Andrew Hughes ⭑ From A-Z since '92
Andy Hughes helped Leeds rediscover its sense of footballing self, and helped ensure the club was delivered from its worst times with some of its favourite memories.
This is part of my (eight year long, it'll fly by) attempt to write about every Leeds United player since 1992. For more about why I'm doing this, go back to Aapo Halme, and to read all the players so far, browse the archive here.
Or you can keep going below, with me and Hughesy, Hughesy, Hughesy...
Leeds United should never have been playing in League One, but playing in League One was an opportunity for players who might otherwise never have got close to playing for Leeds United to have their dreams come true. Andrew Hughes wasn't like that. United's relegation was his chance, but Hughes was a player born to play for Leeds.
The word 'limited' used to get thrown around with Hughesy, and from a cold, technical point of view, he probably was. But there were no limits to his attitude, and that was the key to him. "I was very fortunate," he said after retiring, "to be an average player and play more than 600 games and win things. I knew what my strengths, weaknesses and level were, so I was always trying to maximise my level by being the fittest I could because other players were more gifted."
League One gave him the opportunity to sign, but in a different era I could imagine him joining Howard Wilkinson's Leeds United, helping with promotion to the First Division, being integral to winning it and going into Europe. Wilkinson loved players like Hughes who combined enthusiasm, positivity, hard work and realism. Wilko and assistant Mick Hennigan had a phrase — 'loyalty to task' — that summed up what they wanted from their employees. They cared less about those players' gifts, or the level they found them. United's First Division squad was rounded out with workers from non-league. What they wanted were players who would lead the way on the training ground and, when put in the team, do a job.
Hughes embodied all that by the time he got to Elland Road, and it may have helped that he was 27 years old by then. As a younger player he was a goalscoring midfielder and an absolute maniac. Starting on the wing, he got attention for goal celebrations inspired by Soccer AM and occasional outbursts of madness. At Notts County, playing for Sam Allardyce, he came on in the last minute in a game against Wigan, made the score 2-2 when he put in the rebound from his own penalty, then got a red card for fighting. At Norwich City, on the night when Delia Smith sacked manager and former Leeds left-back Nigel Worthington, he was fighting again, trying to scrap with a fan baiting him from the terraces. In between times, at Reading, where manager Alan Pardew had talked about resisting Premier League interest in him, he was jeered when subbed off in one game then scored the winner in the next.
Moxcowhite • Daniel Chapman
By that time Hughes was starting to become recognisable as the Andrew Hughes we gained at Leeds. "Hughesy might not be the most gifted player, but he has the heart of a lion," his new Reading manager Steve Coppell said. After he'd left and become captain of Norwich, Coppell observed, "I used Andy in every way than the one he wanted to be used. I always said that he was my most important player because he can play in so many places. But what he really wanted to do was play centre midfield. Because he is playing centre midfield now, that has brought a degree of responsibility and they have made him captain." On the reception he might get, going back to Reading with Norwich, Hughes said, "They are good people and I have got a lot of time for them. If I got cheered when I ran out and then got booed when I first touched the ball then I'd settle for that."
He understood football and he understood fans and he understood himself. And, like John Sheridan before him, he was a Manchester City fan from Manchester who understood what Leeds United represented. In summer 2007 he was the first player Leeds manager Dennis Wise phoned up after the Football League confirmed the team would be starting in League One on minus fifteen points. Wise was half-wondering if Hughes, and everyone else he'd been lining up to sign, would be backing out. Andrew Hughes was not backing out.