Mark Draper.

[supertom]

Anyone who had AVTV, he's been interviewed on it apparently. They mentioned he has a new role at the club, but I wondered what that was.

That aside, where do we stand on Drapes? For me, good player. His first two seasons he was very good. Helped keep us ticking over nicely. He seemed to fall out with Gregory when he took over though. He's one of those players who kind of gets overlooked a lot when thinking back, obviously he was in a midfield with Taylor, Villa through and through, and Townsend who was great for us, so that's part of it. He was pretty consistent though so I'm pretty glad to see him back at the club in some manor.

[Damo70]

I'm pretty sure that the last time I heard about him, which was fairly recently, he was kit man at Notts County.

[Concrete John]

Always liked him as a player.  He wasn't the ball winner or attacker in midfield though, at a time when you sort of needed to be one or the other to get noticed.  Good continuity player and worked well in a three man midfield.

[Ads]

He wasn't the player I thought he was going to be after that 4-4 draw against Leicester at Villa Park.

[Merv]

I really liked Draper for the first couple of seasons; then he seemed to go off the boil and retreat into a midfield player who just passed sideways most of the time - lost his edge when Little left, I think. His career went downhill fast once he left us.

Remember him scoring a cracker v Peterborough in the League Cup; I was a year into my first journalism job, covering sport for a Peterborough weekly and I was in the press box for the game at VP. In front of me were two reporters from the bigger daily paper in P'Boro. Think it was 0-0 for the opening 20 mins or so. They were getting very smug about Peterborough 'holding mighty Villa'.

Villa won a free-kick about 25 yards out, and Draper went to take it. 'Of course, any Premier League player worth their salt would put this in, easily,' they were saying, no doubt ready for Draper to miss and then for them to be able to scoff about it.

The ball was touched back to Draper, who flicked it into the air and then met it in on the volley, straight in.

'A bit like that, gents?' I said.

Villa won the game 6-0.

[eamonn]

It all began to unravel for him when he bleached his thinning hair in the summer of 1997. Popular in the dressing room for being a bit of a thicko wasn't he? Was always quite fond of him. Not sure if it was a case of never fulfilling his potential or his Leicester form was him over-achieving.

[Concrete John]

I remember that Peterborough game and the free kick in particular.  Wasn't there some debate as to whether it was legal or not afterwards?

We seemed to try quite a few clever things that season with free kicks, as opposed to some just having a direct pop at goal.

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It was Townsend who flicked it up. There was some talk about the need for the ball to roll the whole of its circumference otherwise it would need to be re-taken.

I don’t know if that was/is a rule though.

[Concrete John]

That was it.  I think the reason it stood was the actual rule was 'travel', so slthough it didn't roll/spin/rotate from Townsend's flick, it did travel the required distance before someone else had a touch.

[tomd2103]

It all began to unravel for him when he bleached his thinning hair in the summer of 1997. Popular in the dressing room for being a bit of a thicko wasn't he? Was always quite fond of him. Not sure if it was a case of never fulfilling his potential or his Leicester form was him over-achieving.

[bertlambshank]

His new job is the coach driver.
That way we will never lose.

[Damo70]

Didn't he move to Southampton but then get a serious injury not long afterwards?

[eamonn]

Before he went to Saints we sent him on-loan to Rayo Vallecano. In order to be understood at training he looked-up a few words useful for football in the Spanish dictionary. Cue puzzled bewilderment when he kept shouting at his team mates "Permiso, permiso!" - the word for pass - the permit/license type of pass that is.

[eric woolban woolban]

Before he went to Saints we sent him on-loan to Rayo Vallecano. In order to be understood at training he looked-up a few words useful for football in the Spanish dictionary. Cue puzzled bewilderment when he kept shouting at his team mates "Permiso, permiso!" - the word for pass - the permit/license type of pass that is.

LOL seems to be the thickest footballer until Jonathan Woodgate took his crown.

Still he made a shed load more money than me, so fair play to you Drapes.

[newtonsballs]

He had a crazy laugh and wasn't his nickname 'Plug' (Bash Street Kids)?