Gary Elkins

Who is Gary Elkins?

Gary Elkins was an English football player; notable for having started exactly 100 league games for both Fulham F.C. and Wimbledon F.C.. Elkins was signed for £20,000 by Wimbledon - at that time an established top-flight club - following seven years of largely unheralded and irregular service for a then third-tier Fulham side. It was thought that new Wimbledon manager Ray Harford remembered Elkins fondly from his own time as Fulham manager in the mid-1980s.

Brentford F.C. manager Steve Perryman revealed that he resigned as manager of Brentford in 1991 on account of his chairman's refusal to let him sign Elkins for a nominal fee. The reason given by the chairman was that the player had 'shifty eyes'.

He was a sturdy and tough defender, slow to commit to a rash challenge but instead prone to holding up wingers by strong positioning. Indeed, some of the game's best wide-men, in particular Andrei Kanchelskis and Anders Limpar, found Elkins tough to negotiate, their game preferring defenders to put a foot in. Elkins finest moment was probably a last-minute equaliser, albeit heavily deflected, against Liverpool F.C. at Selhurst Park in 1994.