously taking but one step, at the end of the game I found myself standing some considerable distance from where I had started out.

Tony Green of Blackpool and Newcastle United was a fair-haired inside forward who followed Ball into the Blackpool team and Law into the Scotland side. Stanley Mortensen, who left much of the coaching at Blackpool to trainer Wilf Dixon and merely turned up to crack a few jokes before matches, astutely signed Green from Albion Rovers for £12,000. He had the ability to jink past defenders, the pace to leave them behind and the skill to finish a move too.

His career at Blackpool was interrupted by a serious achilles injury and ended after a short spell at Newcastle by ligament problems.

His name came up in a recent 606 programme during a discussion about the pools panel upon which he now sits with Sir Geoff Hurst and Gordon Banks, though, unfortunately, the presenter Richard Littlejohn had never heard of him.

I regret to have to confess that, only a week after proudly proclaiming that it took a lot to make me angry these days, the host's ignorance induced in me an irrational fury which manifested itself by my yelling at the car radio: "At least David Mellor knew who Jimmy Armfield was, you idiot, even if he thought he played for Burnley." My blood pressure soared even higher when a nice bloke from Newcastle rang to confirm that Green had, in fact, become a St James' Park legend but he remembered him as a red-haired English international winger. The presenter remained blissfully unaware of any problem as there ensued between caller and listener a dialogue alarmingly reminiscent of Lerner and Loewe's "I remember it well" from Gigi: "He had red hair"... "no, it was fair"... "he played the wing"... "he was inside, I was there."

At this juncture I broke a resolution solemnly sworn at the height of the Mellorman's pontificating. I rang the programme. The operator assured me they would call me back if the producer wanted me to set the record straight on air. "What was your name again?" "Graham Kelly." He obviously didn't because they didn't. My name meant marginally less to them than Tony Green's. God bless.

Grahamkelly@btinernet.com