FSOM: Ron Davies – Someone Luis Suarez can study

Fifty Shades doesn’t mind admitting he had a lump in his throat and a tear in his eye last week.

Former Southampton and Wales centre-forward Ron Davies died and with his passing went a piece of Fifty Shades’ youth.

The vast majority of pre-pubescent young shavers who read this probably won’t have heard of Ron Davies, especially if you are from outside Southampton.

In fact, chances are if you are under 45, you would never have seen Ron play in the flesh. The only piece of video footage that exists of Ron is a grainy, black and white highlights extract from The Big Match of August 1969.

The quality of the footage is similar to 1970s Swedish porn, so Fifty Shades is reliably informed, and watching it, you fully expect any moment a man to step out with a beard and body hair like a moulting yak, holding an enormous phallic sink plunger, and explain to a blond with boobs like a dead-heat in a Zeppelin race that it is raining outside, and does she need any plumbing attended to?

Instead, you’ll see Davies score all four goals in Southampton’s 4-1 win over a Manchester United side who only three months before, had won the European Cup at Wembley.

It was a performance from Davies which prompted Sir Matt Busby to describe him as “the finest centre-forward in Europe,” and Sir Matt, who was a pretty shrewd judge of a player, was not wrong.

Sir Matt then spent the next five years desperately trying to sign him.

He eventually got him in 1974, by which time Ron was on the down-low, and he only played eight games for United.

It was at Southampton where he made his bones, scoring 134 goals in 240 games for Saints between 1966 and 1973. Southampton manager Ted Bates splashed out a then club record fee of £55,000 to bring Davies from Norwich as Saints made it to the old First Division for the first time.

In his first two seasons with the Saints, Ron was the top scorer in the First Division, and his goals did a similar job to those of Matthew Le Tissier in keeping Saints up.

Back then, professional footballers were better paid than the average working man, but nowhere near the potty, stupid sums trousered by Premier League stars.

Ron lived in a nice house in the Southampton suburb of Shirley.

We knew that because we used to go there, knock on the door and get his autograph.

Can you imagine being able to do that today to a player rated the best centre forward in Europe?

Not when footballers coccoon themselves away from their fans, living in gated communities surrounded by tighter security than President Obama.

Who would risk seeking an autograph when you are likely to get a heat-seeking missile up your backside before you got a chance to put your thumb on his doorbell?

Ron’s death came in the same week that Luis Suarez dropped a hint about as subtle as a fart in a spacesuit that he wants to leave Liverpool.

The player possibly rated the finest striker plying in Europe has decided he wants to up sticks, turn his back on Liverpool and join Real Madrid.

If this happens, don’t expect Fifty Shades to shed tears for Liverpool.

He doesn’t have a lot of sympathy for them, believing that karma dictates that you get what you deserve.

Suarez attracts trouble and controversy the same way a fresh cow pat attracts flies and Liverpool’s willingness to defend him is shameful and shameless.

It was bad enough when they rallied round him after he racially abused Manchester United defender Patrice Evra.

When Suarez chowed down on Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic’s arm it gave Liverpool the chance to prove themselves as the club they claim to be and take a moral stance by kicking him out.

After all, Liverpool have plonked themselves on the moral high ground as a club whose fans have been mistreated since 96 of them died at Hillsborough.

But instead of taking a leaf out of Ajax’s book and booting Suarez, a move which would have earned them the respect of football, Liverpool defended him.

From that moment they forfeited any Rizla-thin claim they might have had to sympathy and so it has proved as the rat has decided he wants to jump ship.

The point being that at his peak, when he fully deserved Sir Matt Busby’s tag of the finest centre forward in Europe, Ron Davies never left Southampton.

Of course, back in those days, players did not have the power to put their club over a barrel and do what Captain Pugwash did to Roger the cabin boy.

Players were little better than well-paid serfs.

Their registrations were held by their clubs even when their contracts expired, and the only way a player could move was if their club wanted them to.

Ron did not have an agent to bleat to, or to leak stories to their well-placed sources in the media to try and manufacture a move.

Had Ron wanted to get away and join United, he would have had to put in a transfer request, but that would have denied him the 10% of any transfer fee paid for him.

But putting in a transfer request never crossed his mind.

Ron had that quality which is as rare as rocking horse droppings now, loyalty.

Ron’s brand of loyalty would be sneered at today as Big Fish syndrome, a contentment to swim around in his own small pond, although it was easier to be loyal at a time when it was hard to move.

Neither did Ron make a lot of money out of the game, and to be honest, money was never a big thing for him.

He was always something of a bohemian figure, a gifted caricaturist who while his mates would be necking gallons of beer, would sit with a glass of wine at a cafe table and watch the world go by.

In the twilight of his career he tried his luck in the States on the recommendation of George Best.

The move wasn’t a success, but he decided to stay that side of The Pond.

He kept in touch with a few select buddies, but in the days before ex-players jostled for seats on studio sofas as pundits, he preferred to live a quiet life.

Ron was both flattered and genuinely surprised that people remembered him, never more so when he needed help.

Things became tough for Ron who moved to a trailer park in New Mexico and couldn’t work at his house maintenance business because of a hip injury which needed surgery.

Even then, he never bemoaned his lot or sought help.

A US-based Saints fan got wind of Ron’s plight and tracked him down.

Word got back that Ron needed money for his operation and Saints fans rallied round to raise the money.

It wasn’t just those like Fifty Shades who had seen Ron play, but the younger generations of Saints fans who never saw him, but learned from the knees of dads and uncles what he meant to them.

Saints fans raised around $100,000 for a shiny new hip for Ron who was reluctantly but gratefully prised from the desert for a last visit to home shores for a gala book launch attended by former Southampton boss Ted Bates, the man who signed Ron.

The venue was packed with Saints heroes that night: Terry Paine, Mick Channon, Matt Le Tissier but the biggest applause was for Ron.

Ron’s partner Christine died in 2009, and he died alone in his trailer in Albuquerque aged 72, his passing mourned across generations of Southampton fans.

Like most players of his generation, he never begrudged what modern players earn.

His attitude was; “Good luck to them.” Luis Suarez will get his move.

He’ll probably manufacture it by throwing the sort of hissy fit in keeping with his delightful personality and in doing so, he will morph overnight in the eyes of Liverpool fans from misunderstood but forgiven goalscoring hero to reviled, money-grabbing mercenary.

Although the eyes of Saints fans will be blurred by tears this week, their vision of Ron Davies will never change.

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