Researching John Kay

Kay started his career at Arsenal as an apprentice, joining in April 1980 and turning professional in July 1981. He made his League debut against West Bromwich Albion on 26 February 1983 and went on to make a further seven appearances that season. He played another seven league matches in 1983-84 but in the 1984 close season he was given a free transfer.

He moved to Wimbledon and spent three years there, including a brief loan period at Middlesbrough. In 1987, he joined Sunderland, and made over 200 appearances in eight years with the club (as well as a loan spell at Shrewsbury Town) before finishing his career with Preston North End and Scarborough. He helped Sunderland reach the 1992 FA Cup Final but missed the game through injury.

Kay is fondly remembered by Sunderland fans for his hard tackling and determination. After one particularly tough challenge on Peter Haddock, a Leeds United player on 23 December 1990, the Leeds manager, Howard Wilkinson said that the player's leg "looks like it's been run over by a tractor". Kay earned the nickname "The Tractor" in reference to this comment. During his final game for Sunderland, against Birmingham City in 1993, Kay broke his leg and instead of writhing in pain, he sat up on the stretcher and pretended to row it off the pitch.

Kay's prose style was colourful and he could be critical, as evidenced by these two examples from Ashes to Hassett:

All Australia honoured Hutton as the world's best batsman, and never did a man play harder or more successfully on his country's behalf…One man cannot make a cricket team, but Len Hutton did the next best thing in Australia last winter. He stood alone. Superb in craftsmanship, magnificent in the hour of stress, veritably a giant among all batsmen and worthy of ranking with such famous names as Hobbs, Sutcliffe, Woolley, Hammond ... they were masters of all they surveyed. So was Hutton.

The First Test between Australia and England is played nowadays at Brisbane. Nobody seems to know why, and all sorts of arguments are ventilated for and against more cricket Tests on the Woolloongabba ground. I am all in favour of robbing Queensland of its greatest cricketing occasion, for the ground depresses. It is not a cricket ground at all. It is a concentration camp! Wire fences abound. Spectators are herded and sorted out into lots as though for all the world this was a slave market and not a game of cricket. The stands are of wood and filthy to sit on. The dining rooms are barns, without a touch of colour or a picture on the wall. Everywhere there is dust and dirt ... The field is rough, although the wicket is usually a good one until it rains. Then it is a strip of turf with thousands of demons prancing up and down ... at Brisbane only a Hutton could stay, let alone score runs.