Des Walker
Walker in 2003
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| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Desmond Sinclair Walker | ||
| Date of birth | 26 November 1965 | ||
| Place of birth | Hackney, England | ||
| Height | 6 ft 0 in (1.83 m) | ||
| Playing position | Centre-back | ||
| Youth career | |||
| 1982–84 | Nottingham Forest | ||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) |
| 1984–1992 | Nottingham Forest | 274 | (1) |
| 1992–1993 | Sampdoria | 30 | (0) |
| 1993–2001 | Sheffield Wednesday | 310 | (0) |
| 2002–2004 | Nottingham Forest | 57 | (0) |
| Total | 671 | (1) | |
| National team | |||
| 1985–1988 | England U21 | 7 | (0) |
| 1988–1993 | England | 59 | (0) |
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* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. |
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* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only.
Desmond Sinclair "Des" Walker (born 26 November 1965 in Homerton, London) is a former England international footballer with 59 full caps. He played with distinction at two major international football finals. He is currently an academy coach for Derby County.
At club level he played in seven cup finals for Nottingham Forest at Wembley winning five of them. He was Forest's player of the year three times. On four straight occasions at Forest he was selected for the PFA Team of the Year. At Sheffield Wednesday he picked up another club player of the year accolade. He played in twenty seasons of senior football. All but the last three of those were in the top flight in either England or Italy.
Walker was a pacey and hard-tackling central defender regarded for the consistently high quality of his defending through the first half of his playing career. Defensively he was among the best markers and timers of the tackle of the television era in English football. His speed allowed him to repeatedly recover difficult situations for his teams. Gary Lineker named Walker in the best One to Eleven that Lineker played beside during his career. Lineker said of him, "Des wasn't the greatest footballer in the world but he was unbelievably quick and had a brilliant defensive mind. Brian Clough used to stick him on me when we played - he always put man-to-man which was quite unusual in those days - and he used to sing that song 'You'll never beat Des Walker!' - he used to drive you mad when you were playing against him!".
At set pieces for his teams walker would stay back to provide defensive cover rather than supplement the attack. This is reflected in that in playing around 800 senior games he only scored once for his teams.
He played in 20 seasons of senior football with all but the last three of those in the top flight. Other than a brief spell in the USA he only played for three clubs. None of the three were ever genuine contenders for a league championship. He played in 7 cup finals with Nottingham Forest at Wembley winning five. Perhaps a more useful indication of the consistency of his excellence are the individual accolades he collected when at his peak. In the last six seasons of his first spell at Forest he was Player of the Year three times. In the last four of those seasons he was selected for the PFA Team of the Year each time. On his return from his season in Italy he was Sheffield Wednesday's player of the year in his first season there. Following his full international debut in 1988 he became the quickest player to collect 50 full England caps taking just over 4 years.
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