Memory Lane Exciting transfers and successful transfers

[Yorkshire Blue]

Sure, an often quoted fact.

Truth is, I don’t recall Gray being that quick. At least not on the eye anyway.

Edit: similar I guess to Powell and Cardwell recently, who were highly under appreciated for their pace, but both very quick

Nah, he was quick.

You don’t often get to see footballers properly stretch their legs and hit full speed. The likes of Husbands, Jason Harris and Yemi Abiodun would occasionally and then they’d find they’d run out of pitch.

Forwards basically only play half the pitch anyway, retreating to the half way line. That leaves 55 yards and the keeper will usually be 20 yards out from goal. So that’s just 35 yards to get up to top speed and then slow down enough to do something with the ball - and that 35 yards decreases when the keeper runs to the ball.

You therefore don’t get many 30 or 40 yard sprints. This is particularly the case when you have Wayne Gray’s pace as teams sit deeper to defend it as they won’t even push up all the way to the half way line.

Instead where you saw it was with stuff like goalkicks. Our keeper was particularly poor at distributing, having a weak kick that didn’t get much beyond the halfway line and poor directional aim. Wayne Gray was still able to get to close to these kicks from 10-15 yards away to jump against the defender and prevent them having a clean header in the short time the ball was in the air for.

 

[rigsby]

He was a wonderful player and a real favourite of mine but he was a club record signing who started 88 league games for us across four seasons before being sold for a loss.

A player of his talent should have played more for us (he fell out of favour with both Murphy and Spud IIRC).

I think he just about counts as a success because he helped keep us up with a very good first season and then when he returned to the starting XI under Fry plus he was still a good enough player that we were able to recoup most of his transfer fee when we sold him to Charlton.

During one of our toughest times he was overheard advising his team mates on how to fake an injury if you want month off. So not surprised about his games per season ratio.

 

[annie1954]

Anton Ferdinand falls into both the "success" and "failure" categories. Was excellent for us for his first season but then his legs went and he was a liability after that.

i will always remember poor Anton when we played away to millwall the Racial Abuse he received from there supporters that day was totally disgusting

 

[bazzashrimper]

Sure, an often quoted fact.

Truth is, I don’t recall Gray being that quick. At least not on the eye anyway.

Edit: similar I guess to Powell and Cardwell recently, who were highly under appreciated for their pace, but both very quick

In the 7.7 seconds goal, gray was down the line in about 4 seconds putting the cross over

 

[Sandbach Shrimper]

I remember there being a lot of excitement around the signing of Simon Cox. He did pretty well for us to be fair, averaging almost a goal every three games.

 

[bluesfansince1952]

As a disappointment, but someone that started with a bang I'm going to throw in Micky Tuohy.

Made his debut on the opening day of the season at home to Carlisle, scored the only goal in the win, diving header under challenge from a great cross from the right, from Micky Stead. Then we were drawn away at Brentford in the LC opening round, we won 4-1 at Griffin Park and he bagged a hat-trick, after that he completely drifted off the scene and returned to non-league in the midlands.

My success will obviously be Colin Morris. Joined us from Burnley with Derrick Parker, costing £3k of the £10k combined deal.

Diminutive winger, playing on the left, but right footed. Stayed with us for 3 seasons 76 to '79. scored 25 goals in 133 appearances. Some memorable ones include the winner at Col U in the 1-0 win there in March/April '76. Winning goal at Reading on the opening day of the triumphant 77-78 season and the brace away at Bolton in the League Cup, our first win against a top division side in a cup competition. That tie being two legs and us drawing 0-0 at the Hall in the second leg.

In three seasons his value had jumped to £100k and we swapped him to Blackpool for Derek Spence. Not a bad progression in his time with us.

I was in UK at the time and found my way to at Griffin Park that night. Not that it matters but my memory is the score was 4-2 and Tuohy scored twice but he looked like a beast and someone we would be selling on before very long. And, I am pretty sure Colin Morris played also and very useful he looked as well.
We looked class that night and a cut above Brenfford.
Did Tuohy ever score again for us?
And hard to believe in those days Brentford struggled to keep us with us.

 

[Strykr]

He did look a different class for the first few games. Unfortunately it was only a handful before the injury.

I remember he looked decent in the first half of his first game and that was it

 

[shrimpzfordinner]

I was excited when we signed richie foran for some reason, except for the Burnley game he didnt do too much though sadly

 

[Leeboy]

I was excited when we signed richie foran for some reason, except for the Burnley game he didnt do too much though sadly

yup - another one (on paper anyway) who was arguably the most technically gifted, experienced, had a good pedigree and high expectations*


*see also Billy Paynter, Michael Ricketts, Graeme Jones, Jake Hyde.............