The 50 greatest North midfielders

Jul 3 2011 by Steve Brown and Joe Fairclough, Sunday Sun

YOU have to include Tommy Gibb, implored one time-served Newcastle fan.Tommy Gibb? critiqued another, less than constructively. He was absolutely ****! But then, thats the point.

The Sunday Suns series of special features aimed at nailing down the Norths top football talent continues today with our list of the regions 50 greatest post-war midfielders. And the selection process itself stirred more debate than Question Time.

Now at www.sundaysun.co.uk its over to you. Good luck. Armed with stats, facts, opinion and wistful reminiscence, our chosen few could never be conclusively authoritative. Not when some of those straw-polled reacted thus: Fifty? Good midfielders? In the Norf (sic)? and Have there been 50 worth a shout?

And my brothers fiance suggests Michael Owen!

Seriously though, without the strikers pure tell of goals scored, or a keepers clean sheets, how do you compare midfielders when the demands of the position differ so markedly across the pitch, and through time?
Impact, I was briefed, was to be the acid test.

Even then though, how to balance the on-field tangibles with the romantic thrill of setting the heart aflutter?

(Appearances shown are for league only)

:: Cast your eye over our list then place your vote here

1 PAUL GASCOIGNE (Newcastle 85-88, 92; Boro  98-00, 41)

FORGET for a moment the injuries, the off-field problems oh, the off-field problems and the dips in form caused by both. Forget Fog on the Tyne.

Think a chubby-faced, cocksure cherub emerging at the club he loved, think of him in the grip of but unbowed by Vinnie Jones, of that Wembley FA Cup semi-final free-kick against Seaman, and of Italia 90 and Euro96. Think of these and revel in memories of the most mercurially-gifted purveyor of natural midfield talent this country has produced.

They say genius can come tinged with a touch of insanity, and as Sir Bobby Robson said, Gazza was daft as a brush. At his best, he was also THE best.