Nipped in the Budd

A bit of self-indulgence here; I had a flashback to my childhood the other day, when I remembered the name of Brian Budd, a Canadian soccer player, who won the World Superstars Championship three years in a row in the late 1970s. At the age of about five, my Dad took me to see him give an exhibition of his all-round athletic ability at the Baymount in Strandhill. I remember being slightly disappointed because I was stuck at the back of the hall, with a restricted view, even atop my Dad's shoulders, but I was gratified nonetheless to be in the presence of the great Canadian, who was matched in my esteem only by Evel Knievel and Superman.

A quick dash to Wikipedia turned up this link to the CBC archives, from 1978, where Budd appears on Peter Gzowski's talk show 90 Minutes Live, which will, I'm sure mean more to the Canadians out there than the rest of us. He looked exactly as he did a couple of years later in Sligo though I think he had beefed up a bit in that time. Certainly his close control with a football left something to be desired, and it is not surprising that the pinnacle of his footballing career was a stint with Ayr United reserves.