Tony Dunne

Just read that Tony Dunne died, aged 78. He was a key member of the great Man U team of the 60s, at right back. One of the best defensive fullbacks I have seen. He was one of the fastest footballers I've seen live and also incredibly quick over short distances and a great tackler. The position of fullback has changed so much since then that it's now hard to assess current players. In Tony's day the main function of a fullback was to take away byline crosses with providing cover for the centre half as the other main job. So-called "overlapping" fullbacks had started to come in as fullbacks joined the attack. Carlos Alberto of Brazil was the great inspiration for this. Even though Tony had great speed he was an indifferent crosser of the ball. (Mind, you the balls he played with were far harder to cross than the lightweight balls that came in about 30 ears ago, but that's rant for another occasion.)
Compared to Tony almost all of the fullbacks of the past 20 years don't come off very well as far as defensive duties are concerned but they are now important parts of offense. In effect, the outer two of the usual 3 center backs are now more-or-less comparable to fullbacks of Dunne's era. In general, they're not that good in cutting out byline crosses. To take away wingers getting around the outside you need a combination of anticipation and quickness. Tony had both in abundance. The taller backs 3s are often good at reading the play but too slow to be able to react like a 5foot4 Tony Dunne. All pro footballers are amazingly quick by comparison with the average person but at that level fractions make a difference. There is also a specific technique to jockeying wingers and timing the tackle that many of today's defenders have not mastered in the way Dunne did.
Tony Dunne, I salute you and, to his family, unlikely as they are to read this, my deepest condolences.