Short City careers

We need more light-hearted, somewhat pointless, threads. Let me help.

So it was another dull damp dreary day here, and various threads have mentioned dull dreary players...and then Vanhala was mentioned for his short City career...and this got me thinking: who has had the shortest, most insignificant career for City?

We need to look at those players who've made only 1 total appearance for City, but more than that, only 1 substitute appearance. I make it that there are 21 of these, excluding players currently at the club.

In the league, we have: Clarkson, Flett, Foley, Jordan Graham, Grodowski, Ryan Harrison, Horne, Milner, Penney, Sansam, Shariff, Smithard, Darren Stephenson, Vanhala, Verity, and Jake Wright.

In the FA Cup we have Nathan Curtis; in the League Cup we have Hardy and Jules; in the minor cups we have Mike Guy and Sam Wright.

I don't have any record of when Milner or Guy made it onto the pitch, but even so, it would be difficult to beat one player's mark:

Lewis Clarkson, who came on in the 87th minute. That must surely be the record!

RCB (purveyor of high quality (but questionably useful) information)

 

My fellow forumites -- blame @Bigrod for the following! (And if you choose to skip the rest of this post, I won't be offended.)

League:

1969/70: Michael Milner (7.2.70, Barnsley away)
1995/6: Steve Foley (2.9.95, Wycombe home)
1996/7: Christian Sansam (10.9.96, Sheffield Utd away); Matthew Smithard (5.10.96, Southend home); Jari Vanhala (17.12.96, Reading home)
1997/8: Daniel Verity (13.4.98, Bury away)
2005/6: Jake Wright (4.2.06, Colchester away)
2009/10: Ryan Harrison (5.4.10, Macclesfield home); Louis Horne (2.1.10, Cheltenham home)
2010/11: Alex Flett (7.5.11, Crewe home); Darren Stephenson (26.3.11, Shrewsbury home)
2013/4: Lewis Clarkson (1.1.14, Notts Cty away); Jordan Graham (1.2.14, Wolves away)
2016/7: Matt Penney (30.4.17, Rochdale away)
2017/8: Joel Grodowski (19.3.18, Doncaster away)

FA Cup:

2012/3: Nathan Curtis (18.12.12, Brentford away)

League Cup:

2000/1: Adam Hardy (25.9.00, Darlington home)
1990/1: Mark Jules (30.10.90, Tottenham away)

Minor Cups:

1981/2: Mike Guy (15.8.81, Hull home)
2016/7: Sam Wright (9.11.16, Morecambe away)

Take that!

I removed Shariff from the list, as I'd missed his second appearance for us, in the League cup. Of this group, I think only Jake Wright and Mark Jules went on to have decent careers at league level.

RCB

 

Aye! Someone out there probably has pics of those last three, and will now trump both of us! Come and have a go if you think you're anorakish enough!

One wonders sometimes about the stories of these players -- however briefly, they did make it into a proper first-team match, but for whatever reason couldn't (or maybe didn't want to) turn that into a league career.

RCB

 

For those of us of a certain age...who could forget him? A bit of a shame, really, that that is what we immediately think of after an otherwise good career.

But for your answer, see my list above -- Lewis Clarkson, who came on in the 87th minute for his one and only appearance for us. I know I have a few gaps in my records, but as it stands, he's got the record for shortest appearance.

RCB