I can only imagine I was laid up in bed with flu. Sometime in the 1970s, with a column to kill, I pored over the Rothmans annual and tabbed the first names of every footballer playing for the 92 League clubs. Johns and Michaels led the way, but behind them was a surprising host of Barrys, Kevins and Terrys.
About the time baby John was a gleam in their eye, might Mr and Mrs Terry have been settling on a double-whammy certainty - 97 Johns have played for England and 28 Terrys since 1872. In the 1980s I was at it again: various forms of John were now being challenged hard by Terry and Gary, followed by a burgeoning challenge from Gerry, Warren and Dayle. A generation on, and a year before the Premiership began in 1992, a fresh count logged 92 Garys (nicely one per club), although in that single decade Gary had surrendered the lead to a charge by 134 Steves and 112 Marks. Also showing well were 46 Darrens, 29 Deans and 25 Waynes, but noticeably bubbling under was a muster answering to Lee, Craig, Jason, Shane and Shaun, which I confidently forecast would be way out in the lead come the turn of the century.
How off the pace I was. The Premiership A-Z at once introduced a multiracial babel of first names from Abdelhamin and Arjen to Zarco, Zesh, and Zoltan. Put another way: could I have imagined 15 years ago that in 2007 I'd be voting for a player of the year called Didier Drogba?
Ah, Didier. Crazy cool, crazy goals, crazy name. Where would Chelsea be without him? Truth is, the singular Cote d'Ivorian sports a very sporty name. There's Didier Zokora, sure; then there's France's peerless 1998 World Cup-winning captain, Didier Deschamps. It's not only a first name: aeons ago when I followed the Tour de France, the fabled monarch Bernard Hinault was paced to most of his titles by that dutiful squire and pacemaker with the egg-whisk legs, one Lucien Didier. At the same time, at rugby, France's most glisteningly adventurous of all grand slam XVs in 1981 revolved around streamlined centre Didier Codorniou.
Till the early 1990s, for a decade France fielded the fellow who has turned out to be their last decent fly-half: Didier Camberabero was a Didier with a difference all right. First capped as a long-haired 21-year-old in 1982, by the first World Cup of 1987 he was bald - coot bald. For the second World Cup in 1991 he turned up in a wig. Not any old single-strand scalp-sewn job like Geoff Boycott or Austin Healey, oh no: ooh-la-la, with Gallic abandon Didier sported a full-works Davy Crockett bouffant rug in a dashing auburn tint with a jaunty slash of distingué grey to highlight his front quiff (un panache, to the trade, apparently). This dramatic complément capillaire, as he called it, was relishable meat and drink to every flank forward in the world. For all their lip-smacking pre-match threats, not one managed to tear it from his head.
I asked Didier if I could interview him about the sleeping hedgehog on his head. Only if I mentioned his wigmaker, he said - his best friend and director of the Lombardi Diffusion Salon in Béziers. "Le complément has totally transformed my rugby," he said, "you have surely noticed how much better I am running, tackling, and kicking?" "Et voilà, sûrement," I said. Didier? Panache? It's all in the name.
