Borislav and Nikolay Mikhailov

While watching the Tottenham vs FC Twente Champions League game last night, Twente's balding young goalkeeper Nikolay Mikhailov caught my eye.

 
I recognised the surname and it turns out his father is former Bulgarian national goalkeeper Borislav 'Bobby' Mikhailov, who famously sported a blatant wig.

I think he may have been connected to the hairpiece company in some way, maybe as owner. He's still wearing to this day.

After a strong showing at the USA 1994 World Cup, he signed for Reading, in the second tier of English football, after mistakenly thinking they played at Wembley stadium.

Anyway his son, despite letting in 4 goals, looked a fairly promising goalie and even saved a penalty from Rafael Van Der Vaart.

Norwood Ratings : 6 (father) 3 (son)

Stephen Ireland

Thanks to readers Horsh and Mr.Williams for the suggestion, and I think the first image originated at whoateallthepies.tv.
This young man is a 24 year old footballer who recently transferred from Manchester City to Aston Villa. On his now inactive Bebo page, he posed in a thong while referring to himself as 'Daddy Dick'.

He started to experience hair loss at quite a young age and decided to do something about it. Unfortunately for him, it all went wrong in spectacular fashion. This is what he looked like just before he started treatment.

Sometime around early 2007 he started wearing a hairpiece. A few people made the odd uninformed comment about 'hair plugs' but overall it went unnoticed. It wasn't until September 2007 that things took a sinister turn.

Ireland withdrew from the Republic of Ireland international squad, citing the death of his Grandmother. Later that week, journalists discovered that she was in fact alive and well and surprised to read about her own death in the newspapers.
Ireland then changed his story and claimed it was his other, paternal Grandmother that had died. Again, this was untrue - she also was still alive. When found out, he lied again - this time it was the partner of his Grandfather who had supposedly died.

Ireland has since claimed the real reason for his departure from the squad was his girlfriend suffering a miscarriage. If true, this is of course tragic. But Ireland shouldn't be surprised if no one believes him.

 

Various sources have maintained that the real reason Ireland left the squad was down to his team-mates reaction to his hairpiece. A group of them, led by Stephen Hunt, pinned him to the floor and tried to rip off his wig, revealing his hairline. The banter had turned into bullying, and the story says a lot about the mentality of professional footballers. Ireland has never played for the national team since, and by summer 2008 he had ditched the wig and gone shaven headed bald.

In the aftermath of this incident, rival Manchester United fans gave Ireland his own chant, to the tune of The Beatles' "Yellow Submarine" :

"His grans not dead ,he just forgot.
  One week hes bald, the next hes not..
  He always lies, oh yes its true,
  Hes just a typical, f*cking blue.

  We all know Stephen Ireland wears a wig, Ireland wears a wig, Ireland wears a wig,

  He wears a wig, he wears a wig. He wears a wig, he wears a wig" 

Norwood Rating : 4 

Coolio

Rapper and actor Coolio was recently seen in the 'Ultimate Big Brother' house in the UK, which he quit after a row with another contestant. I will always remember him best for battling cgi beasts in the Sci-Fi channel film Pterodactyl.



His trademark braids have been styled in a variety of different ways over the years. At times they would appear upright like flailing tentacles. At others he would tease them through holes in a condom-like hat, forming a kind of propeller.



He has been balding a while but always remained true to his hairstyle. The braids remain, but there is now no hair left in the middle of his head.



This is probably only partially down to baldness - for some reason he has recently got a tattoo on the top of his head. This in itself has been seen by some people as an attempt to distract from his hair loss. I have been trying to work out what is depicted in the tattoo but can't find a clear picture of it.



A bit like Terry Nutkins and his skullet, I can't help but admire a man who sticks his fingers up at male pattern baldness in this way, and incorporates it into part of his image.

Norwood Rating : 3v

Jason Voorhees

Jason Voorhees is the homicidal maniac from the Friday The 13th films. He is thought to have killed at least 146 people.



I was listening to an old edition of Deadpit radio the other day and the subject of Voorhees' baldness came up. They briefly discussed a theory that as a hermit living rough in the woods, Jason lost his hair through lack of nutrition. I decided to explore his baldness in more detail.



In the original Friday The 13th film, Jason is a child and completely bald. Makeup artist Tom Savini wanted him to resemble a "hydrocephalic, mongoloid pinhead", with a dome-shaped head.



When he returned as a young adult in Part 2, Voorhees had somehow managed to grow some long, straggly ginger hair.



Part 3 is when Jason's iconic hockey mask makes it's first appearance. Behind the mask, Jason is once again bald, and remains that way for the next 6 films.
His hair makes a brief comeback in Jason Goes To Hell - The Final Friday, but by now he is practically a zombie and it has withered away to a few pathetic strands.



For the 2009 remake, Jason's look was based on parts 2 and 4. From what I can tell, he does appear to have a little hair but again it is very sparse (I haven't seen the remake yet).



I think the guys from Deadpit are right and Voorhees most likely has alopecia totalis or universalis rather than androgenic alopecia (male pattern baldness). These forms of baldness are not classified on the Norwood scale which means unfortunately Jason does not have a Norwood Rating.

Norwood Rating : n/a