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Blast from the Past no.44: Barry Hayles

Reviving the Premier League players you forgot existed…

Football is a game of bitter rivalries, long-standing animosities and frequent kicking each other about, so any player is bound to make enemies along the way, especially in a career as long and combative as the one enjoyed by Barry Hayles.

But despite amassing 13 clubs and an astonishing 27 years in the game, during which time hundreds of his defensive opponents have been unceremoniously barged to the floor, you’re more likely to encounter a Fulham ultra than you are to find anyone with a bad word to say about Barry. Everybody loves the man.

A lower-league sensation turned Premier League hero, the stocky striker has surpassed two decades in football collecting nothing but friends, topped up with quite a few goals.

Barrington Hayles. Harry Bayles. Or simply Bazza. Maybe Barry has achieved universal respect because he worked his way up from the bottom.

After beginning his career in the footballing nether regions of Willesden Hawkeye, Hayles joined Isthmian League side Stevenage, where his prolific goalscoring earned him a move to the big time: Bristol Rovers.

Hayles made the step up from non-league to Football League look effortless, scoring on his debut against Plymouth and going on to top the Division Two (third tier) scoring charts with 23 goals in his first season.

It was enough to persuade lower-league heavyweights Fulham, managed by Kevin Keegan and backed by Mohamed Al-Fayed, to fork out £2m to bring him to Craven Cottage.

It didn’t go so well at first. Bazza managed only eight goals as Keegan’s side were promoted, followed by a measly five the next season. But Keegan kept faith, continuing to select the striker and insisting that Hayles “will score a lot of goals for Fulham”. He was right.

In the 2000/01 season, Hayles formed a formidable partnership with Louis Saha and bagged 18 league goals as the Cottagers stormed into the Premiership.

While Saha supplied Gallic finesse, Hayles contributed 100 per cent British beef. Despite being just 5ft 9in, he had the physical presence of a man several times that size.

“Strong as an ox and as brave as a lion,” was how one Cottagers fan put it.

He even developed a trademark power move, a bit like a WWE wrestler does, known affectionately by Fulham fans as the “Barry barge”.

“Rather than tackle a player he’d just run alongside them and muscle them off the ball, continuing to run with it without breaking stride! It always made me laugh to see,” explained a supporter on the Friends of Fulham forum.

But while these were all useful qualities in the lower leagues, when the Cottagers appointed fancy French manager Jean Tigana immediately after winning promotion, some feared Barry’s rumble-tumble style might not be to the new coach’s refined tastes.

“In retrospect, he was the most un-Tigana kind of player you could have imagined, yet he immediately moved on Geoff Horsfield and kept Hayles,” recalled one Cottager.

Saha and Hayles scored a goal apiece as the deadly duo combined to dominate Sunderland’s defence in the first Premiership match at Craven Cottage – a 2-0 win.

Over the course of the season, Hayles actually managed to outscore his more illustrious strike partner by 12 goals to nine. No Fulham fan will forget the day Bazza single-handedly destroyed his boyhood club Tottenham in a 3-0 victory at White Hart Lane

“What a game, Baz was incredible. He got two goals and supplied the other for Luis. He was unstoppable, the Spurs defence didn’t know how to handle him,” gushed one.

It was around this time that Hayles, aged 29, belatedly gained international recognition with Jamaica, having previously been cruelly denied chance to play for the Cayman Islands when he flew all the way to the Caribbean paradise for some World Cup qualifiers only to be told that he wasn’t actually eligible to play for the Cayman Islands.

It was always upsetting whenever misfortunes such as these befell Barry, because he was and is – by all accounts – a very nice man.

“A mate of mine introduced me to Bazza as his biggest fan at Bazza’s birthday celebrations, to which he promptly gave me a massive bear hug. Then this year Barry sent me a video message to wish me a happy birthday!” regaled one Cottage regular.

“I’ve spoken to him whilst out shopping at Bluewater with the Mrs. Top bloke and has a place for Fulham in his heart,” reported another.

This was a man who once yanked hold of Emmanuel Petit’s ponytail in an attempt to slow him down during a match against Arsenal, only for the referee to laugh off the incident because it was Barry who did it. In fact, Petit probably remains the only person in football that Hayles has annoyed.

“Oh for a team of Barry Hayles. Short, chunky and nothing like your average player, but a 100 per cent trier who knew were the goal was and loved the game,” summarised one fan succinctly on the Fulham Web forum.

Hayles left Craven Cottage in 2004 after scoring 57 goals in 214 games for the club. He was 32 years old, but he hadn’t lost his appetite for scoring goals just yet.

As opposed to enjoying an Indian summer, Hayles embarked on something of a second career, playing for Sheffield United, Millwall, Plymouth, Leicester, Cheltenham, Truro, St Albans and Arlesey Town after leaving the Cottage.

And now? He’s still going. Aged 44, Hayles is currently player/coach at Chesham United.

When he came on as a substitute in last season’s FA Cup game against Bristol Rovers, the club he had left 17 years previously, he received an ovation from all corners of the ground. Special moment, special man.

Follow @darlingkevin on Twitter

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