The doyen of a long line of slightly deranged German goalkeepers, Schumacher was responsible for the most grievous assault to take place on a football pitch when he chose the 1982 World Cup semi-final to flatten France’s Patrick Battiston with a forearm smash washed down with poodle-permed innocence. Cue goal kick. West Germany went to the final and Battiston went to hospital. Message: crime pays.

2 ROY KEANE

Like many on this list, the Manchester United captain is widely admired for his talents, but disdain for his dark arts is unanimous outside Old Trafford. Whether it be walking out on his country on the eve of a World Cup, hounding referees or merely maiming Alf-Inge Haaland, Keane has that knack of getting under one’s skin.

3 ROBBIE SAVAGE

Savage has admitted that he enjoys being a spittoon for the bile of supporters. He plays like a car crash falling down a lift shaft and the list of those he has irritated ranges from Paolo Maldini to Justin Edinburgh — and that is just the full backs. That he wallows in his success so overtly, with an Armani logo tattoo and a yellow Ferrari, only makes it worse.

4 VINNIE JONES

The former hod-carrier has starred in several feature films as a brutish villain with a penchant for mayhem, which is basically his football career without the ball. A toned-up Savage with a haircut, he famously gave a fledgeling Paul Gascoigne’s career a helping hand. “Not only would I not sign him, I wouldn’t let him in the ground,” Tommy Docherty once said.

5 DIEGO MARADONA

That such a natural talent can worm his way on to this list evinces his flaws. Few in England will ever forgive him for palming a ball over a flat-footed Peter Shilton in 1986, even allowing for the breathtaking genius that followed. Just as breathtaking was the subsequent explanation and even if it was the Hand of God, it was still handball.

6 DENNIS WISE

Simon Armitage, the poet, said that Wise should have been in East 17 or working in a fairground. Well, with a grin that smacked of Duelling Banjos and a barrow-boy earthiness, Wise can be like the Artful Dodger’s wayward brother. While at Leicester City, he broke Callum Davidson’s cheekbone and gave Robbie Savage a teddy bear impaled on a vibrator.

7 1970s LEEDS UNITED

Take your pick from the side that put the sin in cynical. Norman Hunter is the best remembered for biting legs, but some of Johnny Giles’s tackles were so high that they were haircuts. The bullying was a shame, given the team’s manifold talents, and when Don Revie walked out on England for money in the Middle East, Leeds’s image was soiled for ever.

8 RUUD VAN NISTELROOY

The Holland forward epitomises the most reviled type of player in that you hate him if he plays against your side and love him if plays for them. This goes for Keane, Savage, Shearer et al. As responsible as anyone for turning Manchester United versus Arsenal into West Side Story, Van Nistelrooy is utterly irredeemable to the layman.

9 ANDY MÖLLER

Without wishing to cement a stereotype, the man nicknamed Heulsuse der nation (crybaby of the country) at home summed up all that we hate about German football. The skill, efficiency, old-school hair and the way he puffed out his chest after sending England packing at Euro 96 cut slashing wounds. Think Steffen Effenberg without the humility.

10 CRAIG BELLAMY

Has everything to make opposing supporters hate him — goals, highlights, an Alice band and white boots. His elephantine mouth moves in tandem with his legs — the assistant referee against Yeading was described, in pithier terms, as an outside lavatory — and Bellamy seems sure to rise higher on this list as time progresses.

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