Didn't he play for us?
There was a recent survey in Four
Four Two magazine whereby all ninety two clubs, and the more prominent Scottish teams,
named and shamed a player considered to be the worst they had seen play for their club.
Of course this is always a very subjective viewpoint.
We would all have our own reasons for our chosen player. It's fair to say it must have
been quite a difficult job for the Burnley representative, given that was so much scope,
as it were. Our offering was, in the end, Nick Pickering, and I think he'd
probably be a candidate for my bottom five, but unfortunately here we have the
'aspiration' factor. That is, as an ex England international, expectation was high (should
we call it the Waddle factor?). Couple that with playing in a very poor side and clearly
he was on a hiding to nothing from the start.
Interestingly, quite a few ex Burnley players got a
mench elsewhere so I think it's my duty to bring this to your attention.
Many of the nominees were to be fair at the end of what
was actually not a bad career on the whole. Players can't go on for ever, it's just that
sometimes they can't face the inevitable. I've been there. (Let's face it, the McCluggage
dribble is now, sadly, just a medical condition.)
Take Brian Laws for example, Grimsby's
candidate. Clearly in his heyday he was a good, sound professional, although he was
discarded by a certain Mr Bond. It's fair to say that Burnley and Forest got the best out
of him. For the Mariners however a combination of the 'player manager' syndrome and being
a once half decent player meant it would all end in tears. It actually all ended in a
crockery fight but the writing was on the wall nonetheless. The only other thing which
could have gone against him would have been the 'he once played for the scum' scenario,
but Grimsby haven't any rivals anyway.
Paul Stewart, another of my bottom five,
emphasises his career decline by appearing in both the Stoke and Liverpool
hall of shame. Here, certainly for Stoke, if the Burnley experience is anything to go by,
he falls into the 'costing a fortune into the bargain' category. However, just to cap it
all as far as the Liverpool account is concerned Stewart had a further millstone, that of
the 'brought in to replace... scenario', in this case, Ray Houghton (c.f. Hoyland for our
Lord God John Deary).
Another loan signing was Andy Saville who
pops up as Wigan's worst. I can't recall too much about his performances for
the Clarets. He's described as more suited to rugby league and "looked like his feet
gad been nailed to the floor." (Ahh, now I remember.) Andy suffered under the he'll
score the goals to keep us up' banner. And of course, he didn't.
Oldham's vote was Neil Moore,
who was "so awful he ended up at Rotherham". Err, not exactly. Clearly Waddle
saw his potential early. Other sins included not heading the ball straight and never
passing to an Oldham player (except, of course, when playing for Burnley). The conclusion
by the Latics fans was they didn't know which team he was playing for. Answers on a
postcard to Stan Ternent at the usual address.
However Stan, now comes the bad news. Graham
Branch is cited by Tranmere as being as good as Best on his day.
Unfortunately that's Pete Best. Thankfully they off-loaded him to Stockport when finding
out "what a lazy sod he was" they now assume he vanished into obscurity. Not
quite.
North of the border we have Wayne Biggins, Celtic's
candidate. Here is where the least scientific theory as to a players ability comes
into play, namely the 'can't be any good with a name like that' argument. Well he was not
exactly at the peak of his career at this stage ably demonstrated by not scoring for them
albeit in only a handful of games. He was OK for the Clarets, and so it was a little sad
to read that bit.
So who are the other possible misfits? Well there's Tony
Hancock who I once saw, at Chesterfield I think, miss-time a jump for a ball by
about half an hour. One for the future, we sensibly couldn't wait that long and offloaded
him to Preston. I think he broke his leg soon after. Insurance job if ever there was one.
Then there's Gerry Gow, whose tackles also seemed to be from a different
time-zone. And then there was someone whose first name escapes me, and allegedly played up
front, called Lawrence, could have been Phil, whose best contribution came
at Gillingham in the mid-eighties when he got me a complimentary ticket. I sat beside him
in the stand. Finally, and yes I know that makes six, we have to have a keeper in there,
so who better than 'The' Mark Kendall. 'Nuf said.
Cluggo
April-May 1999
