In 1959 Real Madrid cruised to their fourth straight european cup with a 2-0 Di Stefano inspired win over Just Fontaine's Reims side. Billy Wright's Wolves won the english league while Kubala's Barcelona won the la liga and Liedholm's Milan won serie A.
And S****horpe United, newly promoted into the english 2nd flight, finished 18th, five points above the drop zone having let in 83 goals. Their newly bought first choice goalkeeper, Ken Jones, had a tough time of it and was unable to gain an international cap for Wales despite being the second choice behind Jack Kelsey who let in four goals against northern ireland as wales went the whole year without winning a game. Jones remained uncapped throughout his career.
When the votes were made for the Ballon D'Or were made, Di Stefano unsurprisingly came top and he was followed by a familiar list of the greats of 1950s football, Raymond Kopa, John Charles, Ferenc Puskás, Lev Yashin, Florian Albert, Uwe Seeler.
And of course S****horpe's Ken Jones, who got one vote for the best player in europe, something which players as good as Paul Scholes have never recieved. He finished joint 23rd in the voting, on the same points as Barcelona's league winning goalkeeper Antoni Ramallets and one behind Albert and Seeler.
The vote was so surprising that rsssf, the footballing results archive, still have it down as a vote for Cliff Jones of Spurs instead. As far as I can tell nobody know exactly which one of the judges voted for Jones and why but S****horpe remain the only club in the world to never play in their league's top flight and have a player nominated for the Ballon D'Or. And Jones the only player to be nominated and never capped internationally.
And S****horpe United, newly promoted into the english 2nd flight, finished 18th, five points above the drop zone having let in 83 goals. Their newly bought first choice goalkeeper, Ken Jones, had a tough time of it and was unable to gain an international cap for Wales despite being the second choice behind Jack Kelsey who let in four goals against northern ireland as wales went the whole year without winning a game. Jones remained uncapped throughout his career.
When the votes were made for the Ballon D'Or were made, Di Stefano unsurprisingly came top and he was followed by a familiar list of the greats of 1950s football, Raymond Kopa, John Charles, Ferenc Puskás, Lev Yashin, Florian Albert, Uwe Seeler.
And of course S****horpe's Ken Jones, who got one vote for the best player in europe, something which players as good as Paul Scholes have never recieved. He finished joint 23rd in the voting, on the same points as Barcelona's league winning goalkeeper Antoni Ramallets and one behind Albert and Seeler.
The vote was so surprising that rsssf, the footballing results archive, still have it down as a vote for Cliff Jones of Spurs instead. As far as I can tell nobody know exactly which one of the judges voted for Jones and why but S****horpe remain the only club in the world to never play in their league's top flight and have a player nominated for the Ballon D'Or. And Jones the only player to be nominated and never capped internationally.
