Big, burly and blessed with amazing pace for such a hulking figure, Cyrille Regis was an obvious choice for a go in the England side as he continued to power home headers and vicious drives with admirable regularity in West Bromwich Albion's futuristic side of the early 1980s. Ron Greenwood called him up in the late period of warm-ups prior to the 1982 World Cup and, after initial controversy over Regis' French Guyanan place of birth, the big goal getter played in three games - sub appearances in the Home Championships against Northern Ireland and Wales and a start in a friendly versus Iceland - without scoring and without much hope of ousting the first choice target-man type centre forwards in whom Greenwood was set to store his faith when the finals got underway.
Regis played in Bobby Robson's second game in charge afterwards - a 2-1 defeat to the West Germans at Wembley (see below) - and then vanished not unexpectedly into the distance as he joined Coventry. A surprising but unremarkable decision from Robson to give him a fifth cap out of the blue in 1987 passed without comment, and was made justifiable by Cyrille's stunning form the previous season which had helped the Sky Blues clinch the FA Cup. He came on as a sub for Peter Beardsley against Turkey in a European Championship qualifier at Wembley and, despite the ultimate 8-0 scoreline, didn't have a chance to get an England goal under his belt before his inevitable drift back into the shadows. (Matthew Rudd) |