IN THIS cruel and volatile modern world there are precious few constants we can cling onto for comfort.
In fact, off the top of my head, I can think of only three.
One is the Queen. Another is Dame Vera Lynn.
And the third is Gerry Francis’ haircut. A mighty collision of two blast-from-the-past ‘styles,’ the mullet and the bog-brush, which I first glimpsed tormenting the Scotland team, from the centre of midfield, during an infamous 5-1 drubbing at Wembley, in 1975.
Not a game I care to dwell on, but Captain Gerry and his haircut seemed the epitome of style and cool back then.
He clearly thought so as well, because Gerry and his haircut were soon back marshalling the great Queen’s Park Rangers’ team of 1975-76.
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They might have fallen tantalisingly short that season, but Gerry’s locks never did, whether it was trying to turn Crystal Palace and his mullet into the team and the haircut of the eighties, or failing to stem the ravages of time, with Bristol Rovers between 1985-87.
It also survived his move into management with, among others, QPR, Spurs and Exeter City. And though Gerry’s been long retired, his haircut definitely hasn’t.
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I saw it, today, in fact, on Sky TV, and it looked as magnificent as it was reassuringly familiar.
For older and much greyer it may have been, at the age of 66, but it was also uncompromising and unyielding, like Gerry in his England heyday, and clearly not about to budge a single centimetre for anyone.
One man’s defiant “get stuffed” to fashion and age.
We pay tribute to Gerry’s haircut here with a look back at its career, over 43 glorious, shoulder length years.
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