I have voted for England and Mackay, I know Dave was not a real CB as such ( we only had one in those days) but he was an great defender and the hardest player I have seen on a football pitch. I saw him break his leg in a game at Utd and he was sat up on the stretcher as he was carried off ( clapping us fans). In those days a broken leg usually meant the end of your playing days but Dave was back playing a year later only for him to suffer another break to his leg, despite that he once again returned to capt our side and played in our 67 FA Cup win.
When he eventually left us he went to Derby and capt them to promotion to the top league. As I say he was the hardest player I have ever seen and yet he only stood 5ft 7ins tall, I suppose most fans have seen the great picture of him holding BB by the neck in a game against Leeds, the reason he did that was ( in his own words) he got kicked ( on purpose) by BB on the same leg he had broke. Since then he has said that he regreted doing that as it was not in the spirit of the game, there are many fans who believe Dave was our greatest ever player and I understand why they say that.
Well summed up.
Mackay was like a far more skillful Roy Keane, except he had a greater determination to win than Roy Keane did ...
In that era, players did not come back "as good as new" from a broken leg, so to do it twice is simply unbeleivable. Then, when he was supposedly finished, to go to middling-to-piddling club like Derby and win the league title with them demonstrates what an awesome presence he was.
Were I assembling an all-time THFC team that I wanted to actually win something, rather than one that would be easy on the eye, Mackay would be the first name on the team sheet ... but not as a centre back.
That famous picture of him with Bremner did him a disservice, as it fixed him in the minds of a lot of people as merely a hard man, whereas he was also very skillful.
Was he not part of that Scotland team that completely took the tinkle out of England at Wembley in the mid-sixties? Even you young 'uns might be aware that England had a very good team in the mid-sixties!
I also believe that when continental clubs used to be given the courtesy of training at WHL before a European match, Bill Nick used to send Mackay out to do ball skills to intimidate the watching opponents.
Years later, Graham Roberts would go out and eat a steel girder in a completely different form of intimidation ...
Unfortunately, these sorts of polls have a built-in bias against older candidates, which is why Robbie Williams comfortably beat Beethoven, Satchmo, the Duke, Parker, McCartney, Hendrix et al in a poll of the greatest musicians of all time about 10 years ago.
On the other hand, it is just a bit of fun, so vote for whoever you like for whatever reasons you like.
For me, King is in, and it is frightening to think he probably only operated at 70% of his potential after doing his knee in during his first team debut for the club.
Going back to the earlier point about picking a team to win, rather than one based on flair, sentiment and a good haircut, I'd probably go for Voldemort/Sauron/Vader/He Who Must Not Be Named, but fortunately there are enough good candidates to justify not choosing him.
Mike England was a dominant CB who was good in the air and, as a former winger (I believe) in his early days at Blackburn, not bad on the deck, but I actually preferred Mr Reliable, Phil Beal, for some reason.
Mabbutt was a bit in the same mould as Beal; he did not make many mistakes and though he was slow, he was the best timer of a tackle I have ever seen, with the possible exception of Bobby Moore.
Gough and Woodgate were both tremendous players. Gough had that winning mentality to go with his ability (starting to detect a theme here?) while Woodgate could have been one of the greats had he been able to stay fit; not many English players (never mind CBs) make it abroad, so that's a feather in his cap.
The two Dutch lads make a good pairing and certainly should make the list of famous Belgians, which is not as short as it used to be (Thierry Boutsen has just dropped out of the top 20), but it is early days.
