My Sporting Hero – Wes Morgan

As football becomes ever more possession-based and skilful, centre backs are increasingly valued as much for their capability on the ball as their pure defensive ability. Today, world class players such as Rio Ferdinand, Gerard Piqué and Thomas Vermaelen epitomise this ideal of a defender comfortable in possession. Wes Morgan, Nottingham Forest stalwart, does not.

Wes Morgan does not set up attacks with incisive through balls, or stride elegantly across the half way line and play an intricate one-two to carve out a chance for himself. Sometimes he tries to, with wildly varying degrees of success. Whenever he gets within 45 yards of the opposition goal, usually because the opposition have let him, good natured cries of “Shooooot” echo out from the Forest faithful. On one glorious occasion, 3-2 down in the 90th minute of a league cup clash with Notts County, he did, and rifled in what citizens of Nottingham (accurately) describe as “the greatest goal of all time.”

Despite his limitations, over the past decade he has proved himself an incredibly effective defender, at least at Championship level. He a giant of a man, rendering him almost unbeatable in a physical confrontation, and a formidable aerial presence. The fond City Ground chant of “You’ll never beat Wes Morgan” is generally pretty accurate. He also largely makes up for his technical deficiencies with an almost manic level of commitment and courage, and admirable loyalty, which accounts for much of his cult hero status. Nottingham born and bred, he made his 400th club appearance in this season’s encounter with Hull, an amazing achievement for a 27 year old. Granted the captaincy for the day, he proudly led his troops to a home defeat.

Recently, Forest were involved in a home match with West Ham, televised live on Sky Sports. Generally I try to avoid any televised match we are involved in, as they generally end in catastrophic disappointment (four play-off semi final defeats in the past ten years). Sure enough, when I eventually opted to turn on, West Ham had cruised into a 3-0 lead within half an hour. Just as I was about to turn to ESPN, Sky viewers were treated to a lingering close up of Wes, blinking agitatedly at the annihilation being dealt out by Kevin Nolan, Carlton Cole and Mark Noble. Cue Sky commentator Alan Smith, with solemnity more befitting a funeral than a tragically one-sided Championship football match: “Wes Morgan is a strong man. He is a proud man. And this would have hurt him.”

Presumably I am not alone in religiously buying Football Manager ever year, to see which negligible tweaks have been introduced to justify a £29.99 annual investment. The 2012 edition develops the “Team Talk” feature of previous games, allowing you to gauge the reaction of your players to your wise words. In my first game in charge at the City Ground, I “Passionately” told my troops to “Win it for the fans.” To a man, my players remained disappointingly unmoved. Next to Wes’s name, however, were written the words “Looks motivated.” I almost wept.

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