Best/Worst City Tranfer Fees

John Docherty certainly brought some rubbish to Valley Parade but as you say we got good money for Phill Badd and he brought Sean McCarthy to the club and again moved on for good money.

 

In my lifetime:

Best value for money: James Hanson/Peter Beagrie - Found it hard to decide between the two. One helped reignite my love for the game with his partnership with Wells, helping us to promotion and scoring one of the most important goals in our recent history at Villa Park. The other was a wizard and a vital weapon in our promotion to the big time. Crazy the pocket change we paid for these two to what they contributed.

Worst Value for money: David Hopkin - Unlike his managerial stint it wasn’t really his fault, but paying £2.5 mil for a player who got injured and barely kicked a ball for us. What a total waste.

Best signing for a fee overall: Lee Mills - He was the player I pretended to be when playing with my mates, without his goals and all round play we would have never tasted the big time. Thanks Port Vale, oh and thanks for Mark Marshall to.

Worst fee signing overall: Aaron McLean - Difficult one he had competition, but after getting to watch Wells/Hanson and then the hype McLean brought with him, what a complete waste of space, and he didn’t have bad injuries to excuse him.

Best free: Stuart McCall - Don’t really think it needs an explanation.

Worst free: To many to decide, we’ve had a lot of waste of wages over the years.

 

Ironic that many seem to forget the injury at Darlington and we never saw the best from Hopkin, without doubt the Hanson deal was a great signing he was struggling by the time he went to Sheffield United but again £250,000 was ultimately the correct decision, although I didnt agree with the way Rahic tried to make it out he was holding a gun to the clubs head, he wanted to talk to United and who could blame him it was a great financial carrot for the lad.

 

Manchester City.

 

thanks

 

think I was mixing it up with the Jamie Lawrence one

 

The blend of that promotion to the Prem team was superb. A really well put together squad with a couple of additions later in the season to see us over the line just about. I enjoyed the Prem years and some big wins but the signings for the promotion team were almost perfection really and the football was outstanding at times.

 

On the promotion/ prem team Andy O’Brien was very underrated I thought. Came through youth team but went to make nearly 200 appearances for a good Newcastle side then under robson for quite a bit. And stayed in the premier league for nearly ten years after leaving us. Plus playing 26 times for Ireland. Was solid as houses

 

Just after we had Mark Bower come through the ranks too. We've not had many players make it into our first team and stay there.

 

It was a magnificent team. Absolutely loved that season.

 

What's always annoyed me us our inability to command large transfer fees.

Peterborough seem to sell for 3-5 million routinely, where we sell Well for a fraction of that.

Before anyone says it, it's not down to Rhodes either - remember selling a Premier League defender in Andy O'Brien for peanuts as well?

Even Geoff couldn't get proper money for our best players.

 

Was tough when O’Brien went as our relegation was all but confirmed and I think O’Brien has a clause in his contract about being allowed to stay in premier league if a club came in. Who can blame him really

 

Don't blame O'B at all, fantastic defender.

 

"Jimmy the Tree"

 

Robbie James was a good signing by the dreaded JD, if I recall also on a free?

 

I didn't realise John Docherty singed Robbie, his better days were passed him by the time he came to Valley Parade but what an all action player, another player left us too soon.

 

Those bloody cigars...he probably singed a few of the poor b#ggers

 

Reading back through the thread, it's nice to see Hanson mentioned several times as 'best value for money'.

I'm really disappointed there was a period of time where Hanson was looked down upon, but feel happy it's consigned to the history books once and for all.

 

Yes if you sign enough one will be good.

 

The Redknapp Principle