HIS place in Ewood Park legend is already assured but, when it comes to football’s wider picture, Matt Woods can quite literally stake a claim to being one of the game’s forgotten men.

The Lancashire-born centre half was a lynchpin of the famous Blackburn Rovers back half line that also included Ronnie Clayton and Mick McGrath – making more than 300 appearances between 1956 and 1963, including an FA Cup final and being an ever present in the 1958 promotion campaign.

But, while Clayton and McGrath went on to earn international recognition, for England and the Republic of Ireland respectively, Woods was left in the cold as his colossal performances in East Lancashire went almost unnoticed outside the region.

Ask any Rovers fan who saw him grace the Ewood Park turf and the title ‘finest uncapped centre half of his generation’ was more than fitting – and you won’t get the 78-year-old arguing either.

He said: “I do wish I had been picked to play for England. I was a damn sight better player than some of them who were capped before me. I am not being big-headed but that is the truth.

“Billy Wright was always going to get his 100 caps, and fair enough he deserved them, but after that a few players played for England who were nowhere near as good as me.

"But the problem was I was the oldest by then.

“The Football League played a match at Blackburn Rovers in 1959 and they were looking for a centre half.

"The lads were saying I was a shoe-in to be picked, but the team came out and I was not picked.

“The year after I played for the league in Ireland and I was at the airport when the chairman of selectors said I should have been playing the year before but they forgot about me.

"I almost walked out there and then but it summed up my international hopes really.”

Woods though believes his biggest problem was the time spent in Everton’s reserves in his early career, Rovers’ Premier League opponents at Ewood tomorrow, as his efforts to move elsewhere were continually frustrated.

Just eight league appearances in his seven years as a professional at Goodison Park saw his career stall almost before it had started, until Rovers finally got their man for £6,000 in 1956.

“I was trying to get away from Everton for a long time but they would just not let me go,” he said.

“You signed a contract for 12 months every season and that was binding for life.

"If the club you played for wanted to keep you, there was nothing you could do.

“Everton would just price me out of the market. One of the officials at Everton said to me ‘when we let you go, you will pay for the floodlights’.

“I was on top money at Everton, well top money for those days, but that didn’t matter a jot to me.

"I just wanted to play football – it is all I ever wanted to do.

“Quite a few clubs were interested, including Blackburn, but Everton kept pricing me out of the market.

"I remember when I eventually signed my dad said ‘don’t do that son they are a bad team’.

"I told him they were in a false position and the same year we missed out on promotion just, went up the next year and reached a cup final.

"I guess I was proved right.”

After the disappointment of the cup final defeat to Wolves in 1960, Woods managed to hold off increasing pressure from Mike England, before joining Australian outfit Hakoah in 1963.

He returned to league football a couple of years later, first with Luton and then Stockport, before also enjoying coaching roles at Edgeley Park, Preston and Southport, and then turned his back on the game to run his own haulage company.

Woods though insists he has no envy towards the “ridiculous” sums of money earned by players today and admits he played his part in changing the nature of the game forever.

Woods, now living in Cheadle, said: “We were going to go on strike for freedom of contract.

"Jimmy Hill was the chairman of the PFA then and we had a meeting at the Midland Hotel in Manchester with everyone there.

“Jimmy said there was no way we would get freedom of contract but they would lift the maximum wage.

"We weren’t looking for that but as we had come so far we thought we might as well get something.

“It is ridiculous nowadays though. There is so much money in the game today, players are millionaires almost before they have played a first team game. It is ridiculous.

“It is a business now not the beautiful game it was when we played.

"Clubs with money beat clubs with no money, it is sadly as simple as that now. Everyone has their era though.

"We enjoyed ours and I think it was good football compared to today.”