Des Walker

For a player noted for his unfailing consistency, Des Walker's career will be forever remembered for its pivotal moments. A late goal to secure a home draw against Luton Town on New Year's Day 1992 would hardly parallel to a World Cup winning strike, but every Forest fan - or at least every Forest fan who remained behind after almost ninety minutes of torpid football - will have the image of Walker's surprisingly assured finish filed amongst their favourite memories. 

Despite being the undisputed master of Forest's penalty box, the one up the other end of the pitch remained to Des an undiscovered country. Despite three hundred appearances for the club, Walker's goals-scored column remained lodged on zilch. This was not the result of comical finishing. The Forest tactic at the time was to abandon Walker as the last line of defence, comfortable in knowing that the speed, nuance and anticipation the Reds' number four possessed would be more than enough to snuff-out any marauding attackers. As the Forest crowd were always keen to point out, "you'll never beat Des Walker". 

The Hackney-born teenager - picked up by the Reds on the rebound from Spurs - had made an unflashy debut as an emergency right-back (sharing defensive responsibilities with future Reds boss Paul Hart) in March 1983, but had to wait over a year before becoming a regular selection - this after Chris Fairclough had decided the grass was a more pleasing shade at White Hart Lane and Hart had been shockingly given away to Sheffield Wednesday. 

Various permutations followed, involving - amongst others - Ian Butterworth, Johnny Metgod and a widening Garry Birtles, but it soon became obvious the player whom such permutations revolved around was Des. More partners followed: Colin Foster, Terry Wilson and, most effectively perhaps, Steve Chettle, although it's hardly detrimental to comment that a porcelain figurine of Benny Hill could have partnered Walker and still be made to look like a world-beater. 

International honours were an obvious progression and Walker's initial cap came with a substitute appearance against Denmark in the 1988/89 season. Almost instantly, an England team that didn't contain the fulcrum of Forest's defence became unthinkable and Walker's selection ceased to be a matter for deliberation. The 1990 World Cup projected Walker onto a greater stage and his performances were of such a routine impressiveness they soon had the giants of European football avariciously flapping their cheque-books around. Incredibly, a clause in Walker's latest contract meant he would be allowed to move abroad for a piffling £1.5M, about a fifth of his true value. 

His imminent departure lifted the astounding moment that Walker finally shattered his goal-scoring duck to greater poignancy. The ink on his transfer to Serie A and Sampdoria had already dried, and the gifted defender at the summit of his career seemed poised to take his destined place amongst Europe's finest. 

But somehow, it never happened - Walker's star faded disastrously and when he returned to his home shores a year on, there fell an eerie silence amongst the elite for his signature. Forest fans, already suffering the waning of their once promising side, were forced also to bear the indignity of seeing their once prize-asset wearing the shirt of perennial also-rans Sheffield Wednesday. 

Infamously, Walker had found the net once before. The 1991 FA Cup Final will be forever noted for the moment at which Paul Gascoigne changed from being his country's most knicker-wettingly talented individual into an eternally-half-fit butterball. But for Forest fans, the more profound memory is the sight of a corner skewering off Walker's head and into Mark Crossley's net, therefore gifting Gary Mabbutt the opportunity of clambering up the Wembley steps and brandishing the trophy. Whilst lesser mortals may have been hounded from the club for such an indiscretion, Walker's faux-pas passed almost without comment. 

England fans sadly failed to share such a sense of forgiveness. Walker had already amassed half a century of caps before he met his Waterloo, his nemesis being the flying Dutch winger Marc Overmars, and the occasion being a death-or-glory World Cup qualifier at Wembley in April 1993. England were five minutes away from a 2-1 victory when Overmars did indeed "beat Des Walker", who with uncharacteristic clumsiness clipped the Dutchman's heels and sent him tumbling. Peter Van Vossen netted the resulting penalty, virtually ending England's campaign and, on a brighter note, Graham Taylor's tenure as manager. Walker added a handful of meaningless friendlies to his caps total but - despite Des remaining a consistent top-flight performer well into his thirties - each successive England manager conspired to exhibit selective amnesia when choosing his centre-halves.

Walker continued as a glint of sunshine in an increasingly depressing Wednesday side, whose relegation and resulting financial burdens meant his release in 2001. With no-one interested enough to secure his registration, Walker found himself training with Burton Albion, until the end of the season when Forest stepped in and allowed Walker a chance of resurrection. 

He impressed sufficiently to be offered a contract, and eventually found himself captaining the side, Forest fans pinching themselves in seeing the number 4 shirt bearing such a legend once more. In the almost-but-not-quite 2002/03 season Walker formed a solid partnership with emerging galactico Michael Dawson, the pair forming a reliable back-bone to a Forest side that for the first time qualified for the play-off lottery. Fate snickered once more and the scoreline of the fateful final game at Bramall Lane contained "Walker (o.g.)" in the goalscorers column, but Forest's failure was a shared responsibility.

Most fans expected Des's swansong to be a one-season affair and hence uttered suprise when his contract was renewed, but Walker's experience remained crucial to the development of Dawson, as well as John Thompson and Wes Morgan, the latter tidily inheriting the "you'll never beat…" chant and then being generous enough to be suspended for the final three games of 03/04, allowing Des a few last moments to grace the City Ground pitch. Rumours of a switch to a nest of ailing magpies abounded, but in the end Des was cordially invited to add to the coaching staff on the red side of the Trent.

For a player who spent over a decade away from Forest, Des will surely be remembered as a player in red, rather than in either owlish or Italian blues, or with three lions on his shirt. True, the glittering future that surely lay in wait at the end of the 1990 World Cup eventually eluded him, but that should not lessen the memories of a quick-thinking, graceful, and, ultimately cultured centre-half who was indeed never (okay, hardly ever) beaten.

by Peter Attaway

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