Number of caps: 1 England had a real problem finding left wingers in the late nineties and it continued on to the next decade, until Joe Cole temporarily solved the issue. Before then we saw all sorts of players shunted out to the left wing - Paul Scholes, Steven Gerrard and Emile Heskey all tried (and failed) to fill the void, while Trevor Sinclair was not quite good enough to hold the spot long-term. Before Sven's numerous left-wing experiments, Kevin Keegan attempted to solve the issue with the radical solution of finding an actual left footed winger to stick in the flanks. A noble idea, for sure, somewhat handicapped by the fact that good English left footers were as rare as gold dust at the time. Keegan had previously called up Coventry City winger Steve Froggatt but gold cold feet about selecting such a deeply average player and he never got on the field. Instead Steve Guppy, optimistically described by Keegan as "a left sided David Beckham", was the man who got the nod. The Leicester City player's audition consisted of a single friendly against Belgium in 1999. He was not selected again. Given that Keegan was the man who signed him for Newcastle United, only to sell him after a single appearance, it must have been a peculiar case of deja vu for the winger.
David is an office drone and freelance writer for WhatCulture and Moviepilot, among others. He's also foolishly writing a serialised novel on Jukepop and has his own irregularly updated website. He's available for freelance work. Reach out on Twitter to @davefox990
