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Team sports require leadership not just in the dressing room, but on the field of battle. Sometimes, the team runs itself through individual greatness or a lack of competition. But often it's a person wearing an armband that brings players together, into line and delivers the message that's needed to achieve success. Not all great captains are on winning sides, but help maximise the team's potential. Some lead with words, others by example.

So, who is your greatest captain? Some to get you started...

Richie McCaw, the All Blacks' world cup winning skipper, one of the outstanding players of his generation who commands respect from everyone on the pitch

(http://nimg.sulekha.com/sports/original700/richie-mccaw-2011-10-23-7-51-24.jpg)

Alan Hanson, Liverpool's legendary football captain, who led not just a team to European success but a city in mourning after the Heysel and Hillsborough disasters.

(http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02206/alan-hansen_ai_2206274e.jpg)

Sir Viv Richards, who lost none of his fifty tests as captain of the dominant West Indies cricket team

(http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/11/21/014D55B00000044D-2844090-image-29_1416577723965.jpg)

Tony Jacklin, the most successful Ryder Cup captain of all time

(https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/504206709678563328/z5_m52N3_200x200.jpeg)

How about Lou "Iron Horse" Gehrig, who captained the New York Yankees to three consecutive world series titles from 1936 and six in total? He set the record of 2,130 consecutive games (a record which stood until 1995, if you please), picked up multiple awards but was not the team's best player (he played behind Babe Ruth). His was the first jersey ever to be retired.

(https://thomasguettler.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/lou-gehrig.jpg?w=1140&h=1200)

Don't know too much about Rugby Union, but in his pomp, during the 2003 (?) World Cup, this man seemed to be a wonderful inspiration, & a man who led from the front. He did everything specified in Tal's opening para.


(http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/07/28/15/006BF5B41000044C-0-image-a-61_1438092658584.jpg)

It is now unthinkable that, in our lifetime, England won the Football World Cup.

Bobby was calm personified, & the team revolved around him. Never rushed, hardly ever went to ground, inspired his team.


(http://i.ytimg.com/vi/_jksG7x3O9U/maxresdefault.jpg)

all the names above are great captains obv.

but its massively skewed by who you captain.

if richie mccaw was fijian and winning 1 game in 3 and never getting close to a world cup?

he needs the talent around him to captain


viv richards and clive lloyd?

where are they without holding, roberts, marshall and garner and with 4 medium pacers trundling down on flat wickets?





so give me leaders who elevate teams who are not the best in their sport at the time to winning when they shouldn't.....


give me this man

(http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/11/21/00D84EF500000190-2844090-Australia_captain_Allan_Border_embodied_his_team_s_battling_spir-38_1416578693160.jpg)

i quote

"Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting led Australia through a period of utter domination of world cricket through the 1990s and 2000s but none of that would have been possible without Border. Inheriting a side in utter disarray in the mid-1980s, by the time Border had retired in 1994 Australia were playing the brand of dogged, determined cricket that has brought them so much success since. The Baggy Green are made in his image."

Fails the Tighty test in that he was captaining a fairly good team to begin with but still a heck of a leader:

(http://cdn.images.dailystar.co.uk/dynamic/58/photos/974000/620x/122974.jpg)

Mike Brearly was a way better captain than he was a cricketer.

Does that qualify?

Willie Miller , how on earth he managed to get a team of journeyman pros to win the cup winners cup and the super cup I have no idea

Was going to put Brearly also, top class captain.

Not entirely sure that Aberdeen team was full of journeymen!  Half the team were mainstays in Scotland's last great national team which routinely got to WC finals.  Also there was the little factor of a super hungry Sir Alex.

Good shout though.  All my family are from Aberdeen and they have always been my Scottish team.  Been to Pitt numerous times on summer holidays as a kid just after the era you were talking about.

Billy McNeill >>>>> willie Miller.

Going back to Tighty's good captain's on shit teams i always thought Naseer and Atherton were two really good captains who just had no talent on their respective test teams at the time.

Martin Johnson though is the pick for me (the coach was a big part of the plan as well).  They had no business rocking up on the other side of the world and winning that world cup with the sqaud they had talent wise.  Johnson and Woodward literally got every player in that squad to perform to their max for the 2 years leading up to that WC and squeezed every ounce of effort/talent out of every player.  Woodward changed the whole training culture around Rugby from the sport turning pro and Johnson is/was a huge fan of NFL training methods to give his team relatively large training advances over their rivals.  Johnson would have been in no part hugely responsible for 'selling' these new training techniques/nutrition etc to 'old school rugby players' used to training twice a week after work and having a few pints a few times a week on top.

Francois Pienaar - inspired a disjointed team to respect their jersey again and beat one of the greatest all-blacks teams of all time to win a World Cup on home soil

every name mentioned in the thread is good. Pienaar is a good shout too, had a significance as captain that went beyond sport

Vinny Jones?  Proper old school non PC methods that wouldn't be allowed in today's dressing rooms but he certainly was the leader of a gang of players which punched well above their weight.

Was just about to mention this man:

(http://www.london24.com/polopoly_fs/1.1804374.1358952347!/image/2545492448.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_630/2545492448.jpg)

Still can't believe we beat that 80's Liverpool team, what a day!

leighton, mcleish, miller and strachan were the only 4 players in that team/squad that went on to get more that half a dozen caps
the rest were kept out by players in the old English 1st division and the old firm players

so i would call them journeymen and a great team gelled together by a great manager and captain

players around billy mcneil were of a much higher standard than the standard around willie

17 years apart, how do you know they were not as good? How do you know the inter team was terrible compared to the real team? Or vice versa.

my mistake i thought the celtic team had more caps,

but FFS you had willie wallace in your team you think you could lose?

Douglas Jardine for me.

Analysis of the opposition way ahead of its's time and picked a team to follow the game plan he had hatched and not the 'best' cricketers at the time. Found a weakness in Donald Bradman which must have been difficult and even when things escalated beyond things he could control he stuck to his plan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodyline

Says at the bottom of this Wiki page that in 2004 this series was still voted the most important event in cricket history.

Caps don't really come into it. If you look at some of the amount of caps Celtic players got throughout the years, some of them are incredibly low, given how good the players were.

Brearly was the first person who came to mind when I saw this thread. Everything I have heard was that he was amazing man manager, think the quote is that " he had a degree in people", he should never have got beyond county cricket on his ability with the bat.

Not universally popular with his players though. Tuffnell was reported as finding it better to get to his bowling mark by walking backwards to ensure that Brearley didn't change the field.
Gets votes for one quite incredible Ashes series.

Tufnell? Surely there careers never overlapped.

no chance unless they both appeared in question of sport!

Was closer than I thought. Brearley retired in 1993 tuff started for Middlesex in 1996.

I think I've said this before, but captaincy skills are way overrated in all sports except cricket.

To compare any football captain with Brearly, Vaughan, Ponting, Lloyd or Richards is ridiculous.

It was Phil Edmonds, not Tufnell.

Ryder Cup captaincy?
Although it's just a term really. RC captaincy is more a management role than an on field captaincy role, I guess?

I think the worst Ryder Cup captains are more memorable than the good ones.

Hal Sutton was easily the worst US captain in most people's opinion, passing the buck on picking pairings by putting the highest ranked players together down the card.

Nick Faldo was pretty poor for Europe too electing to have no vice-captains.

Immediately thought of Martin Johnson when I saw the title to this thread, and I'm not even keen on the sport.

I captained the blonde team to victory in the APAT team championships a couple of years ago. Don't think that can ever be topped

I'm glad you mentioned Vaughan, I wasn't sure whether it was young man's bias that he came to mind.

Same.

I think Ryder Cup capataincy is over rated too, but it isn't really captaincy anyway.

How difficult is it to pick fourball and foursome teams from the best 12 golfers on your tour.

Just avoid picking two blokes togther who want to rip each other heads off (ie don't pair Mickelson and Tiger), pick players who are steady and don't hit it OOB much for foursomes and great birdie makers for fourballs.

It ain't rocket science.

Its one of those jobs that you aim to complete without making a mistake. IE not playing Phil and Tiger together, and not leaving out Spieth and Reid when their on fire.

My two penneth worth, not strictly a captain, but somebody who carried a nation, Richard Hadlee for New Zealand. AbsolutlY carried one of the weakest cricketing nations to the point where they could compete with the great West Indian side. One of the greatest bowlers ever who also had a very handy batting average.

Not sure I agree with that Mr Camel - I think Ryder Cup captaincy is more about people skills, man-management, motivational abilities. Having said all that, Monty captained a winning Ryder Cup team. Stranger things have happened, but not much.

Anyway, I can't have Ryder Cup Captaincy as a candidate. Martin Johnson remains the standout nomination, imo. It scared me just looking at him. I met him once, & in real life, he is three times bigger & twice as ugly. Don't mess, it's not a tickling competition, we win World Cups.   

Motivational skills???!?!?

The best golfers in the world playing the most important tournament of the year don't need motivating do they?

They do, yes. It's far from "the most important Tournament" to many of them. They are motivated by money, lots & lots of it.

I always get the impression it means much more to the Euro's than the Yanks in the last few renewals.  Pretty sure half the yanks wouldn't be that bothered about playing if they didn't lose sponsorship/goodwill from not turning up.

Probably a major factor in Europe winning all the time.

I'm not sure if this is a wind up?
Dallaglio, Back and Hill were the best back row unit in the World at the time. Johnson the best second rower. Leonard, Vickery and Thompson were a tough front row. Dawson and Wilkinson were as good as anybody. Robinson on the wing. Jeez, no talent?

Best Captain. One word.

(http://i1240.photobucket.com/albums/gg486/rubbish247/maradona3_1017082c_zpsu6daumca.jpg) (http://s1240.photobucket.com/user/rubbish247/media/maradona3_1017082c_zpsu6daumca.jpg.html)

Cheat?

I was thinking of another word that began with 'c' and ended in 't'.

First person I thought about. Don't think anyone else would have led an England pack, missing 2 men, to hold off the All Blacks

Would also put Chris Adams, when he was at Sussex up there. Revolutionised them as a team and led to consistent success

Brearley was my first thought when i saw this thread.

Another that hasn't been mentioned is Clive Rice.

I cannot think of another sport, where captaincy plays such a big part in tactics during a game.