ANTHONY McNamee's surging runs and brief moments of trickery brought a roar from the crowd from the moment the pint-sized substitute first received the ball.

There is nothing quite like a winger in football taking on his man and going past him and putting over a decent cross. As I wrote in The Golden Boys, it is something of a dying art, yesterday's memory, occasionally evoked nowadays but rarely with any consistency.

Defenders are better, have greater awareness and technique, so they are harder to go past. Tommy Smith can do it, and does, and Danny Webber demonstrated the art against Leicester. But just the sight of a player taking on an opponent and going past him is a less common occurrence than it was.

Annother sight from yesteryear is a big centre-forward chesting down a through ball and holding off the centre-half in a 15-yard sprint towards the penalty area before sending an awesome shot into the net.

Cliff Holton used to do that and so could Barry Endean in a brief period but the marshalling of defences with more awareness of cover, precludes such sights.

So, how did Macca go past his man when the opponent seemed to tight in the challenge? He obviously has very quick feet, good acceleration and an ability to see the game-plan to his right so that he can hit a cross with some purpose.

Later, when Watford were ahead and Walsall had made their substitutions to try and stop progress on Watford's left, Macca was relatively quiet.

As Mickey Benning, the pigeon-catching winger from 1959 said, there was a time when, once past the full back, there was open ground between him and the corner flag. Now, you have to go by two players, as John Barnes was capable of doing. Alternatively you have to learn to cross without beating your man, which Nigel Callaghan was adept at achieving and Neal Ardley has something of that art.

However, if you had seen Macca in the reserves of late, particularly when he played as a wing-back, you would have seen little of Saturday's excellence. He looked off his game and somewhat subdued. Obviously he conjured flashes of inspiration but he did not affect games.

That in itself is the trait of a true winger and why, in today's game, there are so few, The David Ginola's of this world have to deliver all the time and play a part in a team game. You cannot afford an out-and-out winger unless he is very much on his game.

The great thing about Barnes and Callaghan was that they were consistent and, when one was not going past his man, it was a near certainty the other would be. So invariably the attack had bite and the flanks end-product.

It was the same with Benning and Bunce but when you had the likes of Farley and McGettigan, both were too inconsistent to be able to provide a guaranteed service from the flanks.

Glyn Hodges, after an indifferent start to the season, eventually hit a purple patch that was sufficient to win him Player of the Season, but here again we can see an example of inconsistency in a winger.

The demands on flank men to act as wing-backs, is immense and they do not always have the puff to go past their man at the other end of the field.

This, indeed, was one of Stewart Scullion's strengths. He could get back and help the defence and could then scuttle forward to launch the attack. He was more consistent in his ability to beat his man from match to match, yet very inconsistent when it came to end-product.

More recently, we have seen Nordin Wooter beat his man regularly but again, end-product was limited.

McNamee has the ability to beat his man and is also capable of crossing accurately without going past his opponent.

His problem is stamina and the fact that taking on the other flank duties leaves him less equipped to do the positive things.

It is to be hoped that he can gain stamina along with strength as he grows older.

September 10, 2002 17:30