Football: A man's hair loss is a nation's gain

Jim White looks at the bald facts of footballers with nothing on top

Those who were surprised at Steve Stone's sudden and accomplished success in the England team clearly have less of a grasp of footballing heritage than Terry Venables. Stone's arrival marked a return to a tradition apparently lost under the managership of Graham Taylor: the crucial role to be played in the national set-up by the midfield slap-head.

Football history is littered with the feats of the prematurely hair-free. Some, like Ralph Coates, Terry Hennessy, David Armstrong and the daddy of them all, Bobby Charlton, cheered the nation's heart both with their efforts on the field, and the manner in which they fought so valiantly against the reality of hair loss. Coates, for instance, is remembered for the extraordinary manner in which he left not only full-backs trailing in his wake, but also a bloom of hair which he had earlier scraped over the top of his dome from more hirsute parts of his body in the unlikely hope we would all believe it grew out of his scalp, rather than his armpit.

Not that you can blame players like Coates for trying to disguise their problem. Even in these days when the fashion is for a No 1 crop, it is no easy life being a footballer bereft of barnet. Stone, remember, is the same age as Jamie Redknapp, but it seems unlikely the acreage of his bare bonce adorns as many teenage bedroom walls as Redknapp's trendily teased locks. At every stadium he plays, the cries of derision will echo in his ears. That includes the City Ground. Even when fans attempt to cheer on the tonsorially challenged player on their own team, they can't help pointing out his handicap ("Stevie Bould, Stevie Bould," chant Arsenal fans, "he's got no hair, but we don't care.")

Thus to succeed against these odds, the youthful baldie will develop nerves of steel and the determination of a soldier ant. The fear involved in stepping out at Wembley for the first time will be as nothing to the suffering endured when being called "Buttock-head" during a League encounter with Middlesbrough. This extra edge developed by no-hairs has been recognised by other national teams. The Italians, for instance, have Attilio Lombardo, a role model for the thinning everywhere. And arguably the best midfielder in the last World Cup was Yordan Lechkov of Bulgaria, a man who claimed his hair loss was precipitated by fall-out from Chernobyl.

As yet, Stone has not blamed Druridge Bay power station, just up the coast from his Gateshead birthplace, for his premature follicle damage, but nonetheless, after Wednesday, his future in an England shirt looks assured. And if Terry Venables takes the hint, matches him in midfield with Draper of Aston Villa and persuades Gazza to stick his head in a basinful of Immac, the European Championship is as good as England's.