[Bierzo Baggie]

At 25:30 on here, though all of it is watching if anyone hasn't seen it before, https://youtu.be/bWZvFTpyRdE

Great thread.

The excellent “First Amongst Equals” documentary has plenty of images from Laurie’s Madrid days that I’d never seen before.
First class selection of interviews too. Vicente Del Bosque speaks very well and I like how he compares Cunningham to an early version of Cristiano Ronaldo.

You’ll also see Laurie’s son Sergio who was on Atletico Madrid’s books a few years ago. Never worked out unfortunately, he runs a restaurant in Madrid now.

The guy from Valencia who was supposed to give Laurie a hard time in that UEFA game was Carrete. Carrete went on to manage my local team Ponferradina for a while and had a well earned reputation as one of the dirtiest players in Spain.

I do think the Real Madrid move was a case of being in the right place at the wrong time. Players were not protected as the likes of Messi are now and the Spanish league could be a dangerous place for an “outsider” in those days. Diego Maradona got kicked about horrendously during his short spell at Barcelona for example. At one point in the documentary Laurie rolls up his trouser leg to reveal an ugly selection of scars. There’s little doubt that he had been targeted in a cynical way… even by his own players. The Madrid dressing room was full of “personalities” at that time, Camacho, Juanito, Santillana… Cunningham may not have fitted in with some and his bad experiences with the very influential Madrileño sporting press may have had something to do with this.

His first serious knee injury was caused by one of his teammates in training.  Laurie’s brother seems to think that it had been a deliberate attempt to injure him. I don’t know about that but I do know that they didn’t like some of his fancy tricks when they were at the end of them …Camacho especially.

The tragedy was that Laurie Cunningham was at least 20 years ahead of his time and didn't achieve his full potential as a result.