CESC’S MULLET
There was something different about Cesc Fabregas when he reported for pre-season training in July 2004.
At first glance, it looked like he'd simply avoided the barber all summer and attacked his locks with a bottle of 'Sun In' hair lightener.
The thickness and volume were striking. But there was so much more to it. At the back, the locks kept on flowing. The quiet boy from Barcelona had grown a mullet…not so much business at the front and party at the back but a full-on 80s disco all over.
The new look was as glorious as it was short-lived.
In total, the mullet featured in seven matches across five weeks. What’s more, by the time the haystack had been harvested, the teenager had forced his way into the Invincibles’ midfield and picked up his first piece of silverware.
It’s worth noting that Fabregas wasn’t an unknown quantity when the mullet stepped out for a friendly against Barnet (how fitting!) in early July. He’d already entered the Arsenal record books as the club’s youngest player and goalscorer during the 03/04 League Cup campaign, debuting against Rotherham in the fourth round aged 16 years and 177 days and scoring against Wolves in the fifth.
It also wasn’t unusual for Arsene Wenger to lean on academy kids to make up the numbers during the early summer. However, as the weeks went by and more and more senior players returned to the fold after EURO 2004, the Catalan retained his place.
He travelled to Slovenia and Austria for an Alpine training camp, starting three friendlies, and then had a run out against Argentine side River Plate at Ajax’s Amsterdam Arena. You couldn’t help but marvel at his vision on the ball and the way he always seemed to find himself in space.
After Ray Parlour departed for Middlesbrough and with rumours circling that captain Patrick Vieira was on the verge of joining Real Madrid, Wenger decided his young charge was ready for the big time; a Community Shield showdown with Manchester United.
In front of 63,000 fans in Cardiff, Fabregas underlined why he had the manager’s trust. From the get-go, he was a picture of calm, working in tandem with Gilberto Silva to dominate the midfield; Roy Keane couldn’t get anywhere near the Catalan during the 51 minutes the pair shared on the pitch.
Soon enough, a new chant was born:
“Fabregas, woah,
Fabregas, woah,
He’s only 17,
He’s better than Roy Keane.”
Cesc and his mullet sashayed off the field to a standing ovation with three minutes remaining and the score at 3-1 to the Gunners. The game was won and the boy from Barça with the bouncing barnet had proved he could cut it.
In the next morning’s Guardian, Kevin McCarra wrote:
“So confident, so sensitive to weight and angle of pass was Cesc Fabregas that he could have been hailed as an ideal replacement for Vieira until you wrenched your attention from his performance and applied it to his age.”
A week later, Cesc made his Premier League debut for the Gunners - the first of 212 in Arsenal colours and the last with the mullet.
By the time Middlesbrough visited Highbury on 22 August, Cesc’s summer locks had been shorn. Gone but never forgotten.