This is Mike Edwards, back in his Hull City days. Almost a decade since this photograph was taken and here we are, devouring stories of international superstars supposedly joining Hull City in this transfer window.
It makes the shadow of Edwards loom ever larger over the KC Stadium.
Edwards is 29 this year and is now the captain of Notts County. However, he began his career with his local club, Hull City, and remains very much on the club's radar as the last homegrown player to emerge through the ranks to become a fully-fledged first-team regular.
Of course, the presence of Dean Windass and Nick Barmby in recent seasons has made sure a quota of local talent has been present in the club's rise under Peter Taylor (who signed Barmby, but rejected the chance to reclaim Windass) and Phil Brown (who did reclaim Windass and revived the input of Barmby). But now, with Windass gone almost certainly for good and Barmby trying to shrug off questions about the lack of a contract extension, the bit of Hull within Hull City's squad is starting to look sparse.
And, of course, neither of these players came through the ranks. Barmby was way too good as a kid to consider a second-tier Hull City for his apprenticeship in the late 1980s, especially once Lilleshall offered him a place to simultaneously complete his academic education and begin his footballing education. That didn't stop Brian Horton offering the world to our city's finest ever player to get him to Boothferry Park, but ultimately he was correct to let his head rule his heart and join Tottenham Hotspur. An excellent, if not world-beating, club and international career followed..
Windass was an apprentice with the Tigers but Horton decided he wasn't up to the job and, while the likes of Leigh Jenkinson and Neil Buckley signed pro forms, Windass became a labourer and signed for North Ferriby United, where four years later his game had developed enough for Terry Dolan, needing to recruit talent without spending money, to take a chance on him. He duly became the best footballer Hull City had in the 1990s.
Brown has always gushed about Barmby's professionalism and ability, though one can't say he has done likewise over Windass. The class act at lower levels Windass undoubtedly is has not crossed the Premier League threshold well at all. His age - he's 40 in April, remember - will be a crucial factor in his demise, but ultimately he has been with Hull City in this division what he was in his previous top flight spells with Bradford City and Middlesbrough - peripheral, ordinary and high-maintenance. Brown and Windass were bosom buddies prior to this season, with Windass owing Brown for offering him his dream moved home to Hull again (leaping a division in the process) and Brown owing him back for making a season-saving impact on the Tigers and then making a sterling contribution to a brilliant season for the whole team, with the Wembley winner adding the cherry to the cake.
It's been said time and again, but Windass has been hoisted by his own petard. His goal at Wembley, iconic and immortal a moment it may remain, ended his Hull City career. He was never going to be quick, fit or reliable enough (not to mention prolific) in the highest echelon of the game but his personality, intelligence quotient - and his media contracts with ITV and the Daily Mail - meant he was never going to be able to keep mum about it and get his head down. On just one too many occasions he has used his column inches to moan about his lack of involvement, something which the club could just put down to his natural character, but when he then claimed - daftly - that his manager hadn't spoken to him for three weeks, the camel's back gave way. Until this point, he did have a future as a reserve, a replacement, a cameo performer who could still do some form of job, although only an injury-crisis compared to the English Civil War would have seen him start another game after his embarrassing canter around on Boxing Day at Manchester City.
Windass, gratifyingly with a Premier League goal for Hull City to his name after that noser at Portsmouth was awarded officially to him, has now dropped back into League One, the division from whence he came, and Oldham Athletic are the club who will feel the considerable benefit of his experience, while at that level he will be able - like Barmby for City in his first season - to rule the whole division and play with his tuxedo on and cigar sparked up.
One assumes there is a recall clause in the deal, allowing the Tigers to send for Windass if the injuries stack up after January, but Brown will be loath to use it. He and all of us will recall the overweight, unhappy and uncaring Jon Parkin being recalled from his loan at Stoke City two seasons ago when the Tigers were fighting relegation and short of strikers, and Brown put him on the bench for a crucial trip to ... Stoke. The blubbery striker spent his warm-ups chatting to the Stoke subs and Stoke fans, then came on the pitch to do a routinely unfit jog of no purpose or pride, and looked gutted (and wouldn't join in the celebrations) when Barmby shinned in a 93rd minute equaliser, ruined Stoke's play-off chances and enhanced City's hopes of escaping the drop, which they duly did. Windass would never show outward disdain for his parent club if he were to be recalled by a manager he'd fallen out with - he adores Hull City too much - but the Parkin experience left a sour taste in Brown's mouth and he will not want to repeat it.
Barmby, also ageing (35 next month) and no longer a first choice, has been more reserved and amply more professional about his situation, and as a consequence, the rewards have come his way. His brain, multitude of positional abilities and extensive high-level experience have enabled him to enjoy something of an Indian summer of late.
He started the season against Fulham, but injury and a mild sense of incapacity in maintaining the pace of the game meant he was out for a spell, with the national newspapers blithely claiming this was a shock, a surprise, a kick in the teeth for one of the club's biggest ever heroes.
As has been documented before here, Barmby's role in Hull City's rise, while still impressive and never tarnishing his status as a fantastic football player, has always been way overstated outside of the city boundaries. He was a superstar - not unexpectedly - in League One, but he was frequently messed about or substituted early by Taylor and wholly ignored by Phil Parkinson in the Championship. Only when the admiring Brown arrived was Barmby's position within the club redrafted, and even then he missed almost all of last season with injury (he didn't play at all in September, October, November or March, and managed just one game in April), finally regaining his fitness just in time for the three-way run-in which sent West Bromwich Albion and Stoke upwards and put City in the play-offs. He promptly pilfered the second largest chunk of individual glory on offer by scoring in both legs of the semi-final.
Barmby has now, however, regained some of his former stardom, even though he is not the superstar of Hull City any more - indeed, he hasn't been since Taylor left, and there are probably half a dozen better all-round footballers than him in the squad right now. But his experience and professionalism - those two attributes keep cropping up, but they are so vital - have taken him a long way to full rehabilitation, with just his age now stopping Brown from picking him from the start every single week.
His running, close control, chasing down of defenders and passing was absolutely superb at Liverpool, with perhaps only a slight undercurrent of wanting to prove something to the Anfield faithful, and his subsequent displays in the home defeats by Sunderland - against whom he scored his first Premier League goal for six years - and Aston Villa were worthy of his halcyon era at this level, despite the unwelcome result from each game. Barmby has gone about his business in a way Windass could never do. Their home city made them kindred spirits and an easy double-interview as the attention came the Tigers' way last season, but ultimately their Hull-centricity is the only thing they have in common.
However, Barmby is out of contract in the summer and so far has not been offered anything by the club. If he carries on the way he is, then there's little doubt that a year's extension - he surely can't expect anything more at his age, unless City are relegated - will be pushed under his nose. Brown, however, is famously as ruthless with good footballers as he is loyal to them, and maybe Barmby's year in the Premier League with his hometown club will also prove to be his swansong. This week, Barmby has reached for the media-savvy answer when asked about his situation, saying he wasn't worried and was happy to wait for the club to approach him. Underneath, one wonders whether he knows already if his time will be up in the summer or not, but we may just get more out of Barmby, irrespective of how the season ends. For what it's worth, I reckon there are two more years still in him if he can keep the injuries at bay.
So, with Windass gone and unlikely to return (and certainly out of the door for good in the summer), and Barmby's future unclear, we look around for the next East Riding lad to work his way to superstardom with his hometown team. Of the local lads coming through the ranks, only 20 year old Nicky Featherstone, a forward or attacking midfielder, ever gets a brief sniff at the first team, either as a sub in the League or as a starter in Cup games, and one wonders how much time he has left and why he has never gone out on loan somewhere, having been on the cusp for two and a bit seasons but never started a League match.
So, we look back again at Edwards. He was the last East Riding protégé to be raised and discovered locally and to work through the schoolboy and apprentice ranks to become a fully-fledged first team player, debuting as a fresh-faced 17 year old in 1997 and pretty much sticking around in the back four for the next five seasons. He was part of the glorious Great Escape defence of 1998/9, put together in an emergency midway through the season by Warren Joyce which saw the ingenious acquisitions of Jon Whitney and Justin Whittle, and continued to thrive under Brian Little and even Jan Molby before suffering a cruciate injury during a match which, coincidentally, was Molby's last as manager. Taylor arrived and, disappointingly, decided to release Edwards just as he was restoring his fitness.
Simultaneously to Edwards was the progress of the similarly youthful and Hull-born Adam Bolder, whose early promise as a productive midfielder was spotted after just a handful of games by Derby County who immediately waved some cash in front of City's face, knowing it couldn't be refused and disallowing Bolder the opportunity to establish himself wholly as a homegrown star of Hull City's first team. He made reasonable progress at Derby, to the extent that the Tiger Nation wished him well, but blotted his copybook when, faced with a straight choice of going to either QPR or return to Hull, he chose to venture to west London on the grounds that they had more hope of reaching the Premier League. Not his wisest move - few would argue with his sentiments, given QPR's history and experience, but he was most foolish to air it publicly.
Since then, Scott Wiseman has attempted to emulate Edwards by coming through the system and becoming a first team regular, but his only real chance of establishing himself was when Taylor, who rated him highly, was in charge. He made 16 League appearances during Taylor's reign and looked handy at times (although he panicked on bigger occasions) but was immediately packed off on loan to Darlington when Parkinson took over and never returned, earning a free transfer to the same club as soon as his loan technically ended in 2007. He's now at Rochdale.
Wiseman's record with the Tigers cannot earn him a title of first team regular, even in retrospect, and so Edwards is the player still casting the shadow. And, with Windass halfway out, Barmby's future unclear and Featherstone still collecting the bibs after training, will an East Riding alumnus ever emerge from that shadow again?
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