Babb was a fairly solid player in his day. Not amazing, but solid. The centre back started his adult career with short spells at Bradford and Coventry before spending the majority of his time at Anfield, clocking in some 128 appearances for the side between 1994 and 2000. He had a decent international career playing for the Republic of Ireland during the same period, coloured slightly by an incident in August of 2000 where he teammate Mark Kennedy were sent home from a training camp "after appearing in court charged with drunken and abusive behaviour and causing criminal damage." The real toughness of Babb came with one particular incident, however. During a game against Chelsea in 1998 Babb rushed back to try and block a winning shot by Pierluigi Casiraghi, a moment of quick-footed defensive magic that might've pushed the unshowy defender up into the higher echelons of Liverpools back line...had it gone to plan. Instead of his sliding tackle knocking the ball out of play, Babb's swift decision ending with the defender heading at top speed, with his legs wide open, straight into the goalpost. The YouTube video that captured that moment for prosperity is called Nutcracker for a reason. And yet he carried on playing through the rest of the game - that's pretty hard. Even if he wasn't for a while.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
