Cristiano Ronaldo wears number 7 for Real Madrid. He wore number 7 for Manchester Utd. David Beckham wore number 7 for Manchester Utd too.
Cristiano Ronaldo has a pair of boots named after him by Nike called CR7. Many football players want to become the best ‘number 7’ or the best ‘number 9’ or the best number whatever.
This all become apparent to me recently when my son was trying to choose a number for his new football strip for his Sunday league team, the Mustang’s. These boys don’t get the choice between 1-11 they get the choice between 44-99 (something to do with sizing and the amount of teams we have). Callum and I was discussing what number he might choose when the thought came to, sometimes it’s better to make the number famous than wear the famous number.
As I was musing this (I’m a bit weird like that) I remembered Walter Payton. In my youth I was a basketball player; I played a lot. As a result of that I loved all things American sport related and I watched a lot of the American football in the 1980’s that was on Channel 4.
Walter Payton played for the Chicago Bears, he started in 1975 and finished in 1987. He won the Super Bowl in 1985 with the Chicago Bears (that was the first Super Bowl that a quarter back ever wore gloves, I remember it vividly). In his 12 years for the Chicago Bears he missed one game, he set the all time rushing record for an American football running back.
He was number 34.
Tragically Walter Payton died aged 45 but before he did and on his retirement the Chicago Bears retired number 34.
He was such an influential player for that football club that they refused to have a number 34 again.
Ronaldo is a brilliant football player and so is Beckham but I don’t see teams rushing to retire the ‘number 7’. Sometimes it’s better to make the number famous than to wear a famous number.
Blog post number: 1395
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