Last footballer of his kind

I apologise if this has been posted before...hell, no I don't! An article about the incomparable Matt Le Tiss found on the Telegraph site. Worth posting just for the goal videos.
http://babb.telegraph.co.uk/2015/01/matt-le-tissier-the-last-footballer-of-his-kind/

 

What a great, great player? Sat next to him last week in my dentist surgery waiting room, he's also a really nice, unassuming guy.

 

Le Tissier goes to a dentist!

 

Great piece. Always nice to see a reminder of how awesome the man was. Forever a Saints legend.

 

Absolutely stunning goals. Grinning ear to ear.

 

Whenever I see goals clips of MLT, it makes me very sad and then a little angry. How that man didn't play 100 times for England I'll never know.. well, I do know, but that's another story.

Yes, he is a decent fella. I remember going to St Mary's for his book signing. The queues went all the way round the stadium. He was amazed and he walked a long part of the way down the queue shaking his head in disbelief, asking if we really had all come to see him. I was near the front of the queue (4th in line) that day and when we got inside to see him, he didn't rush us. He spoke to us, posed for a photo and signed the book and my shirt. There were thousands waiting, yet there was no sense of him rushing us through.

L.E.G.E.N.D.

and gentleman.

 

Exactly my reaction.

 

The word Legend gets bandied arounfd a lot but its totally apt in MLT's case. I remember being there when he made his debut as sub against Norwich back in 86 and you knew he had something special.

 

I remember reading an article about him by the excellent Simon Barnes. He described him as a 'rebel'. However, he went on the say that he didn't even do rebel like any of the other so called rebels. He wasn't loud, he wasn't a boozer (Malibu and coke!?), he basically never went off the rails so to speak.

He was just Tiss doing it his way and his way was, quite literally, unique.

 

Speaking of Le God himself, here's his top three goals immortalised in LEGO.

http://www.theguardian.com/football...-tissier-top-three-goals-brick-by-brick-video

 

Followed by

http://www.theguardian.com/football/video/2015/jan/29/matt-le-tissier-video-interview

 

Can't let a Le Tissier's thread pass me by without adding something.

I know if I am watching Saints for another 50 years, no one will ever replace him as my favourite player.

The 70 yard passes, the megs, the flicks, the nonchalance, the opposition's stick, his way of shutting them up, the chant, the crowd before he struck a corner, the free kicks, the pens, the screamers, the gut, the crap hair, the nose...

I wish the council had never cleaned any of the 'Le God 4 England' graffiti. That is a true part of Southampton folklore.

 

First time I met Tiss I was with a friend at Marchwood watching the training. We were waiting for Tiss at the end, but he had a magazine shoot so it was taking an age and we were asked to leave by one of the ground staff. As we turned to go, Tiss called the guy that had ejected us over and he came scuttling back full of apology as MLT had noticed we were waiting for him and told this guy to take us into the building and get us a cup of tea whilst he finished the shoot. He then came and found us and couldn't have been lovelier or more gracious.

 

One of the things I love the most about the LeTissier & Mozart clip is the goal against Liverpool where you can see an awful lot of Liverpool fans clapping his goal. He was a magical footballer who could delight even the opposition with his skills.