Countless thousands of Blues fans who watched Roger Hynd make his 197 first team starts for Blues, between 1970 and 1975, will be sorry to hear that Roger has not been too well in the past couple of years.

"I've had three ankle fusions", he says.

"They just wore out as a result of years of playing football and teaching.

"There's no cartilage left in either ankle.

"Two years ago they collapsed on me. I took a couple of days off for a rest, thinking it was just a twist or a torn ligament, but it turned out that I couldn't walk five yards."

Hynd's fate is one suffered by many of his professional football contemporaries, who played a game that was considerably more physical than it is today and at a time when clubs had little concern for the long term health and fitness of their players, just so long as they could turn out every week.

"The lack of the medical expertise that there is now and the fact that we used to play with injuries is a contributing factor," admits Hynd.

"Of course, in the earliest days of my career as well, there were no substitutes.

"You just played on".

Of his many attributes, it was this 'die for the cause' attitude that endeared

Hynd most to the Blues fans and was epitomised more than ever in his last three games for the club.

"I wore a plastic elbow that had been made for me somewhere in Walsall," he explains.
"They made me strap it on because I had broken my arm against Southampton or Ipswich and you weren't allowed to play with a plaster cast!

"I had also broken my ribs and I had a broken nose against Norwich. That was my last three games!"

Steve Bruce and the Board might shudder at the thought of sending out one of their multi-million pound investments to play with a broken elbow, broken ribs and a broken nose and even the most disingenuous of fans would probably accept that players in this state ought to be allowed some time off, but they'd equally share Hynd's cynical view of the fragility of some of the modern players.

"They come off these days when their mascara runs," laughs Hynd.

"A cracked nail and it's a hospital job!"

Mind you, Hynd is not too sure that, if he was still playing football, he'd stay on the pitch long enough to endanger himself much.

His was an era when solid physical contact, fair but firm, was part and parcel of the game.

"In those days you could challenge from behind and you could show six studs with frontal tackles, as long as you were going for the ball. It was a man's game," he adds.

For those that remember Hynd as a player, they'll also remember what a fantastic athlete he was.

Younger fans need only take a look at any pictures of Hynd to understand.

Built like a weightlifter, with a barrel chest, huge shoulders and tree trunk legs, Hynd was brought up in a Scottish village where physical activity at work, was followed by physical activity for leisure and interrupted only by the requirement to eat or fight!

"I came from a mining village, where men were very competitive in their games, whether it was the local bowling green or quoits," he says.

Hynd is quick to explain that 'quoits' in this context is not the game some may remember from their childhood, involving throwing a light rubber ring.

"The quoit was a 16 pound iron ring, with a hole in the middle.

"We used to throw it the length of a cricket pitch, 22 yards and tried to put it into a square of clay," he explains.

"I knew some boys who could toss that ring with a flick of the wrist, that's how strong they were and we grew up with that, competing with men.

"If you had an argument, then everybody just stood and watched you while you sorted it out. Nobody helped you out!"

Hynd maintained that commitment to physical conditioning throughout his career as a professional footballer, first with the mighty Glasgow Rangers, then briefly with Crystal Palace, before he came to Blues.

"I didn't drink," he explains.

"It didn't do anything for me and I was obsessed with the fitness side of things. I was a competitor.

"Knowing my own limitations skill-wise, I had to make it up some way and I did so with competitiveness and fitness.

"The rest of the team would tone down their training towards the end of the week.

"We'd only walk through free kicks and set pieces, for and against and so on, but I preferred to have quite a heavy Thursday and Friday.

"I liked to make sure that I was sharp and I did quite a lot of sprints."

Hynd was 28 when he came to Blues and understood that then-Blues boss, Freddie Goodwin, had signed him as a stopgap.

However, his total dedication and not inconsiderable ability meant that it was the others, supposedly brought in by Goodwin to replace him, who struggled to maintain their spot in the team.

"They bought Tony Want, Stan Harland and John Roberts and they tried Kenny Burns," recalls Hynd.

"They bought a whole host to try and replace me, but I seemed to stick and played beside all these boys."

After leaving Blues in 1975, Hynd spent an enjoyable couple of seasons up the road at Walsall, before returning to Scotland, to try his hand at management with Motherwell, where he signed up his former colleague and Blues stalwart Dave Latchford to play in goal.

Sadly, soccer management didn't work out and he left the Fir Park hot seat after 12 months.

"In hindsight, I should have stayed down south where my real career was, where I'd made my name," he admits.

Hynd believed passionately in the value of establishing a youth development policy, to identify and bring through youngsters who could be properly trained and taught to be both skilled footballers and great athletes.

He laid the foundations of this at Motherwell, but it was quickly pulled apart after he left.

"To be honest, as a manager I was 25 years ahead of my time. Mind you, Alex Ferguson was doing the same thing, at East Sterling and Aberdeen and then at Manchester United and he hasn't done too badly!"

Whilst at Rangers in the 1960's, thinking his football career would be shorter than it eventually turned out to be, Hynd supplemented his income with part-time teaching and he returned to education after he turned his back on the professional game.

He became a PE teacher at Wishaw School, until the damage to his ankles got the better of him two years ago.

"I've had surgery recently, which has improved my condition somewhat. I'm confident of regaining my mobility, but I doubt that I'll return to work," he says.

As with so many of his generation, who felt it a privilege to have played professional football, there's not a twinge of bitterness or resentment in his voice at his plight, only pleasure at the memory of being part of a great club and a fantastic team.

"I used to love running out onto the pitch, especially towards the Kop. That was my day!"

*This article first appeared in last season's matchday programme.


By Andy Bulman
Photos Ivan Barnsley.