In a moving interview with androofrench, Gifton Noel-Williams looks back on the best 14 minutes of his career and his debt of gratitude to Elton John watfordfc
It’s not very often someone in any walk of life can be that precise about the moment they will remember the most. Even harder for professional footballers who played hundreds of games and thousands of minutes.
However, Watford had also recently found their own striking talent in the teenage Noel-Williams, who had made his first-team debut at the tender age of 16. “The way the gaffer had us united as a unit was what took us up. We got on a roll and the boys were so together that we felt we could beat anyone.”Watford went into the game with Sunderland having only won once in six games, but the Black Cats arrived having lost at Blackburn Rovers in the FA Cup and then at home to Leicester City in the league. They had only lost two matches before that and, incredibly, the defeat at Vicarage Road that day was to be their last of the season.
The defining moment – and the start of the best 14 minutes of Noel-Williams' career – came in the 53rd minute. Presumably he remembers it pretty well...“That throw-in from Ben Iroha. It was out on the right and he always had a long throw, but that one went so high! If you watch the highlights online the ball goes off the top of the screen!
“My left foot was my weaker foot! I could finish with both feet but I was stronger on my right. So that goal, and especially what it meant on the day, was the best I scored with my left foot.” “In the moment I was angry and upset, but I wasn’t worried. I never thought it would end up going the way it went.”Indeed, it did take some time before the full extent of the underlying problem Noel-Williams had came to light.
“I was sent for tests straight away, and I had a blood test done. The specialist took me into his office and said ‘you’ve got rheumatoid arthritis’. I didn’t know what he was talking about,” he said. He attributes that to a man who made his Vicarage Road comeback at the weekend: Sir Elton John, who was club chairman when Gifton was giving his terrible diagnosis.
“Imagine that, every time you played football. That’s what it was like, even with the specialist treatment.
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