Style
Walker rarely missed matches but was often criticised for his inconsistent distribution. Defensively he was probably one of the best markers and timers of the tackle of all time, and incurred a remarkably low number of bookings during the first 10 years of his career despite his often dispossessing opponents with sliding challenges from all directions. Despite not being the tallest centre-half he could leap to beat the tallest forwards in the air and his pace meant even the quickest and most skillful forwards very rarely got any change from him.
At the height of his career, Forest and Owls fans frequently chanted "You'll never beat Des Walker." This was turned into "You'll never meet Des Walker" as a private joke among journalists, commenting on Walker's refusal to talk to the press at this point.
In 2007, he came out top alongside Peter Swan in a poll to find Sheffield Wednesday's two greatest ever centre backs on the website Vital Football.
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Famous quotes containing the word style:
“We are often struck by the force and precision of style to which hard-working men, unpracticed in writing, easily attain when required to make the effort. As if plainness and vigor and sincerity, the ornaments of style, were better learned on the farm and in the workshop than in the schools. The sentences written by such rude hands are nervous and tough, like hardened thongs, the sinews of the deer, or the roots of the pine.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The old saying of Buffon’s that style is the man himself is as near the truth as we can get—but then most men mistake grammar for style, as they mistake correct spelling for words or schooling for education.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“A cultivated style would be like a mask. Everybody knows it’s a mask, and sooner or later you must show yourself—or at least, you show yourself as someone who could not afford to show himself, and so created something to hide behind.... You do not create a style. You work, and develop yourself; your style is an emanation from your own being.”
—Katherine Anne Porter (1890–1980)