Captain to Captain McFarland- Barker

Last updated : 04 September 2014 By QuadRam

C:WindowsTempphp2DAB.tmpIt was a great honour to be invited to attend the ‘Captain to Captain’ talk, hosted by Ed Dawes last night, and my thanks go to Quad curator Peter Bonnell for that invite.

It is not often that you get two former Rams Captain’s in the same room. To get two who Captained Derby County some forty years apart is exceptional and a fascinating insight into how things have changed over the decades.

Roy McFarland and Shaun Barker, it has to be said are as different as chalk and cheese and this was revealed last night to a packed cinema two of the Quad in Derby City centre.

McFarland was first to answer questions from Ed Dawes and the Liverpudlian made it quite clear in the begining he only wanted to play for Liverpool and was hanging out for the call, but Brian Clough and Peter Taylor were a ‘persuasive pair’ and after many cups of tea made by his Mum and intense talks with Dad a decision was made by Roy’s father, adding “If they want you that badly son, you’d better sign”. Peter Taylor instantly putting a pen in his hand and guided his hand for the signature. Roy saying it was more Peter Taylor's signiture than his own.

Roy went on to tell us he thought the morning after signing he had done the worst thing in his life by putting his signature on the dotted line for the Rams. He went to watch his beloved Liverpool beat Newcastle the next day and remembers telling his friends, he had made the worst mistake of his life.  How happy Rams fans were he was wrong.

Brian Clough told McFarland just after signing that he would play for England within twelve months, Roy commented with a wry smile, “he was wrong, it was fifteen months”.

One of the glaring similarities of the two players were the career threatening injuries both had received and the advancement in treatment of those injuries. Shaun Barker readily admits that his playing career would have been finished if his devastating injury against Nottingham Forest had occurred five or ten years earlier. The injury to Shaun was so bad that it had never been seen in football before, he described how his whole knee exploded from the inside with all ligaments etc. being destroyed after the accidental impact by the Ram goalkeeper. Shaun knew the impact with his leg was coming but couldn’t get out of the way. Despite all the pain he must have been in he showed his charecter by even had time to have a joke with one of the Derby medical team when they eventually were taken to the dressing room. He was asked if there was any pain anywhere else than his knee, so he said yes, here, indicating his left shoulder. The physio then went to massage the area, Shaun saying “get off you daft bugger”.

Roy’s injury was less devastating than Shaun’s but none the less career threatening. All Roy had to help him over the injury at that time was treatment from a local hospital and Gordon Guthrie at the Baseball Ground. Roy knew the injury had had effected him and his playing career, adding he knew that he was a yard slower and not as good as he used to be before the injury

On a different note, Shaun admitted to the assembled throng that he didn’t see football as his chosen career as a youngster. He is very much into art and jobs that rely on an artistic background. He wanted to go to college and University to study art but found himself playing football and was noticed as a kid and offered school boy terms. He thought, well I will give it a go and will probably result in being let go by the time he was sixteen. He was however offered further terms and again thought it would just result in him playing for a further two years and then rejected, but he wasn’t and the rest is history as they say!

Shaun’s fashion sense, possibly from his artistic bent, is a sense of intense ridicule at the training ground he informs us, but he likes to think he is the best dressed player when turning up to undergo yet more rehabilitation at Moor Farm. Other players, perhaps with less fashion sense tend to turn up for training in training gear rather than run the gauntlet of ridicule for their obvious lack of fashion sense he informed us.

This was a great insight into the two Captains and two eras of soccer. Roy McFarland had the final word and hoped that Shaun makes a full recovery from his injury and again Captain’s the Rams. Which is echoed by us all.