Last player on your team to be older than you

[jwdd27]

Not sure if we've done this - SimonG on the new div. 4 thread revealed that Luke Varney leaving means he is now older than all the players on his team.

Simon is one of the young 'uns on the site, so I'm guessing most of us left this milestone behind quite a while ago, but who was the player who finally ended the dream?

At Scunthorpe mine was Ian Baraclough, born 4/12/1970, who played on as player-coach until March 2008.
Before that there was also Steve Torpey, 4 days younger than Bara but left for Lincoln 2 years earlier.

I'm guessing there might be a Shilton outlier or two in this thread.

[via vicaria]

After a sojourn to wikipedia, it seems I'm being kept young by Heurelho Gomes, Ben Foster (thank god for keepers) and Jose Holebas in defence who's a couple of months older than me.

[Fussbudget]

Ach, I hadn't realised this had happened to me until this thread. You can normally rely on an older centre half or third choice keeper or something, but we're skint so our squad is full of academy bairns at the moment.

So that would be Stewart Downing and Dimi Konstantopoulos, both leaving when their contracts ended on 1 July 2019.

[Wouter D]

Klaas-Jan Huntelaar is keeping my dream alive. There may be others; haven't checked.

[blameless]

Don't know for certain, but strongly suspect it'll have been in 2005 when Gerry Britton's second spell with Thistle ended.

edit - nope, actually 2006 when Billy Dodds' second spell ended. After that, all the experienced players - David Rowson, Alan Archibald, Ian Maxwell - were all younger than me (indeed, Maxy was the year behind me at school!)

[ursus arctos]

I'm just glad that there are some guys who are still alive. . .

[Janik]

I think I've had three lasts like this, the first of which I can't be bothered to work out. But it was some time before 2013, possibly a number of years prior. However in January 2014 Kevin Phillips joined Leicester - he is older than me and by several years rather than days. Then at the end of 2014 he retired, and everyone was younger... until Mark Schwarzer signed a year later. Again he has a number of years on me. But that was the last gasp. Since Schwarzer departed in the summer of 2016, all the players have been young'uns from my perspective.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Not sure on players, but I remember it jarred a little when I realised Brendan Rodgers was a year younger than me.

[Jah Womble]

Blimey, there’s a question.

The answer is almost certainly Gary Mabbutt, who’s three months my senior. He played his last game for Spurs in 1998, aged 36.

[longeared]

Steve Howard, who we baffingly had on loan from Hartlepool for the closing games of the 2013 season. Garry Monk is the first manager we've had to be younger than me.

[Ek weet nie]

Alex Manninger is five years older than me but since he left in 2017 I don't think any Liverpool player has been younger than me. Had hopes with Lonergan but not quite unfortunately.

[elguapo4]

Dave Henderson, Bohs goalkeeper. When he retired in 1998 ,I was 34. I have played in the first team kit on the pitch, but it's not the same. My best mate scored the winner for the supporters club team, on the hallowed turf in a competitive cup semi final. Fucker!

[Third rate Leszno]

I think it might have been Shaun Teale, who made 18 appearances for Carlisle in 1999/2000. I was 34 turning 35 and he's a year older.

[Foot of Astaire's]

I suspect for most of us it'll be a goalkeeper who helped kid ourselves we weren't that old. Kevin Poole for me who was playing the odd game for Bolton in his 40s while I was still in my late 30s. The last outfield player was Colin Hendry.

[Capybara]

This took some working out. If I had been a few months younger, it would have been easy. Bryan Robson played his last game at Arsenal on New Year's Day in 1997, and Viv Anderson in 1995. But they are both younger than I am so it looks like it's Archie Stephens whose last game was in 1987.

[Gangster Octopus]

I'm just glad that there are some guys who are still alive. . .

Yup. When we did that other thread a while back I realised that the oldest person who I'd seen playing football was Jackie Charlton. Currently that still applies.

[Simon G]

I think I've had three lasts like this, the first of which I can't be bothered to work out. But it was some time before 2013, possibly a number of years prior. However in January 2014 Kevin Phillips joined Leicester - he is older than me and by several years rather than days. Then at the end of 2014 he retired, and everyone was younger... until Mark Schwarzer signed a year later. Again he has a number of years on me. But that was the last gasp. Since Schwarzer departed in the summer of 2016, all the players have been young'uns from my perspective.

This is actually the second time it's happened to me. In our Football League relegation season of 14/15 we had 3 players older than me (Steve Elliott, Matt Sparrow and Pablo Mills). Elliott left in January but I'm sure Sparrow and Mills saw out the season. Gary Johnson had a clear out that summer and our oldest player of the new squad was Danny Wright who was a couple of weeks younger than me. Then we signed Luke Varney in 2018 and all seemed ok again until this past Tuesday.

[Bermuda Iron]

Paul Musselwhite, second time around...

[Satchmo Distel]

I think Barnsley was Geoff Thomas in 2000-01.

[Various Artist]

My first idea was long-serving former Norwich captain Adam Drury, who's 9 months older than me, but I'd forgotten just how long ago he left – despite having been there 11 years, he was still only 33 (and I was just turning 33) when he finished in 2012.

...On the other hand, having just looked at the squad for the following season, there's no-one older in it, and I don't think any of the next few have anyone born in the '70s either who actually played – although reserve goalie Carlo Nash (born 1973!) joined for the 2013-14 season aged nearly 40 but never played. In an era of fairly constant squad churn it's not like there were a lot of battered veterans clinging on for a long time either. So it's wholly possible Drury was in fact the last Canary older than me.


Fortunately, despite being 41 now, I somehow still have one childhood hero playing – patron saint of the "Oh, is he still playing?" thread, of course, the one and only Jamie Cureton. Having come up through the youth and reserve teams, he joined the Norwich first-team squad in 1993 when I was 14, and was sold in 1996 – the same year as writing himself into club folklore by dyeing his hair green for the Ipswich derby then scoring in it. Eleven years later, he returned when I was 28 (and he was nearly 32) for what looked like the tail end of his career, finally leaving for Exeter when I was on the verge of turning 31 and he was pushing 35. A decade further on, and he's still going.

[3 Colours Red]

Steve Hodgson: reserve keeper in 2015/16, born 23rd December, 1981. Eight months on me.

Don't remember him playing though so I'd go back to 13/14 for both Stephen Wright (b. 8/2/80) and Dean Keates (b. 30/6/78). So the dream effectively died as soon as I turned 32.

[1974ddr]

I've never thought about this one before, but strangely I think the answer may be Peter Schmeichel.
At the other end of the spectrum I think the first player younger than me may have been Mark Walters. If memory serves I'm his senior by about six months.

[jwdd27]

If we're doing veteran non-playing goalkeeper subs, then I gain another year of being younger than a professional footballer, as goalkeeping coach Kevin Pressman (6/11/67) was on the bench a couple of times in 2009 during an injury crisis, he's four and a half years older than me, and by that time was about the same stones heavier. Not much would have got past him if called into action, that's for sure. A big lad.

[Amor de Cosmos]

As best as I can figure it was the late Dave Clement, who was four months older than me and played for QPR until 1979.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Having thought about Liverpool a bit, I think it probably is Gary McAllister. Which is odd, because he's about 7 years older than me, but by 2003 the other "older" players like Jerzy Dudek, Didi Hamann and Vladimir Smicer were all just younger than me. David James is older than me but we sold him in 1999. McAllister was still playing in 2002.