What could've been

[Ozzie]

With YouTube down last night I ended up watching Amazon Prime and the Leeds/ Wilkinson film was highlighted so watched a bit, ended up watching it all.

Howard taken away from us and backed with money. Involved quite a few Wednesday players too. (another George H route with Chapman's & Sterland's transfers, have we always been useless at selling players for fees?)

 

Bit galling seeing as they were saying Wilko's success sparked the City. 

[Reesh]

11 minutes ago, Ozzie said:

With YouTube down last night I ended up watching Amazon Prime and the Leeds/ Wilkinson film was highlighted so watched a bit, ended up watching it all.

Howard taken away from us and backed with money. Involved quite a few Wednesday players too. (another George H route with Chapman's & Sterland's transfers, have we always been useless at selling players for fees?)

 

Bit galling seeing as they were saying Wilko's success sparked the City. 

Wilkinson had gone stale at Wednesday and latterly he wasted a fair whack on signings at ours.

Chapman shit on us by going to France before joining Forest then Leeds.

We got a reasonable fee for Mel, Atko used it on Palmer who helped keep us up, we replaced Mel with Roly for less than half the fee Rangers paid us.

Wilko had some success in the market with players he paid fees for with Hirst, Chapman, Marwood, Worthington and Pearson being standouts.

However he did have some stinkers with Ian Cranson, West, Larry May,  Ian Hesford, Garry Thompson, Mark Chamberlain and Mark Proctor.

 

[Owling_Wolf]

Wilko had a bit of a crowd reputation of getting the best out of players who'd been big / fair money flops elsewhere - Chapman being perhaps the best known of his 'rescues' - or picking up bargains like Lawrie Madden. It was also felt that - to the bloke in the street - he couldn't be trusted with big (by our standards at the time) fees as several were flops. (Thompson, Stainrod, etc.)  Also, strangely perhaps, some signings that were to be very successful later on had poor beginnings.  Nigel Pearson wasn't popular straight out of the box and it would have seemed amazing to his crowd critics early on if you could have told them what he'd go on to do. Several Wilko c.b. signings turned out to be awful and it was assumed by plenty that Pearson was just another one.  Another was 18 y.o. Hirsty: Wilko took him out of the side to protect him from the crowd, replacing him for a run of games with the 16 y.o. Carl Bradshaw.  

Wilko was widely regarded as having favourites and picking them with little regards to form.  Chris Morris was a very useful player in our then formation (i.m.o.) but seemed to be detested by plenty at the time. I can remember Mark Chamberlain having an excellent home game but when we went to Forest next game and the team came over the tannoy there were significant boos when he'd been dropped for Marwood. (Plus the usual comments about Marwood doing Wilko's garden and cleaning his car.)  

The crowd often seemed to influence a player's career with us. Peter Shirtliffe was effectively driven out of S6 by the boo boys, only to return as a mature, experienced player after successfully leading Charlton to playoff success against L**ds. 

Talking of the Sterland sale fee, well before Roly's time Eustace spent a fair chunk of that on Darren Wood (sp?) who was not popular. 

(All the above from memory so detail unchecked.)

Edited February 9, 2023 by Owling_Wolf

[Reesh]

10 minutes ago, Owling_Wolf said:

Wilko had a bit of a crowd reputation of getting the best out of players who'd been big / fair money flops elsewhere - Chapman being perhaps the best known of his 'rescues' - or picking up bargains like Lawrie Madden. It was also felt that - to the bloke in the street - he couldn't be trusted with big (by our standards at the time) fees as several were flops. (Thompson, Stainrod, etc.)  Also, strangely perhaps, some signings that were to be very successful later on had poor beginnings.  Nigel Pearson wasn't popular straight out of the box and it would have seemed amazing to his crowd critics early on if you could have told them what he'd go on to do. Several Wilko c.b. signings turned out to be awful and it was assumed by plenty that Pearson was just another one.  Another was 18 y.o. Hirsty: Wilko took him out of the side to protect him from the crowd, replacing him for a run of games with the 16 y.o. Carl Bradshaw.  

Wilko was widely regarded as having favourites and picking them with little regards to form.  Chris Morris was a very useful player in our then formation (i.m.o.) but seemed to be detested by plenty at the time. I can remember Mark Chamberlain having an excellent home game but when we went to Forest next game and the team came over the tannoy there were significant boos when he'd been dropped for Marwood. (Plus the usual comments about Marwood doing Wilko's garden and cleaning his car.)  

The crowd often seemed to influence a player's career with us. Peter Shirtliffe was effectively driven out of S6 by the boo boys, only to return as a mature, experienced player after successfully leading Charlton to playoff success against L**ds. 

Talking of the Sterland sale fee, well before Roly's time Eustace spent a fair chunk of that on Darren Wood (sp?) who was not popular. 

(All the above from memory so detail unchecked.)

Sterland went in late Feb 89 pal, we signed Wood the month before. Roly joined Nov 89.

Mel paid for Palmer and Whitton, Palmers debut at Plough Lane was Mels last.

Bradshaw was 18 when he made his debut, he is only 10 month younger that Hirsty.

 

[Andyben]

[mkowlthesexynewversion]

If Wilko had not left, replaced by Useless, then would we have got Atkinson.

And would we have won a league title if Atkinson had stayed at the expense of Leeds

All conjecture - 

I just remain happy Wilko finished the job Jack Charlton started

[Reesh]

@Ozzieany reply 

[Ozzie]

2 minutes ago, Reesh said:

@Ozzieany reply 

Do you need one from me? 😁

 

Still think our board and Council are very short sighted and don't think of the bigger picture.

Mind we did get Ron 🏆

[Tank_Owl2,0]

I’m not arguing with the majority of the names that people have said were flops, but I think saying Gary Thompson was a flop is a bit harsh I just don’t think he was as good as many expected given the money we spent on him. That might sound like splitting hairs but even by that stage big money signings like tricky Trev were already over £1M. So we got what we paid for is what I’m saying.

What might or might not have happened with Wilko of course is all hypothetical. I kind of agree with @Owling_Wolf I just think he gone a bit stale because he wasn’t getting the support with the right type of signings. And before people say he did get money, that’s true but it’s the wages of the signings which is likely to have been the issue which changed when BFR arrived. I have no proof but I suspect the wages of his Championship winning team was significantly higher than what he’d enjoyed at Hillsborough.