Dave Prentice: Photographic Memories of days when footballers dressed up

Dave Prentice: Photographic Memories of days when footballers dressed upASKING footballers to dress up for a photoshoot was a peculiarly '70s and '80s phenomenon. Even more peculiarly, there were never any shortage of volunteers - as the picture above underlines.You can imagine the conversation now.'Hello lads. I'm the snapper from the ECHO. Would you mind putting on these deerstalkers and suck on a briar pipe, while playing a game of Cluedo? What for? To promote this weekend's League Cup final, of course.'No, it's alright lads. Just four of you will do.'It was an image Dave Watson and Paul Holmes reprised a few years later - Holmes and Watson, you see.Then there was Alan Kennedy dressing up as a caveman - his nickname was Barney Rubble.Or Bruce Grobbelaar putting on a Crocodile Dundee outfit - because he hailed from Zimbabwe.And the images often raised as many smiles as they did groans.There was a time when footballers possessed a self deprecating sense of humour.Not just in the dressing room amongst their mickey taking team-mates, but with the general public at large, too.But in recent years players have become more pompous, more self important.So full marks to Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher and particularly Didi Hamann for their part in Dave Kirby's DVD 'Fifteen Minutes That Shook The World,' - the spoof 'mockumentary' about the events which took place at half-time in Istanbul.The humour may be a little too dark, a little too ribald for some sensibilities - although surely not if you regularly attend football matches - but it was refreshing to see the Anfield trio sending themselves up.

Source: Liverpool_Echo