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Thursday, November 23, 2017

The Joy of Six: unlikely football career twilights

From Micky Quinn’s eventful Greek swansong to Socrates’s freezing cold cameo in north Yorkshire, via Johan Cruyff sticking it to Ajax, George Best and more It is hard to imagine a striker as typically old-school as Micky Quinn choosing to broaden his horizons. He was a burly scouser, his nickname was “Sumo” because of his wobbly midriff and he was unashamedly fond of a pie and pint. So how was it that he ended up seeing out his career in northern Greece with PAOK Thessaloniki aged 33? “They offered me twice as much money as I’d been earning for just one season in Greece.” Ah. He also wanted to carry on playing after being released by Coventry and had received very few offers in England despite having been prolific pretty much everywhere he played. His signing was seen as a coup in the Greek Super League. The club met him with garlands off the flight and hundreds of fans turned up to roar their approval as he stepped off the plane with eyes agog. That was as good as it got. Continue reading...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.theguardian.com