How good was Paul Lake?

[BufordUSABlue]

He was class and as people said earlier, he made it all look ridiculously easy...Played in pretty much every outfield position and was tipped for the very top, by non other then Sir Bobby Robson!

He would have gone on to be a true Blue legend but for his crippling injuries....hell, he even managed to scare the crap out of me by swallowing his tongue one game as well!! If it wasnt for Roy Bailey's quick thinking that game.......gawd even the thought of that brings shivers down my spine!!

In a great team that pretty much all came through the ranks, he has head and shoulders above some super players. He was the closest thing i have ever seen to Colin Bell and i do not say this lightly!

Bring him back to the club he adored Mr Cook...

If my memory serves me correctly, Roy Bailey was at the other END of the field when the players clashed heads. The Leicester physio got to his player first, had a butchers and then saw the condition that Lakey was in and immediately left his own man and started to treat Lake before Roy Bailey got there. Meanwhile the club doctor (Norman Lumb or summat) came down from the stand and just stood on the touchline with his hands in his pockets like a bleeding spectator whilst the players were gesturing for him to help the physios.
As far as I'm aware the Leicester physio never publicly received any recognision for his efforts.

I bow to your superior knowledge here NQT, I remember the incident and also the Leicester Physio coming over to Lakey and the obvious concern once he realized the seriousness of the situation, i just thought that Roy Bailey getting credit for either holding his tongue down or hooking it out from the back of Paul's throat, but you could well be right about the Leicester physio.......we should find out and maybe say a belated thank you on their blog-site??

Either way it was scary and i remember the whole ground becoming very very quiet for some time, until we realized he was somewhat OK again, i remember seeing his leg twitch and i actually thought i was going to see a City player die on the pitch in front of us.....bloody scary!

 

[Dyed Petya]

I've heard a lot about him but he was a little bit before my time. Seen the videos and he looked class though!

What do you all think he could have achieved throughout his career? England captain?

Had absolutely all the attributes. Every reason to think that he'd have had a long England career and probably captained the team (a very successful manager made him City captain at age 21, after all). Whether City would have held onto him is another matter. I'm not thinking so much of losing him to another English club, but to Italy. At the time, Serie A was the richest and best league in Europe by a distance, so there'd have been sound footballing and financial reasons for him to make the move, while City would probably have been offered simply too much money to turn down. And he was certainly good enough for a Milan or a Juve to have come in for him.

Such a shame that the club handled the rehabilitation so badly (see Footy Pundette's interview with Lakey here: http://footypundette.blogspot.com/2009/07/paul-lake-exclusive-interview-i-couldnt.html. Unfortunately, that just reflects the way the club was run at board level back then. As a newly qualified solicitor in Manchester in the mid-nineties, I did bits of legal work for the club and one or two individuals with an involvement in it, so used to get quite a lot of info. Was told by someone I'd expect to be pretty reliable that Paul had been insured for GBP 100K at the time of his injury, which is unbelievable for a player whose actual market value of 20 or 30 times that amount. Imagine Robinho today being isured for a million and it may give you some idea of the absurdity.

On a personal level, I remember back in the autumn of 1987, when that young City side was first starting to 'click' at first-team level. That November, the month of the 10-1, my 14-year-old sister was quite seriously ill (my parents were called to the hospital at one point in the middle of the night because the doctors didn't think she'd make it to the morning). She's pretty much lost interest in football now, but back then she used to be very keen on City and Paul was her favourite player. I wrote to him and he sent back a lovely letter to her wishing her a full recovery and enclosing a signed photo. That meant the world to her as she got better (and she still has it, aged 35!) and was very much appreciated by our family.

 

[chrisi]

gd thread LEGEND

stop posting gd thread nobend ;)


BAN ;)

 

[chrisi]

ps. good thread

 

[Monkey Boy Blue]

Such a shame that the club handled the rehabilitation so badly (see Footy Pundette's interview with Lakey here: http://footypundette.blogspot.com/2009/07/paul-lake-exclusive-interview-i-couldnt.html. .

Can anyone be bothered pasting the interview into a thread? The filters at work won't let me view it.

 

[The Pink Panther]

Such a shame that the club handled the rehabilitation so badly (see Footy Pundette's interview with Lakey here: http://footypundette.blogspot.com/2009/07/paul-lake-exclusive-interview-i-couldnt.html. .

Can anyone be bothered pasting the interview into a thread? The filters at work won't let me view it.

Peter Swales's a wanker, he wears a wankers hat and when he wears it back to front he looks a fucking twat