Travis Head’s 123 for Australia to put England to the sword in the first Ashes Test was a thing of beauty.
But what happened in the aftermath was not.
As Head removed his lid to milk the applause of the adoring Perth crowd, it revealed a truly horrific sight; his haircut.
Let’s be honest, we’re all guilty of sporting some hair horrors in the past (more of that later) and as a chap with a well-trimmed barnet, complete with natty quiff, I’m not really qualified to attach a name to Head’s head.
The shaved sides resembled whitewall tyres on a classic 1940s Studebaker Hawk but I’m not sure it’s a true mullet as it does not have the requisite length or bulk at the back.
When interrogated as to why, Head attempted to kiss it away by insisting it was not his fault but that of his coiffeuse. He claimed: ‘I said just take a little bit off, when she hit the clippers on my skin my heart fell.’
The consolation is that he has the iconic Baggy Green cap to cover it up and perhaps England skipper Ben Stokes could take a leaf out of that articular book by keeping his titfer on. His bonce is more mullet-like, sporting a longer length on top and at the back, but the brutal side cuts make him look like a Teuton warrior about to take on Russell Crowe’s legions in the opening scene of Gladiator.
But what is it about professional sportsmen that makes them want to go into their stylist and say: ‘Give me the most ridiculous noggin you can think of’ and give them free licence to cut loose with scissors, clippers, perming lotion and dye?
Kevin Keegan’s perm
One of the earliest to brave the skills of a hairdresser was Kevin Keegan. I don’t like to use the word ‘iconic’ as it’s a bit of a lazy catch-all, but in his case it’s accurate as he could have been a Greek orthodox saints, jumped off the wall of a Byzantine church; Saint Basil the Confessor sports a natty bunch of curls.
What Keegan’s perm did was spawn a generation of daring young bucks searching for release from generations of short-back-and-sides to pluck up the courage to ditch their white-coated and brilliantined gent’s barber, and enter into the unknown territory of ‘A Salon’ and ask to be converted into England’s favourite footballing son.
I know the hairdresser responsible for Keegan’s perm and she was eternally grateful to him transforming her business quicker than you could say ‘A little bit off the side but keep the length on top, please.’
In the monkey-see, monkey-do world of professional football fashion, the perm caught on, and soon even dour, tough guys like Bryan Robson were going under the drier.
Some like Graeme Souness, with naturally curly locks, didn’t need it and Colombian star Carlos Valderrama certainly didn’t, even if it did look as though he had kidnapped a lion and borrowed its mane.
Credit: X/@SouthamptonFC
The permed mullet (and yes, FSOM did sport this…)
The small brother of the full perm was the permed mullet. If the full perm cut a certain dash and gave an air of savoir-faire, the permed mullet hinted that somebody – either hairdresser or customer – had changed their mind halfway through. Either that or a fire alarm had gone off in the salon causing everybody to dash out.
The permed mullet was two styles for the price of one – business at the front, fun at the back and who could forget the sight of Waddle in full flow, tacking like a dinghy in a head wind to keep the ball on his left foot, his lush looks flowing behind him.
Confession is good for the soul and it’s at this point that I fess up and admit I had a permed mullet. I tried to destroy all pictorial evidence of this crime against hair but one of two still exist in family albums and I shudder when my sisters bring them out on family occasions for larks and larfs at my expense. The good lord in his heavenly mansions knows what I was thinking.
Style it like Becks…
David Beckham’s catalogue of cuts was a merry dance through the pages of Hair & Style magazine, with perhaps his worst coming when he might well have asked a visiting Aussie sheep-shearer to do his worst to come up with a cut which made him look like Magua hunting down Uncas and Chingachgook with war axe in hand. Sir Alex Ferguson reportedly took a look at it and told him to get rid of it.
A google search (other search engines are available} of sportsman’s bizarre haircuts can provide hours of fun.
Journey through Ronaldo’s shaven head with the peak above the forehead, Abel Xavier’s wonderful combinations of cut and colour, Jason Lee’s stacked up dreads which provided him with the infamous ‘pineapple on his head’ chant which he hated. There would have been an easy solution to that.
Beckham went from mohican to cornrows, a look adopted – briefly – by Jamie Vardy when he decided he wanted to stop impersonating Harold Steptoe.
It wasn’t limited to football. Andre Agassi caused the worthies of Wimbledon to spit their Pimms with his own lion’s mane and basketballer Dennis Rodman provided stylists with a cottage industry in meeting the challenges of his demands.
Combover and baldness
Alas and alack, changing and enlightened attitudes to male pattern baldness has driven one hairstyle out of existence, and that may be no bad thing.
Back in the day, cruel taunts of ‘baldy’ and variations on that theme, caused embarrassed footballers to resort to possibly the worst crime in sporting history – the combover.
The combover was a desperate ploy to retain some dignity and perhaps preserve a perceived last shred of manhood.
It worked like this; as soon as the top of your head began to take on the appearance of a rocky outcrop like Uluru, you grew the hair long on one side and combed it over the bald patch.
Sometimes the selected grown side almost reached shoulder length and once combed and pasted down, it worked relatively well all the while the head was still.
Once the wind got to work, it was curtains, and if you were footballer who ran, well, you were just inviting trouble.
Sir Bobby Charlton’s was perhaps the best-known combover and photographers took particular delight in waiting for a break in play to capture him wiping his hand over his head in an attempt to gum his hair back down in place. He always looked distressed and pained and don’t forget, he played in the same Manchester United team as George Best, the coolest footballer on the planet with the coolest hair. Irony can be a cruel mistress.
The most outrageous combover might have belonged to Ralph Coates. In its natural, dry state, his hair resembled a couple of Shredded Wheat skillfully and artfully arranged over the cranium of the Spurs midfielder. But Coates was a swift mover and come action, his hair trailed out behind him like Joan of Arc’s holy banner or the paying-off pennant of a royal navy destroyer
So farewell to the combover.
Unless Travis Head has another surprise under his lid when he next flays England’s bowlers all around Australia.
