Dedicated to former Norwich City Players from 1980
The
Worse Players of All Time !
The June 1999 edition of the excellent football magazine Four Four Two had a feature in which fans of each English league and Scottish premier side nominated the worse player of all time to represent their team. Of these 102 teams, 10 selected players with a Norwich City connection suggesting that those to pass through Carrow Road on their careers are not always succesful. Here then is a complete listing of the worse players of all time and for those with a Canary connection, description of why they were chosen.This material is copyright Four Four Two magazine and it's inclusion is not meant to offend or deny 442 of any revenue.
The Worse Players of All Time
ENGLAND
ARSENAL - Gus Ceasar
ASTON VILLA - Tommy Craig
BARNET - Danny Mills (no not that one !)
BARNSLEY - Dave Regis
BIRMINGHAM CITY - Richie Moran
BLACKBURN ROVERS - Reg Blore
BLACKPOOL - Ted McDougall
"Quite a lot of players tend to come to Blackpool at the end of their careers looking at it as a retirement home at the seaside or something along those lines. Ted MCDougall has to be the worse of the lot. We used to think that he had put the boots on the wrong foot or something" (Mark Hilary)
BOLTON - Steve Elliott
BOURNEMOUTH - Wayne Fereday
BRADFORD - David Campbell
BRENTFORD - Murray Jones
BRIGHTON - Damian Hilton
"It's probably the guy we got on loan last season, Damian Hilton. He was just plain and simply crap. Since the club has been in bit of a mess lately we've actually had our worse players over the last few seasons. Right now our keeper Mark Walton is right up there with the worse of them. He has got to be the worse keeper I have ever seen, some of his mistakes have been outright comical. He's also a fat bastard!" (Phil Blackman)
BRISTOL CITY - Ricky Chandler
BRISTOL ROVERS - Andy Spring
BURNLEY - Nick Pickering
BURY - Nigel Smith
CAMBRIDGE UNITED - Neil Horwood
CARDIFF CITY - Steve Lynex
CARLISLE - Gary Watson
CHARLTON - Andy Jones
CHELSEA - Doug Rougvie
CHESTER - Neil Fisher
CHESTERFIELD - Alan Boxall
COLCHESTER - Les Taylor
CREWE - Dennis Murray
COVENTRY - Les Sealey
CRYSTAL PALACE - Valerien Ismael
DARLINGTON - Lee Brydon
DERBY - Roy Greenwood
EVERTON - Mike Milligan
"That would have to be Mike Milligan. He arrived from Oldham with the reputation of being a real battler but when he got here he was just a complete waste of space. He'd got Norman Whiteside sent off whilst still at Oldham but while we were willign to forgive and forget, he didn't seem to be bothered trying. After just a season he was sold back to Oldham and that for a real cut-price fee so we lost money on him as well" (Barry Spencer, Everton London Supporter's Association)
EXETER - Robbie Turner
FULHAM - Mark Cooper
GILLINGHAM - Brendan Place
GRIMSBY - Brian Laws
HALIFAX - Andy Stafford
HARTLEPOOL - Mike Fagan
HUDDERSFIELD - Gordon Tucker
HULL - David Bamber
LEEDS - Frank Strandli
IPSWICH - Graham Harbey
LEICESTER - Mark Robins
"You'd do well to beat Mark Robins (in worse player of all time). He was rubbish when he arrived and he was rubbish when he left. There really isn't much else to say about him. He was really really crap and that's all the people of Leicester can remember about him"(Kevin Wells)
LEYTON ORIENT - Rudi Hedman
LINCOLN - Joe Bonson
LIVERPOOL - Paul Stewart
LUTON - Steve Elliott
MACCLESFIELD - Richard Landon
MAN CITY - Mike Walsh
"The worse that I can remember was Mike Walsh, a central defender who played for us about 13 or 14 years ago. He was absolutely rubbish. We signed him from Fort Lauderdale Strikers in the US - that should have been enough to make us suspicious. Still we never dreamt that he could have been so influenced by America - his tackling was definately inspired by the US version of football"(Paul Howarth)
MAN UTD - Alan Foggon
MANSFIELD - Joe Laidlaw
MIDDLESBROUGH - Peter Davenport
MILLWALL - Lee Luscombe
NEWCASTLE - Wayne Fereday
NORTHAMPTON - Chris O'Donnell
NORWICH - Dean Coney
A stiker managing to score just one goal for your club isn't exactly doing the best of jobs, is he? Especially as that goal accidentally came off his knee. Eventually he took off for non-league Farnborough..a level more suited to his skills. To be fair, Coney actually wasn't as bad as David Fairclough but as Fairclough figured in just two games for the club you'll have to hope that he was better than he seemed to be from those two showings"(Andi Ansall)
NOTTS FOREST - Justin Fashanu
Justin Fashanu arrived as the first black player to be tranferred for more than £1million and of course after scoring the BBC Goal of the Season against Liverpool, expectations were high. He just failed to deliver. He was really poor - missing open goals and so forth - and in the end I think he was actually sacked by the club"(Adam Chantrey)
NOTTS COUNTY - Bob Caitlin
OLDHAM - Neil Moore
Neil Moore, a centre half, was so awful that he ended up at Rotherham (not exactly true - Steve)... He was so bad the fans didn't know which team he was playing for. He couldn't head the ball in the right direction and his passes never went to an Oldham player"(David Ogden)
OXFORD - Nick Cusack
PETERBOROUGH - Derek Payne
PLYMOUTH - Nicky Hammond
PORTSMOUTH - Scott McGarvey
PORT VALE - Rogier Koordes
PRESTON - Tony Lormor
.. Tony Lormor, supposedly a targetman, who's the only guy I've ever come across who loses height when he jumps.."(Pete Sanderson)
QPR - Vinnie Jones
READING - Simon Sheppard
ROCHDALE - Matt Dickins
ROTHERHAM - Gijsbert Bos
SCARBOROUGH - Ian Blackstone
SCUNTHORPE - Kerry Dixon
SHEF UTD - Mark Beard
SHEF WED - Colin West
SHREWSBURY - Darren Simkin
SOUTHAMPTON - Lew Chatterley
SOUTHEND - Phil Gridelet
STOCKPORT - Brian Lloyd
STOKE - Paul Stewart
SUNDERLAND - Steve Hetzke
SWANSEA - Stewart Phillips
SWINDON - Roy Greenwood
TORQUAY - Scott Stamps
TOTTENHAM - John Lacy
TRANMERE - Graham Brach
WALSALL - Dale Banton
WATFORD - Kerry Dixon
WEST BROM - Paul Williams
WEST HAM - Lee Chapman
WIGAN - Andy Saville
WIMBLEDON - Dave Swindlehurst
WOLVES - Rob Hindmarch
WREXHAM - Ollie Kearns
WYCOMBE - Mark Foran
YORK - Wayne Osborne
SCOTLAND
ABERDEEN - John Inglis
CELTIC - Wayne Biggins
"..as we entered the 1990s things went belly up. As the club neared
bankruptcy, McNeill, Brady and Macari combined to bring an almost endless
stream of diddy after numpty, numpty after diddy through the Parkhead
gates. Tony Cascarino, Martin Hayes and Ian Andrews are just three that
spring to mind. Still the unfortunately named Wayne Biggins has to take
the mouldy biscuit. I mean good footballers just don't have names like
that and he certainly wasn't a good footballer"(Joe Gillan)
DUNDEE - Peter Millar
DUNDEE UTD - Sergio
DUNFERMLINE - Criag Robertson
HEARTS - Hans Eskilsson
KILMARNOCK - John McEachran
MOTHERWELL - Alan Sneddon
RANGERS - Oleg Salenko
ST JOHNSTONE - Peter Fyhr.
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