Thetownend.com

.....apparently very much in the frame to become Wenger's, Director of Football at the Arse   :shock:

Ha ha, brilliant. Fair play to him.

Saw that on SSN earlier this morning, would be a bit of a step up from Reading.

I always liked Nicky Hammond ...

I wrote a letter to him in order to try and get some goalkeeper coaching off of him for Rhys when he was younger ... and although he was unable to do it due to first team commitments at the time .. he wrote back with a long letter .. words of advice .. tips .. and wished me and the team well.

Had respect for him after that ...

As a player when he was onform he was better than Digby .. sadly when he was off form .. he was awful .. but I still think he was a bloody good keeper overall

Link here:

http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,,2072074,00.html

Fair play to him, hes worked hard to get their

Fatbury im not saying this just to disagree but he was never better than digby.Good luck to him though

Met him once. Thought he was very short.

Scored past him when I was about 8, never much of a 'keeper from memory and despite the silly barnet he's made an excellent career for himself in the upper echelons of football albeit a career which developed on the back of Reading's ascension up the football ladder.

To be fair Digby/Hammond era was class, if Diggers had a dodgy spell Hammond came in and did a decent job, then if Hammond fucked up Digby came in and kept the number one shirt for ages.  Yeah Hammond made severe fuck ups in his time but he was a decent understudy to the great man.

shut up

shut up

Thats what I was trying to say ... Hammond wasnt better than Digby overall but could be when Digby was off form and he was on

Does he still have a girls voice?

Always reminded me of Tin Tin

From memory, he put in one of the best one off goalkeeping displays I've ever seen, think it was against Barnsley (could be Bradford?) keeping a clean sheet.  He also had a blinder quite close to that game, maybe West Ham.

same as

I remember a clean sheet Hammond kept against Barnsely in 92/93 (1-0 win) - I can recall a potential 1-on-1 situation which resulted in Hammond defusing the situation with a clever dummy.

Yeah it was the Barnsley match. We went 1-0 up early on with a penalty but it was all Barnsley for the rest of the game and he was outstanding that day; made a double save etc.

Thing is he could do that and then a month later away to Peterborough he threw that howler and people tend to remember them more.

That Barnsley match was the only home game I missed all season, as my brothers car broke down, I remember being devastated at the time!!

Nicky Summerbee was brought down for the penalty I believe (and it was a dive).

Hammond was linked the Chief Exec job at Villa when they was taken over - reckon he has someone putting his name around

I dont think he needed to Power to People as he has done (and I hate to say it with it being Reading) am amazing job down there - believe he was hugely responsible for the Irish link up which has produced the likes of Shane Long and Kevin Doyle.

Fuck me he obviously talks a good game :?

In fairness, he did have two absolutely blinding games in a row in our promotion to the Premiership season - West Ham away and Barnsley at home which undoubtedly won us 6 points.

Other than that though, he was gash and I will never EVER forgive him for Peterborough away.

Still, Wenger wasn't much of a player, nor was Ferguson or Mourinho.

Just goes to show :shrug:

I went to the Barnsely game - it must've been that or the cup loss against Oldham that was a Kid-a-Quid fixture... There would have been no other way my dad would've took me to two games in a row otherwise... the tosser.

Nicky Hammond is obviously good at his new job and fair play to him. He's one of many players that became more established in football after retiring from playing.

He was never Gash!

He had his strengths and weaknesses as most lower league keepers do. He was a better shot stopper generally than Digby, and was marginally less iffy about coming for crosses, but his command of his defence was weaker, and his kicking was simply dreadful (the pass back rule screwed his career pretty much).

However, in comparison to some of the shite we've had in goal since, the Digby/Hammond era was a fucking golden age.

This is the first time since those days that I can remember us having decent back up to our first choice keeper.

I'm afraid he was.

Apart from the two games I mentioned he was absolutely shit - FACT!

He kept Digby out of the team for a while. But he was inconsistent.

NMH

He kept Digby out of the team for a while. But he was inconsistent.

NMH