I was looking through some of my old programmes the other day and stumbled across a game between Leyton Orient and Cardiff City from November 1994. Cardiff City had the likes of ex-serviceman Phil Stant up front and the Guyanan born Cohen Griffith on the wing. However, my eye was drawn to one name on the Leyton Orient teamsheet, their number 9, Darren Purse.

Now, I'm sure most of you will know that Darren Purse is a solid centre half. Ex-Albion and Birmingham City, scored for the Blues in a League Cup Final at the Millennium Stadium. So why was he playing number 9?

It seems as if during his youth he was asked to play as a "makeshift striker" and actually had some success up there scoring five goals in the process. It leads me on to thinking that you can only be a "makeshift striker", I'm not sure it is physically possible to be a "makeshift right winger" or a "makeshift libero".

The manager, John Sitton, later to be immortalised on a TV documentary about football management (search Youtube for Sitton), wrote about the centre-half-turned-striker

"already far exceeded expectations. Had an extra, possibly unfair, burden placed upon him when asked to play up front. It shows the feelings for the club and his team-mates by the way he has responded. Can play at a higher level if he keeps his head straight."

The final score of the Orient vs Bluebirds match was 2-0 to the O's with Darren Purse and Colin West (later of Swansea City) getting the goals. Not sure if our centre back pairing of Lee Baddeley and Jason Perry could cope with "makeshift strikers" any better than they could cope with "shift strikers".