How dare Ronaldo lard it over Sheffield United and Chelsea legend Fatty Foulke!

Years before Chelsea became the cash guzzling billionaire brats that we all love to hate, they had a player who gorged on something very different – food. And lots of it.

William “Fatty” Foulke, featured in the top 10 fatty list that a certain red-top tabloid put together, but they robbed Foulke of his birthright – a place at the very top of that list. The foolish paper instead chose to put Brazilian porker Ronaldo in at number one, an outright insult to Foulke – a literally larger than life player. Putting “Fatty” in at number two would be like putting Satan in second place in an all time list of evil people. To right this wrong, and overcome the travesty of one of football’s greatest players coming second, I want to write about the marvel that is Fatty.

Like many legends, the real truth about Foulke, who also played for Sheffield United, is obscured by urban myths – all we can do is peer over this wall of rumours. Reports of his size vary wildly with some claiming that he was a gigantic 6ft 7in and weighed in somewhere between 22 and 26 stone. The Observer gives a solid estimate, claiming that he was 6ft 6in and tipped the scales at 22 stone, measurements which gave him a distinct advantage when a penalty was awarded to the opposition. In those days (the 1900’s) goalkeepers weren’t forced to stay on their line – picture the wobbling lard mountain that was Foulke charging you down and you see why he was such an effective penalty stopper.

Other murmurs and whispers about Foulke concern the fact that his team-mates had to tie up his shoelaces, that the chant “Who ate all the pies” was inspired by him (false), that when his shirt’s colour clashed with the opposition’s the only thing that could be found to fit him was a sheet, and the rumour that his catchphrase was an apt “You can call me anything but don’t call me late for dinner.” This was a player from a bygone era, a footballing wooly mammoth, long since extinct – but he offers us a window into early football, an era where goalies were regularly shoulder barged into their own net and one where someone weighing 22 stone could participate.