BLACK armbands all round at Villa Park tomorrow lunchtime.

Now, there is a good chance Kyle Walker will pull off a miraculous recovery from the ‘headbutt’ that sent him plummeting to the floor last weekend.

And that is something to rejoice.

Even so, the Premier League should be in mourning for a final farewell to the game’s last genuine hardman.

For if big, bad Kyle Walker has resorted to that kind of thing, what hope is there of football remaining an honest contact sport?

For years now, the Manchester City and England defender has enjoyed a formidable reputation as unbreakable and unshakeable.

Built like a Sheffield tram, faster than any joyrider on the scary Lansdowne Estate where he grew up, uncompromising in the extreme on the pitch, Walker was the closest thing to ingrained English oak.

He also came across as the last bastion of sheer bs in the cosmopolitan, coiffured, cosy modern game.

A hardened working-class boy brought up in a council flat in a place where getting to the bus stop was a daily obstacle course, dodging burnt-out cars and dope dealers.

Even when his tangled love life was splattered across the front pages of this newspaper, as he juggled the balls of his professional career and his ability to father kids like Southampton ship goals, he would not be blown off course.

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He bulldozed his way past bewildered opponents, chased everything down like a hungry cheetah and gave the impression he could handle himself in any given situation.

Your money would most certainly have been on him in a tear-up with Manchester United pretty boy Rasmus Hojlund.

So when Walker went sprawling under the faintest of brushes from the Dane’s blond fringe, the era of the tough-nut footballer went crashing to the ground with him — and can never be revived.

In one of those rare, jaw-dropping England press conferences some time ago, Walker laid bare some of the horrifying episodes from the nasty streets where he lived.

A neighbour hanging himself, a fatal arson attack on a nearby flat, a woman wandering around wielding an axe like she was carrying home the weekly shop.

People who witness that sort of stuff don’t fold like a free sheet being stuffed through a letter box unless they do it on purpose — but City’s captain didn’t do it very well and should definitely give up any thoughts of acting as a second career.

Walker was in the same class as the likes of John Terry.

A supremely gifted player with a cast iron core. A perversely admirable ‘doesn’t-give-a-s**t’ type who always comes out on top through grit and sheer self-determination.

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But not any more.

Ironically, just a couple hours after his symbolic collapse at the Etihad, Chelsea’s Marc Cucurella produced an equally embarrassing act of self-capitulation during a home match against Brentford.

But you kind of expect it from him — after all he has long, curly hair and a bit of history with the dark arts of the game.
I always thought Walker was a bit different.

The toughest kid in the playground. The one you wanted on your side in football every lunchtime because not only was he brilliant, he was dead hard.

He appears to have been losing his pace for a few months now and at 34 that is to be expected.

Six Premier League titles catch up on you after all.

The disappointing surprise is seeing him lose his dignity and resorting to the kind of tactics that much lesser men turn to in this day and age.

Please don’t do it again.

WRONG ‘WAY TO MAKE A GOOD POINT

THE only surprise about Ian Holloway’s confrontation with fed-up Swindon fans is that it has taken so long.

Ollie was appointed as Robins boss in October and has been up against it from day one with a team clearly lacking in confidence.

The Bristolian is never one to step backwards and while having a pop at moaning supporters who have trekked hundreds of miles to see their team lose is perhaps not the smartest move, it does throw up an interesting debate.

Do supporters automatically claim a right to say and do whatever they please because they have paid for a ticket or travelled a long way?

Holloway thinks not and believes constant negativity from the terraces will drag the team even further down.

He makes a good point — even if he’s done it in an unceremonious way.

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OSCAR LOSS SO PAINFUL

OCCASIONALLY a story hits you right between the eyes as a reminder of just how irrelevant winning or losing football matches is.

While West Ham’s high-profile but under-pressure boss Julen Lopetegui is mourning the death of his 94-year-old father, the whole club has been shattered by the loss of teen keeper Oscar Fairs.

At 15, he had the world in his hands as an academy player dreaming of mud, sweat and a distant hope of stardom.

His death from a brain tumour last week leaves a family devastated and a community reeling.

There seems no escape from the wicked curse that is cancer but, when it snatches someone so young, the pain is intensified exponentially.

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ARABIAN FLIGHTS

BOXING, the World Cup, Formula One, golf, tennis.

All are now being staged in Saudi Arabia.

The Tyson Fury versus Oleksandr Usyk world heavyweight rematch is just the latest major event taking place in the bone-dry desert.

Fingers crossed there will be one sport that will be tempted to stage its biggest event in a country where booze is banned.

The PDC World Darts Championship is underway at a raucous Ally Pally and the alcohol is flowing.

Imagine it in a place where you can’t get on it morning, noon and night.

Where you can’t slip away from your seat and get a bellyful of beer, where it’s impossible to reach out for a bottle of grog whenever you want.

And that’s just the players.

That’s a joke, before anyone decides to sue.

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THE ‘Unify League’ could involve up to ten Premier League clubs, we are told.

Assuming it is a merit-based system, as it stands that would include Bournemouth, Fulham and Brighton.

No disrespect, but as a rejigged and more competitive version of the so-called ‘Super League’ invitational boys’ club, that doesn’t look very ‘super’ at all, does it?

AS if you haven’t wasted enough of your hard-earned cash on useless old tat this Christmas, tickets for next summer’s Club World Cup in the USA are now on sale.