Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Villa Memories => Topic started by: marcelinosmith on January 26, 2011, 08:41:52 PM
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I'll start... Franz Carr. Fat and not very good. A mystery.
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John Fashanu
Wayne Routledge
Frank MacAvennie
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Djemba Djema
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Mathieu Berson
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John Fashanu,i remember i was only 16 at the time,but was so crushed that we'd bought him that I actually wrote to the club and said how we'd be made a laughing stock. Unfortunately it wasn't far from the truth.
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Salifou
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Leslie Jones
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At the time Warren Aspinall. I'd stopped thinking that by May 1988 though.
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Ivo Stas
Alex Sperr
David Ginola (for £3m)
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Didier Agathe
Chris Sutton
Robert Pires ;0)
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Erik Bakke
Oyvind Leonhardsen
Colin Calderwood
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Steve Foster
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I'd forgotten all about Mathieu Berson...and I don't recall Alex Sperr on any level.
Anyone remember Peter Withe...what on earth was he signed for? What did he ever do?...
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I've already forgot a few of these!
Carr at least scored a fairly important goal.
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Alex Sperr was signed in the 1988/89 season and was an early version of Martin Laursen but we couldn't get a work permit, so I guess you could lump Henrik Larson (Danish midfielder not the Celtic scoring machine) in there too.
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I'll start... Franz Carr. Fat and not very good. A mystery.
He was worth the 150k we paid, simply for scoring the winner in the FA cup against Forest ::)
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Steve Sidwell
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I'll start... Franz Carr. Fat and not very good. A mystery.
He was worth the 150k we paid, simply for scoring the winner in the FA cup against Forest ::)
Great night that was, they deserved a draw at least but we squeaked a goal and what a finish it was.
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I think people are confusing 'unfathomable' with 'turned out to be shit'.
I'd suggest Marlon Harewood, who although he turned out to be shit, never looked like he could justify his fee from the start.
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I'm glad someone else remembers Alex Sperr. I remember getting all excited about him at school, thinking he must be good because he's foreign.
Fashanu romps home with first prize for me. Was about 16, on holiday with my folks, and my Dad went down the shop to get yesterdays paper. I was sat on the side of the pool with a rabble of fat geordies on the sunbeds behind me when he came back, saying "you won't believe who we've signed". These geordies must have already known as I could hear them laughing. My Dad turns the paper around to reveal the photo of BFR with that lanky, all-elbows, string of piss, talentless, Gladiators twat. I just wanted to curl up and die.
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Oyvind Leonhardsen
Fash the Bash
Tony Cascarino
Although i remember booting my garden bin when we signed David James
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Leonhardsen,Kinsella,Calderwood,Ronny Johnson,far too many to mention really. I've said it before but Fashanu was the worst.
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Steve Sims
Mark Lillis
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Najwan Ghrayib
Mark Kinsella
Adrian Heath
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Vaclav Drobny
Bosko Balaban
Does Salifou still have some grace period?
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Gary Penrice
I was at Uni sitting in the living room with my 4 Liverpool supporting housemates who all spontaneously burst out laughing when it was announced on Sky.
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Erik Bakke
Oyvind Leonhardsen
Colin Calderwood
Calderwood was brilliant for us
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Fabio Ferrarresi
Didier Agathe
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I think people are confusing 'unfathomable' with 'turned out to be shit'.
I'd suggest Marlon Harewood, who although he turned out to be shit, never looked like he could justify his fee from the start.
I was thinking the same. Him and Zat Knight were pretty unfathomable considering the hype at the end of the season before.
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I think people are confusing 'unfathomable' with 'turned out to be shit'.
I'd suggest Marlon Harewood, who although he turned out to be shit, never looked like he could justify his fee from the start.
I was thinking the same. Him and Zat Knight were pretty unfathomable considering the hype at the end of the season before.
I was also thinking the same. How was Berson unfathomable? We needed a midfielder and got one with very decent pedigree for a decent fee. It's not his fault that the manager never played him in spite of some very decent performances.
I can't see how Ronny Johnsen or Colin Calderwood are a part of this thread considering they both cost next to nothing and did very decent jobs for us.
As for Zat Knight, I can't see why he is here either. Did a good job and made us a profit in transfer fees.
My suggestion would be Luke Young. Not because he is a bad player or was a bad signing, but because the manager could have signed him for a third of the price 12 months previously when he would have gone literally anywhere. Which was demonstrated by him signing for Middlesbrough.
Where he did nothing that he hadn't been doing for five years previously, but that was apparently enough to warrant paying a huge amount more than was needed a bit earlier.
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Darren Bent.
Get de fook in!
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Mark Kinsella and Leonhardsen are the ones that spring to mind. You knew times were tough when we were signing Charlton Rejects.
Didn't Gregory sign Balaban purely on seeing videso of him? Or was that Little & Milosevic. Whichever it was, that was pretty unfathomable, but Savo worked out ok!
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Ian Ormondroyd - £650k record signing from Bradford. Was a little puzzling to say the least, turned out to be OK-ish, but record signing??!!!
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Gustavo Bartelt. Just checked his stats http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustavo_Bartelt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustavo_Bartelt) out on Wikipedia. Utter gash.
P.s In exchange for these overwhemlimg stats would someone spare me a mo to tell me how to do the small "clicky" type links.
Obliged!
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Emment Kapengwe
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Oh and Freddie Mwilla
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Gustavo Bartelt. Just checked his stats http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustavo_Bartelt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustavo_Bartelt) out on Wikipedia. Utter gash.
Crikey - good find that.
42 goals in an 18 year career as a centre-forward? That's impressively bad.
Still, probably paid for John Gregory's conservatory.
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Gustavo Bartelt. Just checked his stats http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustavo_Bartelt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustavo_Bartelt) out on Wikipedia. Utter gash.
Crikey - good find that.
42 goals in an 18 year career as a centre-forward? That's impressively bad.
Still, probably paid for John Gregory's conservatory.
Remember it well Dave. Glad I opted against having "BARTIGOL" stamped on my new replica shirt.
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Didier Agathe; Djemba-Djemba; Salifou; Mathieu Berson; Andy Marshall.
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Gustavo Bartelt. Just checked his stats http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustavo_Bartelt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustavo_Bartelt) out on Wikipedia. Utter gash.
Crikey - good find that.
42 goals in an 18 year career as a centre-forward? That's impressively bad.
Still, probably paid for John Gregory's conservatory.
Remember it well Dave. Glad I opted against having "BARTIGOL" stamped on my new replica shirt.
I remember thinking to myself "well, how bad could it be having a striker on loan from Roma coming off the bench"
Looking at those stats again - FOUR goals, anywhere in the world since 1998 as a professional centre-forward and still counting that as his job today. I'd fancy myself to do better than that just by standing on a goalpost at corners.
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That ex-professional tennis player, turned semi-pro footballer Michael Boulding. He was ace...
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Steve Stone, god help us
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Pires
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Didier Six
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Heskey
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Didier Six
in deffence of six he did have a reasonable debut against manu didnt he ? Cant remember much after that though.
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Peter Schmeichel. Very odd that one.
Peter Crouch, who at the time, was just a freak. Now he is a pretty good striker, but still a freak.
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Fashanu was utter gash,just before that Big Ron had gone for Klinsman,that's like going to buy an Alfa Romeo Brera and ending up with a Lada with 3 months mot.
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Schmeicel and Ginola. Made us look incredibly small-time in my opinion (thanks Mr. Ellis).
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who was the hoof of a center back we bought circa 96. tinker or something
and david unsworth
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Nii Lamptey anyone?
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Steve Sims
Mark Lillis
lillis was ok,rememberhim getting 2 at leicester in a 2-0 win,also remember getting a kicking outside by
the BABY SQUAD
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Carl Tiler (They call me Tiles)
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That ex-professional tennis player, turned semi-pro footballer Michael Boulding. He was ace...
Good shout.
I'll go for Habib Beye. Had Luke Young and Cuellar. I like to think of this as the signing that finally did for O'Neill.
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Nii Lamptey anyone?
Saw him absolutely destroy Wigan away in the league cup.
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Didier Agathe, Berson, Stas, Carr, Fashanu, Balaban, the list goes on just hope we don't get no more of these type of signings.
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John Fashanu, oh my god. Why my mom didn't stop me from going to the club shop and getting 'Fash' on the back of my shirt i will never know.
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That Irish bloke with the dodgy knees that Graham Taylor signed in 1989 from Man Utd. I remember folk laughing at us paying that much for a cripple....and Adrian Heath.
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Alex Sperr - a bit like Danish player Kurt Bakholt who we were going to sign during the 'empty Villa Park' days of 1985/86, but didnt.
Ian Taylor, I thought he was a nothing player from Sheffield Wednesday- glad he proved me wrong.
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Simon Grayson :(
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I don't think Balaban can be counted as unfathomable at the time we signed him. I recall I wasn't the only one excited by our capture of this young Croatian goal machine. The rest of his Villa career was pretty unfathomable.
I think Sir Graham second time around has something of a monopoly on genuinely unfathomable ones- Kinsella, Leonhardsen, De La Cruz spring to mind.
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Sasa Curcic. Nigel Callaghan and Ormandroyd and Baloban oh and Ireland
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I think the following fit the bill. They were all signings for very little money (most of them by Ron Saunders) , but only Ward and Young played for the first team. Ward twice and Young thrice. Young was a joint signing with Graham a forward who went on to have quite a useful lower league career.
David Cunningham
Tommy Graham
Joe Ward
Willie Young
Kevin Ready
Lee Turnbull
Dean Spink
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Gustavo Bartlet
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I came on to post Bartlet but two people got there first.
I'll add three quite obscure ones, de Bilde, Boulding and Fabio Ferrarasi.
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Curcic was a good idea at the time, a decent player at Bolton and Savo's best mate. To be fair in his appearances up to Xmas 96 he looked pretty good.......
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I came on to post Bartlet but two people got there first.
I'll add three quite obscure ones, de Bilde, Boulding and Fabio Ferrarasi.
I remember being quite impressed when we signed de Bilde. Not only was he a 'name' striker but he was also a bit mental wasn't he?
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Hadji
Kashlouell (spelling)
Salifou
Ivo Staas
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I came on to post Bartlet but two people got there first.
I'll add three quite obscure ones, de Bilde, Boulding and Fabio Ferrarasi.
I remember being quite impressed when we signed de Bilde. Not only was he a 'name' striker but he was also a bit mental wasn't he?
De Bilde was good mid 90s for sure and partnered Luc Nillis for Belgium. But by the time we signed him he hadn't really been heard of in a while and he didn't make much of an impact as far as I ca remember.
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Mine would certainly be John Fashanu. What was the point of that!!
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Steve Foster
Warren Aspinall
John Fashanu
Peter Schmeichel
David Ginola
Robert Pires
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Oscar Arce.
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Can I throw in Tobias Lars Mikaelsson
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Robert (?) Kiraly
Tommy Craig
Wayne Penrice
Didier Agathe
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Najwan Ghrayib and Dariusz Kubicki. ???
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Michael Boulding for me.
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Can we add managers?
If so, The good doctor - Joe Venglos
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If it's 'We've signed who'???...no-one's mentioned Keith Leonard was an unknown with Highgate United but he went on to become a good player, that season with Little in the promotion year is etched in my memory....Hillsborough when we won 4-0 to get promotion is my greatest Villa away-day.
David Hunt
Shaun Teale (see Leonard)
Kent Neilsen
Kevin Ready
and od couse
Oscar Arce
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I was going to say de Builde, but someone get there already!
Who was that young foreign CB O'Leary had on loan and never played?
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Who was that young foreign CB O'Leary had on loan and never played?
Vaclav Drobny
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Najwan Ghrayib and Dariusz Kubicki. ???
Kubiscki was very good ??!!
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Can we add managers?
If so, The good doctor - Joe Venglos
Gerard Houlier
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Robert (?) Kiraly
Tommy Craig
Wayne Penrice
Didier Agathe
Somebody beat me to Tommy Craig! I do remember scoring a decent goal once though...legend
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Neil Lamptney (?)...the new Pele I seem to remember...
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Signing Frank McAvennie was gutting because I felt certain that we wouldn't get Deano in if he was there. Thankfully we overcame that little hurdle!
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Nothing ever will surpass the complete and utter disbelief as when by brother rang me at work to say we'd signed Fashanu. In retrospect that was the moment when Atkinson's reign started to come to an end.
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Geoff Vowden, Trevor Hockey,Colin Withers, Malcom Beard, Alan Curbishley and Trevor Hockey. Was just a kid when we signed all these and could not fathom out why we would want to buy a player from Small Heath.
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Geoff Vowden, Trevor Hockey,Colin Withers, Malcom Beard, Alan Curbishley and Trevor Hockey. Was just a kid when we signed all these and could not fathom out why we would want to buy a player from Small Heath.
Or sign the same bloke twice ;-)
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Bosko Balaban
John Fashanu
Steve Foster
Andy Gray second time
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Robert (?) Kiraly
Tommy Craig
Wayne Penrice
Didier Agathe
Somebody beat me to Tommy Craig! I do remember scoring a decent goal once though...legend
[/quote
Mortimer, I think Tommy Craig's goal was on his home debut v Everton in a 1-1 draw. An absolute cracker from about 30 yeards at the Witton End. He flattered to deceive and offered very little while he was here. I can't even remember who we sold him to but he was not missed.
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I remember that Tommy Craig cracker on his debut. As you say he did very little while he was at Villa Park,but i seem to remember he picked up a rather serious injury not long after signing and was never the same when he came back .
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Dean Spink
Andy Comyn
Steve Sims
David Hunt
Robert Pires
Spink in particular. GT flogs Alan McInally for a million and hopes to replace him with Dean Spink from Shrewsbury.
forgot to include Malcom Allen.
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Did Dean Spink actually play in the first team, plus it was Gabor Kiraly!
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John Fashanu
Wayne Routledge
Frank MacAvennie
Frank McAvennie?
Have to say I don't remember him coming.
How about David Unsworth???
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We signed Frank McAvennie on loan .Think it was Big Ron who signed him. I cant rememember him playing many games
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Mike Pejic - why?
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Venglos. I still think John Ward should have had a chance to carry on Sir Graham's good work. Also, when we needed a battling, experienced goalscorer to help us fight relegation in March '87 we were promised David Speedie and got Warren Aspinall. He did his fair share the next year but wasn't the man for the relegation battle. Having said that I'm not sure Maradona could have kept us up at that point. And what was Ron Saunders doing get rid of Gidman and Gray and replacing them with a converted winger from Chelsea and some centre forward from Newcastle in the second division?
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We signed Frank McAvennie on loan .Think it was Big Ron who signed him. I cant rememember him playing many games
Pooligan, if i recall correctly it was at the beginning of the 1992 season. I was back home from France and got to a midweek 1-1 v Leeds (then champions) and the Saturday game v Southampton I think (my memory is hazy here as I left a Friday wedding in Glasgow at 7am to catch a National Express coach back to Brum and in my pissed logic decided to drink all the way home to avoid a hangover). I seem to recall McAvennie coming on and weeping at the state of our strike force. Luckily Deano arrived a couple of weeks later.
To be fair to McAvennie he was very flattering about the Villa - big club, great opportunity, thanks to big Ron for giving me a last fling at the big time etc, but i think he was either aging or struggling from a long term serious injury. I don't remember him ever scoring for us.
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Pat,you recall it correctly, it was indeed the start of the 1992 season . Looking through the archives he never actually started a game for us,coming on as a sub against Southampton,Chelsea and Crystal Palace and never scored a goal. Can you remember what the name was of his sexy page 3 girlfriend was?
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Pat,you recall it correctly, it was indeed the start of the 1992 season . Looking through the archives he never actually started a game for us,coming on as a sub against Southampton,Chelsea and Crystal Palace and never scored a goal. Can you remember what the name was of his sexy page 3 girlfriend was?
Pooligan, no I can't. I was living in Paris at the time and the page 3 "stunners" were rather trashy and low quality compared to the charms of the female citizens of the City of Light.
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The Togolese Zidane.
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Pires
Lots of the others didn't do a great deal but he actually cost us points!
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We signed Frank McAvennie on loan .Think it was Big Ron who signed him. I cant rememember him playing many games
I definately remember McAvennie being at the club, but i was certain it was under GT. Wikipedia however agrees with you (Big Ron). It suggests it was just before Deano and that he played a few games. This is strange, because i have a good memory and don't actually remember watching him play for us, i went to all home games and quite a few away at the time. Does anyone actually remember him playing? Maybe he came on as a sub?
EDIT - Just read other posts above, so question answered. Doh!
Possibly the 2 daftest signings for me were Schmeichal and Pires, 2 outstanding players that came out of the blue, but you were surprised they hadn't retired already let alone playing at the top level.
Leonhardsen was one of the most underwhelming but i actually think he did quite well for us when he played. He scored a couple of goals from right midfield for a start. Calderwood similar, also did quite well.
I was quite pleased with Fash signing. I was more astonished by the bloke who signed around the same time, Phil King, who was not even close to as good as what we had.
Most outrightly disappointing though were Carson on loan, Knight, Salifou and particularly Harewood. Here we were, thinking we were going to do a slightly toned down version of Chelsea, and we were signing the players above. My excitement of the previous 9 months or so pretty much disappeared.
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Frank McAvennie set up a goal against Southampton that year.
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The 3 we signed after Ron's commentary trip to the World cup in 1994.
We hoped for some World cup talent, we got
John Fashanu, Phil King and Nil Lamptey.
King was passable, but the other two were shit.
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Dean Spink
Andy Comyn
Steve Sims
David Hunt
Robert Pires
Spink in particular. GT flogs Alan McInally for a million and hopes to replace him with Dean Spink from Shrewsbury.
forgot to include Malcom Allen.
Dean Spink was actually signed from halesowen town for I think 35k
Never got within 3 miles of the first team and I think was sold to Shrewbury for 50k
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Bosko Balaban
Sasa Curcic
Marlon Harewood
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The 3 we signed after Ron's commentary trip to the World cup in 1994.
We hoped for some World cup talent, we got
John Fashanu, Phil King and Nil Lamptey.
King was passable, but the other two were shit.
I remember reading a pretty harrowing article about Nil Lampteys life in the Independent a few years ago, it's still online
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/international/tortured-genius-burnt-and-beaten-ghana-golden-boy-is-lucky-to-be-alive-777432.html (http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/international/tortured-genius-burnt-and-beaten-ghana-golden-boy-is-lucky-to-be-alive-777432.html)
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Dean Spink
Andy Comyn
Steve Sims
David Hunt
Robert Pires
Spink in particular. GT flogs Alan McInally for a million and hopes to replace him with Dean Spink from Shrewsbury.
forgot to include Malcom Allen.
Dean Spink was actually signed from halesowen town for I think 35k
Never got within 3 miles of the first team and I think was sold to Shrewbury for 50k
He also played for Moor Green I think.....
He's now physio at Solihull Moors, the club that married Moor Green and Solihull Borough together.
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Remember commenting at the start of one summer, the only two players we've been linked with that I never want to see in a Villa shirt are Harewood and Zat - felt relieved a few days later when Zat signed a new deal at Fulham - 6 weeks later we had them both :-(
The equaliser vs Arsenal partially compensates but still....
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Dean Spink
Andy Comyn
Steve Sims
David Hunt
Robert Pires
Spink in particular. GT flogs Alan McInally for a million and hopes to replace him with Dean Spink from Shrewsbury.
forgot to include Malcom Allen.
Dean Spink was actually signed from halesowen town for I think 35k
Never got within 3 miles of the first team and I think was sold to Shrewbury for 50k
Saw him score a hat-trick , I think, in a pre-season friendly at Paget Rangers.
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Alex Sperr was signed in the 1988/89 season and was an early version of Martin Laursen but we couldn't get a work permit, so I guess you could lump Henrik Larson (Danish midfielder not the Celtic scoring machine) in there too.
I cant even find a playing record of Alex Sperr on Google. He must have been bad!!! Anybody know what he went on to play for?
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Dean Spink
Andy Comyn
Steve Sims
David Hunt
Robert Pires
Spink in particular. GT flogs Alan McInally for a million and hopes to replace him with Dean Spink from Shrewsbury.
forgot to include Malcom Allen.
Dean Spink was actually signed from halesowen town for I think 35k
Never got within 3 miles of the first team and I think was sold to Shrewbury for 50k
He also played for Moor Green I think.....
He's now physio at Solihull Moors, the club that married Moor Green and Solihull Borough together.
...and his ex-wife Helen owns a children's nursery, Tiddlywinks, on the north side of Shrewsbury.
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Giles de Bilde on loan - why.
Peter Schmeichel - was a bit of a surprise.
Shaun Teale - what a good signing that turned out to be though.
Michael Boulding
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Alex McLeish
Alan Hutton
Jermaine f*****g Jenas
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didier six
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We didn't sign him, but I really thought Ivor Linton was going to be some player...
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Heskey
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Signing Giles De Bilde from Sheff Weds who were in Division one at the time was pretty odd I thought.
I don't think he actually scored for us?
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Yeah have to say MON at the last minute picking up Salifou from the Swiss 2nd division just from remembering him briefly at the 2006 world cup was very strange I thought.
Nearly as wierd as him staying with us for 4 years despite only playing 1 prem games in that time!
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Carl Tiler