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Seeing as the thread about best oppo-player had me salivating with all the reminiscing, who's the best header of the ball you've ever seen live? Define that as you want and the player can be both a city or a non-city player.

I'm gonna go with Zlatan Ibrahimovich. Fantastic header of the ball generally and haven't disappoint when I've seen him live. He was also pretty crap at heading to begin with so I'm well impressed by his development.

Current City, I'd say Lescott, despite the fact that he has an annoying habit of heading goal kicks directly at an opposition player. He's never done it when I've watched him live though.

Dave Watson Next..

Richards fa cup v aston villa.

Denis Law was exceptional. Especially as he's only about 5' 8" tall.

As already stated, big Dave Watson was also tremendous and he was an inch or two under six foot tall too.

Wyn Davies, Joe Royle, Colin Bell.

One of those three.

Nobody in modern football can really head a ball imo, it's just some are average at it & get the odd spectacular one in, wheras most haven't got a fucking clue, so when someone actually gets it right, it looks immense compared to the pathetic efforts we have become accustomed to watching.

Watson's hard to beat but I seem to recall Tommy Booth being a bit special and maybe even Mick McCarthy

Tim Cahill. The name is not a pleasant one for us. Pollock as well.....he knew how to head a goal.

Douglas Higginbottom wrote:Watson's hard to beat but I seem to recall Tommy Booth being a bit special and maybe even Mick McCarthy

I suppose it's down to how you qualify it. Tommy Booth & Dave Watson were very difficult to outjump, but some of the strikers, like Royle etc, could actually cushion the ball & make it drop at people's feet when recieving it at an awkward angle, under pressure, as well as rocketing it in the back of a net from all angles. More difficult to do imo.

Douglas Higginbottom wrote:Watson's hard to beat but I seem to recall Tommy Booth being a bit special and maybe even Mick McCarthy

Also Doug in an era when most teams had wingers and centre forwards like Peter Withe .

Ted Hughes wrote:Wyn Davies, Joe Royle, Colin Bell.

One of those three.

Nobody in modern football can really head a ball imo, it's just some are average at it & get the odd spectacular one in, wheras most haven't got a fucking clue, so when someone actually gets it right, it looks immense compared to the pathetic efforts we have become accustomed to watching.

I think I'd add Ron Davies and Derek Dougan to that list and players such as Bobby Gould and Hugh Curran weren't too bad either.

Hazy2 wrote:Dave Watson Next..

+1

Shearer wasn't too shabby either

Mikhail Chigorin wrote:

Ted Hughes wrote:Wyn Davies, Joe Royle, Colin Bell.

One of those three.

Nobody in modern football can really head a ball imo, it's just some are average at it & get the odd spectacular one in, wheras most haven't got a fucking clue, so when someone actually gets it right, it looks immense compared to the pathetic efforts we have become accustomed to watching.

I think I'd add Ron Davies and Derek Dougan to that list and players such as Bobby Gould and Hugh Curran weren't too bad either.

Yeah Ron Davies in particular was up there.

A lot of players were great headers of the ball back then, even some of the not so big units; Dennis Law was fantastic.

I just think that from a skill & power point of view, we were fortunate to have seen 3 of the all time great aerial attacking players in our team during a short period.

Bell was underrated, as he was at everything, & doesn't get a mention for his heading, but he was awesome.

Andy Morrison. Knocked out anyone challenging him at the same time :-)

I remember in the early 1970s when we still had the Home Internationals and Wales picked a side to play England in a 4-3-3 formation.

The front three comprised Wyn Davies, Ron Davies and John Toshack and it was a long-ball afficionado's paradise - if Tony Pulis had been old enough to be watching, he would have been in some sort of seventh heaven.

Mind you, can't remember the score, but England still won.

To echo Ted's sentiments, Colin Bell was indeed awesome.

He would have excelled in whatever position he was asked to play, in whatever formation and role. He was the total and complete footballer.

Don't think there'll ever be another player quite like King Colin.

I've seen Niall Quinn curl the ball into the far corner (of the goal not the pitch) with his head. Quite a skill if you can read the spin on the cross and knock your fod across the ball accordingly.

For me, the best and most elegant header of a ball as he wasnt a very tall man is Les Ferdinand, he used to have serious hang time and great technique

some great examples mentioned above

seems an appropriate place to share a few of my favourite headed goals

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hI6PoqTyGH ... I6PoqTyGHc
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RzHqFNHaoZ ... zHqFNHaoZk
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OhmasAdprA ... hmasAdprA4

Chinners wrote:

Hazy2 wrote:Dave Watson Next..

+1

+2

Of our current players Micah had a leap that had him beating much bigger men, and his goal against Villa was just salmon-esque.

Nigels Tackle wrote:some great examples mentioned above

seems an appropriate place to share a few of my favourite headed goals

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hI6PoqTyGH ... I6PoqTyGHc
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RzHqFNHaoZ ... zHqFNHaoZk
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OhmasAdprA ... hmasAdprA4

The Carlton Palmer header must be the only positive thing that the plodding donkey ever did in his footballing career....must have been an outright fluke as he was a total waste of shipping space.

In the 1955 Cup Final against Newcastle, Bobby Johnstone scored a cracking diving header from a long way out. Just a pity that Jimmy Meadows got carried off after 20 minutes and we had to play the rest of the game with ten men, otherwise we might have won the Cup that year.