Johnny Haynes: The footballer Johnny Haynes, who has died aged 71, became a national star as a tiny 15-year-old, playing for England schoolboys in a televised international against Scotland at Wembley half a century ago.
Despite his diminutive stature, he commanded the game from inside-left, with precocious passing and neat and elusive control of the ball.
Since he was born in the northeast London suburb of Edmonton, it would have seemed natural for Haynes to join Tottenham Hotspur, although his room at home was hung with photographs of Arsenal players. In the event, he joined unfashionable Fulham, the club to which he remained loyal throughout his career.
Between the end of 1952 and January 1970, he made 594 league appearances, scored 146 league goals, nine in 43 FA Cup games and two in 20 Football League Cup games. Unquestionably the outstanding influence on the England teams of his day, he received 56 international caps.
A rational perfectionist on the pitch, Haynes became Fulham's most prolific goalscorer, but he was famous, above all, for his glorious passing. Whether it was the through ball to split a defence, the cleverly angled ball inside the back to the left flank, or the cross-field pass to the right, he was always the fulcrum of the attack. He did not very often bother to beat his man; he let the ball do that.
Before Fulham, Haynes served a useful apprenticeship in amateur football all around London, with Feltham, Wimbledon and Woodford Town, in the long-gone Middlesex, Isthmian and Delphian leagues. In January 1954, while on RAF national service, he was a travelling reserve for the first England under-23 team, which lost 3-0 to Italy in Bologna. A year later, at (Chelsea's home) Stamford Bridge, he was the guiding spirit of the side which, scoring five times, took revenge on the Italians. It was only a matter of time before he got the full England cap.
The first of these came on October 2nd, 1954, against Northern Ireland in Belfast. It was a year before England capped him again, once more against Northern Ireland, but thereafter his place was secure.
Until the 1962 World Cup, when he skippered England in a losing quarter-final against Brazil in Vina del Mar, Chile, Haynes missed only eight of England's 63 games and, for half of those, he was chosen despite Fulham being a second-division club.
He would surely have won more caps still but later in 1962, driving at night along the Blackpool front after a Fulham-Blackpool game, he was in an accident which left his knee severely damaged. He fought his way back to play for Fulham, but was never again called up by England, although he was still only 31 when England won the 1966 World Cup.
In truth, Haynes was not at his best in either the 1958 or 1962 World Cups, in which he did take part. In Sweden, in 1958, he was plainly weary. Fulham had been involved in memorable battles both in the league and in the FA Cup, in which they were knocked out in a semi-final replay by a Manchester United team patched together after the Munich air disaster.
To be fair, Haynes was in his best form that day, breaking up United's attacks and setting his own forwards on the move. In the 38th minute he began the movement which ended with Jimmy Hill shooting past Harry Gregg to put Fulham 2-1 into the lead.
But for England in Sweden, Haynes was seldom at his peak. He did produce, against Brazil in Gothenburg, one memorable through-pass, which might have decided the game, but the final score was 0-0 and England eventually went out to Russia. (A few months later, at Wembley, Haynes took a kind of revenge, scoring three times against the Russians, with tremendous left-footed shots from outside the penalty area.)
The following year Haynes captained Fulham back to the First Division. He also became the first major beneficiary of the abolition of the maximum wage rule, a move masterminded by his old partner Hill, then chairman of the players' union, and his salary rose to an undreamed of £100 a week. He captained England in the 1962 World Cup finals, which were again a disappointment.
On retirement in 1970, Haynes was already an active bookmaker. He then played in South Africa for Durban City. Fifteen years later, having sold his chain of bookmakers shops in 1976, he settled in Edinburgh, where he played a great deal of golf.
For all his undoubted gifts, Haynes was a controversial player both for club and country. The chief criticism of him as an international was that his football was somewhat stereotyped and thus quite possible to anticipate and counter.
He was a sometimes impatient but undeniably gifted perfectionist. Curiously, for so assured and dominant a figure, he never had any ambitions to become a manager.
John Norman Haynes: born October 17th, 1934; died October 18th, 2005