LIKE Wilf Mannion, the Golden Boy, anyone who ever saw Len Shackleton, the Clown Prince of Soccer, play never forgot him.

His career ended 43 years ago, so there are two generations of North-East football followers who were never privileged to be entertained by him. For them, his tantalising skill is best explained by this extract from Paul Joannou's book about Newcastle players, The Black and White Alphabet: "Many supporters, as well as ex-players who watched and played with Len Shackleton, consider there has never been a player quite like him before or since.

"A complete showman who could perform every trick in the book and many more never seen at all, Shackleton was a truly brilliant inside-forward.

"A sorcerer of a player, he at times destroyed opponents with dribbling and passing ability.

"Yet, like many of his vision and style, he often found his team-mates were not on his wavelength."

Considering that Shackleton played the bulk of his career for the old enemy at Sunderland, this is some accolade coming from a Geordie!

The England selectors used the fact that other players were not on his wavelength largely to overlook his talents, giving him only five caps. However, it was mainly his instinctive lack of respect for authority that made him a dangerous man to pick for international duty - his unsettling influence was one of the reasons that his stay at Newcastle was little more than a year.

Yet, that same lack of respect made him as entertaining a journalist as he had been a player. His classic contribution to football's literary library was his autobiography which contained a blank page entitled What The Average Director Knows About Soccer.

And then there was his quip about Newcastle: "I've heard of players selling dummies, but this club keeps buying them."

But not all of it was knock-about banter. During his ten years at Sunderland, there were so many expensive purchases that it became known as The Bank of England Team. It was spectacularly unsuccessful, given the immense talent that it contained, and it collapsed under the weight of the backhanders the directors had been giving to the players.

Yet Shackleton was perceptive enough to write at the time: "We were not a team in the true sense of the word. When 11 famous footballers, each an individual star in his own right, are suddenly thrown together and expected to fit in as a machine, there is bound to be some discord."

Forty years later, just as Shackleton's skill is still remembered, it is worth today's football managers remembering a few of his words - particularly those who are lavishing money on the banks of the Tees.