What a kerfuffle about big bronze blokes (hardly any women) there is in Britain today. For those who don’t know, the movement to bring down statues of difficult figures of the past hit Bristol, in the West of England, when Edward Colston was toppled into the river and the arts centre named after him is due to be renamed. All of this is because of his links with slavery 200 years ago.
Winston Churchill, glorious Prime Minister during the Second World War, held some quite racist views and thus there was a movement to remove his statue too. Led by the Democratic Football Lads Alliance, a group of blokes sought to protect it and ended up clashing with police. They were not wearing any masks and didn’t keep their social distance, which is vital in the Covid Era.

Rather than write more about this culture war against the past, I would like to celebrate figures from British football and have compiled a Statues XI. Many were set up by fans or by clubs to thank great figures from their history, from Arsenal to Carlisle.