Great players (or any fave player really) who rarely missed matches through injury

[Sporting]

Bobby Charlton. Had the luck in this respect that long time teammate Denis Law, for example, didn't. Or maybe kept hìmself away from the cloggers of the time.

[Duncan Gardner]

Chopper Harris

[treibeis]

Kerry Dixon, at least at Reading and Chelsea (over 450 games in 12 years).

[Duncan Gardner]

Dixon had a bad injury halfway through 85-86. Only missed a few games but he was never the same again

[gjw100]

My memory of Bobby Moore as a player was that he seemed to be an ever-present for West Ham. A quick check of Wikipedia confirmed that apart form the 64/65 season (when he played only 28 League games), between 60/61 and 72/73 he averaged 40 matches per season.(excluding Cup games), and never fell below 37.

[Foot of Astaire's]

Jaaskelainen for us. A bargain 300k signing when we were picking up some real quality players from Scandinavia. Over 400 league appearances, most at the top level and I can only think of him making 2 mistakes, remarkable for a goalkeeper.

[longeared]

Des Walker - eight years with us, missed a total of 13 games, at least four of which were through suspension and he was left out for a couple of games at the end of his stay as we were planning for the future.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Phil Neal famously never missed a single game for Liverpool from when Paisley first put him in the team in 1974 until 1983. He missed one game then, then came back and was ever present for the rest of that season and all of 1984-85. His consecutive appearances record is something like 400 games.

[Satchmo Distel]

Ian Callaghan never played fewer than 28 games a season for Liverpool from 1961 to 1978

[jdsx]

Norman Hunter played an average of 55 matches a year for the ten years Leeds made it back to the first division (64-65 to 73-74), including 63 matches in 67-68. Shame he got suspended so much!

[tee rex]

They grew up with free milk in schools. Poor nutrition otherwise, but at least their bones got calcium. Bloody Thatcher, destroying the dreams of young footballers.

(although you hate to think what they got injected with during their careers ...).

[jwdd27]

David O'Leary racked up the games with Arsenal - although he was a fine defender, his lack of injuries possibly corellated with his lack of bookings, he wasn't the type to fly into a tackle, they had Willie Young for that.

Frank Lampard had a good run at Chelsea from his debut, especially as he played at a time when squad rotation was becoming the norm, along with precautionary injury layoffs

Paul Longden played virtually every game for Scunthorpe between 1983 and 1993, virtually every performance being an unspectacular 6.5/10. Those were the days when full backs just defended and stayed in their own half (1 goal in 455 games).

[Various Artist]

That's a Des Walkeresque record in more than one sense, then!

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Xavi Hernandez did his cruciate in the 2005-6 season, but from 2006-7 to 2013-14 8 seasons in total, xavi played 411 games for barcelona, and 93 games for spain, giving you an average of 63 games a season for 8 years. He retired from international football in 2014, and only played 44 games in his final season at barcelona. He also moved an extremely long distance in each of these games and made the guts of 100 passes in each. A lot of that time he had a fairly serious long term achilles injury. Isn't modern medicine fantastic?

[That Night In Barcelona]

Xavi Hernandez did his cruciate in the 2005-6 season, but from 2006-7 to 2013-14 8 seasons in total, xavi played 411 games for barcelona, and 93 games for spain, giving you an average of 63 games a season for 8 years. He retired from international football in 2014, and only played 44 games in his final season at barcelona. He also moved an extremely long distance in each of these games and made the guts of 100 passes in each. A lot of that time he had a fairly serious long term achilles injury. Isn't modern medicine fantastic?

Aye, always makes me think of Ryan Giggs prolonging his career with yoga when I read stats like that.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

For all the talk of spirituality and what not, Yoga is just really focused stretching. There's an obvious reason why it would be good for a footballer, and its impact on reducing muscle and ligament injury isn't magic. It's really obvious when you think about it. That's why a lot of them do it now. It also acted to reduce, not eliminate injury. Ryan giggs didn't hit 1000 games by playing every minute of every game for a decade and flying all over the world. He got there by playing for 22 seasons, during which he picked up quite a lot of injuries, and was regularly rested, rotated, and subbed off. He's the first player that anyone ever really took care of, in the way that is taken for granted in modern football. Also Yoga didn't make roy keane's career go on forever, it did however prolong his career at the top level, until his hip did for him.

[That Night In Barcelona]

Yeah nail on the head with all that really, the idea that doing a bit of stretching was the magic formula that allowed to play until 40 in central midfield at a time when the game was getting faster and faster, it 'stretches' credibility. Roy Keane's a good comparison - another central midfielder who didn't play internationals.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

If you can't see why that's nonsense, I'm afraid that I'm not going to be able to explain it to you.

[jameswba]

Marek Hamsik made 512 appearances for Napoli in all competitions in under 12 years, from 2007-2018. He is their appearance record-holder, and Slovakia's with 120 games. Definitely missed the odd game with injury and was dropped for a few (eg under Benitez at Napoli), though I don't how many.

[That Night In Barcelona]

If you can't see why that's nonsense, I'm afraid that I'm not going to be able to explain it to you.

I'm agreeing with you, it's obviously nonsense to suggest yoga is a magical elixir.

[DPDPDPDP]

Willie Miller of Aberdeen. Played 797 games over 17 seasons. 65 caps for Scotland. 12 trophies won. Rarely injured and then ironically had his career cut short, aged 34, after being injured playing for Scotland against Norway. With him playing sweeper and his tremendous reading of the game, he could easily have played for another 3 or 4 years at least.

[Tony C]

Alan Oakes, an old favourite of mine, didn't get injured much. He played 564 league games for Man City over 16 seasons and missed very few yet curiously didn't manage to put in a complete 42 game season in Div 1 or 2. - clocking up four seasons of 41 appearances, one of 40 and three of 39. After dropping down at 34 to play in Div 3 for Chester he then recorded league appearances of 45 and 44 in consecutive seasons in the 46 game division. Very few of his total 776 Football League matches will have been poor ones, either, a really underrated player.

[JM Footzee]

Des Walker - eight years with us, missed a total of 13 games, at least four of which were through suspension and he was left out for a couple of games at the end of his stay as we were planning for the future.

And according to Andy Hinchcliffe on the Set Piece Menu podcast, he barely ever trained.

[Arturo]

Chris Woods didn't miss a single match pf any kind for Norwich from his debut in March 1981 to late 1984 (Joe Corrigan was brought in on loan to cover his brief absence for four games, and Graham Benstead stood in for another). By the time Woods left in 1986, he'd played 267 games out of a possible 272 with two promotions, two relegations, a League Cup winners medal, first England cap, and a Norwich Player of the Year award.

Either side of that, he was virtually ever present at QPR before joining City and rarely out of the sticks in his first two seasons at Glasgow Rangers (before injury and illness finally struck longer term), so that's an almost unbroken run between 1979 to 1988.

[1974ddr]

Charlie Aitken made his Villa debut in the last match of the 1960-61 season, then made at least thirty league appearances in each of the next fourteen seasons up to 1974-75, including five ever-present seasons. He also played in the first twenty one matches of 1975-6 including cup ties. Ron Saunders decided he was past it then, so he went off to the USA and had a couple of seasons with Pele and Beckenbauer at NY Cosmos.

Jimmy Rimmer made his Villa debut in August 1977 and missed only one game between that and his final appearance for Villa on 27 December 1982, a total of 287 appearances out of a possible 288. Discarded too soon- still only 34- to make way for young Nigel Spink. No offence Nige.