Mick MILLS

Alf Ramsey occasionally liked to pick and discard players out of the blue, and one such victim of this in-and-out whim was Ipswich Town's sturdy full back Mick Mills, a thrilled debutant in a friendly against Yugoslavia in 1972 whom Ramsey never asked back afterwards. Mills was at right back and West Ham's Frank Lampard was a fellow newcomer at left back. Lampard, too, was never recalled by Ramsey, but the similarity ended there as Mills was given a second bite of the cherry by Don Revie in 1976 while Lampard found himself unable for the rest of the decade to get beyond the attributes of Emlyn Hughes, Trevor Cherry, Kenny Sansom and - most ironically - Mick himself. Like Hughes, Mills enjoyed a versatility when it came to the full back positions, to the extent that it was genuinely unclear as to whether he was better at right back than he was on the left or vice versa. At Ipswich he was more often at left back, especially after George Burley came through the ranks to monopolise the right back role, but much of his England career was spent at right back and eventually he achieved a status whereby specific full backs would be dropped so Mills could play in either position.

This was the crucial factor which enabled Mick to usurp perhaps more specialist full backs - he had an authority and a leadership quality which England required from its defenders, especially when Hughes was put to one side by Revie. Three and a half years after his debut, Mills was called up again by England to play in a friendly against Wales at Wrexham, and this time he was at left back. There he stayed for five of the next six matches, including the 1976 Home International tournament - two wins and a defeat - and one of the two matches in which England took part at the US Bi-Centennial tournament. Revie looked at his old Leeds charge Cherry in the early part of 1977 - choosing him for the World Cup qualifier against Luxembourg and the summer tour of South America, but pitching Mills into the three Home International fixtures - before the sudden resignation of the England coach in the summer of the same year turned the tables in Mick's favour. (Matthew Rudd)

 Photo 18th. June 1980. © G.Herringshaw.

New coach Ron Greenwood selected Mick Mills in his side for eight of the nine internationals played in 1978, with Mills having the honour of captaining the team - as he had done so with Ipswich for a few years - in the Home International opener against Wales at Wembley, which England won 3-1. Though approaching his 30th birthday, it was only Mick's 16th cap, but Greenwood needed a skipper's presence because Hughes was preparing for Liverpool's European Cup final and Kevin Keegan was injured. Mills was at right back on his day in the armband, but in six of the other seven games that year he played on the left, with Liverpool's Phil Neal now the clear incumbent for the right back role. Cherry was in the squad but not in Greenwood's favour. The due form and emergence of youngsters Viv Anderson and Kenny Sansom confounded the issue further, but of the five premier full backs gunning for the two places in 1979, Mills and Neal got the most nods. Mick again skippered the team in the opening Home International fixture - a 2-0 win over Northern Ireland - and played in four of the five qualifiers staged that year for the 1980 European Championships, following on from the two in which he had featured in 1978. England qualified for the tournament - their first in a decade - with a game to spare so Greenwood used the final qualifier - against Bulgaria - to blood the youngsters, and Anderson and Sansom played in the only match of 1979 that Mills sat out. There was little doubt, however, that he would be back, despite the extra praise afforded to Sansom that year. Greenwood wanted the young and deft Crystal Palace left back to have a wider experience of the international scene so used him frequently ahead of Mills in the seven games of 1980 which preceded the competition in Italy.

A link with the distant past was made in England's final warm-up game - a jetlag-ridden 2-1 win in Australia featuring a squad of second stringers and young hopefuls - when Frank Lampard was called up for his second cap, nearly eight years after he and Mills had debuted together. Lampard played and that was that for the West Ham man. Mick was in the squad for Italy, though his place in the side thanks to the glut of skilled full backs at Greenwood's disposal (in his squad - he took Mills, Cherry, Sansom, Neal and Anderson) was less than secure. England opened their 1980 European Championship group with a 1-1 draw against a Belgium side who played with a fetish for catching their opponents offside, and Mills was left out, with Neal and Sansom getting Greenwood's blessing. The same pairing was deployed for the next game against Italy which England lost mainly thanks to impotent attacking outlets, and with a result desperately needed in the last game, Greenwood freshened up the full backs and brought in Mills for his first game in a major finals at the ripe age of 31. It was his 30th cap and his assured presence and leadership helped England from the back to a 2-1 win over Spain (the photo above is during the game), but the damage was already done and England came home. (Matthew Rudd)

 Photo of Mick Mills (England) taken 5th. July 1982 by and © George Herringshaw.

Trevor Cherry was discarded by Ron Greenwood after the 1980 European Championships and for the opening three qualifiers for the 1982 World Cup, all played in the autumn of 1980, it looked as though Mills was on borrowed time too, as Sansom - whose terrific start to his England life had earned him a huge move to Arsenal - began to monopolise the left back slot while the younger, domestically successful Anderson and Neal vied competitively for the right back role. Mills was being called into squads but found himself potentially only as a stop gap option amidst the young guns, though he did play at right back in the 2-1 defeat by Switzerland which prompted Greenwood into changes. It turned round for Mick when, with three qualifiers left and England's place in Spain on the brink, Greenwood plumped for hardened experience in Hungary and dropped Sansom in favour of Mills' more stoic brand of wide defending. England won 3-1 and Mick stayed in the team for the next two games, ultimately featuring in the side which took England to their first World Cup in a dozen years with victory at Wembley over Hungary again.

In the preparation period prior to the finals, Greenwood again gave plenty of grass time to Neal, Anderson and Sansom as if to find a futuristic partnership for the successor who would take over from him in the coach's chair after the tournament. For a while, it was questionable as to whether Mills, for all his defensive knowhow and inspirational qualities, would make the final 22, but with skipper Keegan troubled by a back injury, Greenwood needed a captain on the pitch in Bilbao and so put Mills in the squad and then asked him to captain England in the nation's first World Cup finals match since West Germany came back from two down in the 1970 quarter-finals. This was bad news for Neal, who was ditched to make way for Mick in the starting XI, while Anderson never got on to the pitch at all. Mills and Sansom played in the first brace of matches - a 3-1 defeat of France and a 1-0 win over Czechoslovakia - before Greenwood rested Sansom and recalled Neal for the final group game, switching Mills to the left. Mick maintained the captaincy throughout, reverting back to the right back role for the second phase to allow a refreshed Sansom's return, and Keegan only made it on to the park in the last minutes of England's goalless draw with Spain (the photo above is during the game)