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:
“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)
“Style is the dress of thoughts; and let them be ever so just, if your style is homely, coarse, and vulgar, they will appear to as much disadvantage, and be as ill received, as your person, though ever so well-proportioned, would if dressed in rags, dirt, and tatters.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“There are neither good nor bad subjects. From the point of view of pure Art, you could almost establish it as an axiom that the subject is irrelevant, style itself being an absolute manner of seeing things.”
—Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880)