Thetownend.com

Up there with the worst players in a town shirt I've ever seen.   Utter, utter gash.   

Did you ever see Slabber?

Don't think slabber would be in my shittest town 11 - I'd certainly have Moses ashikodi and Islam feruz ahead of him up front.

That's not to say he wasn't totally shite, but we have been blessed in recent years so the competition is strong!

My DNA before he fucked off out the door earlier. Probably from tinternet somewhere.

just think pericard played alongside zidane and trezeguet!

Petr Mikolanda has entered the chat  :eek:

Slabber was far better than Feruz! He put in a bit of effort. With Feruz it was pretty much playing with 10 men. I have never seen a player with such poor game intelligence for Swindon. He didn't have a clue when to make a run or general game positioning. I guess Taylor Curran is probably the worst player Swindon have had in recent times.

I tried making a shit Town XI a while back and I had about eight strikers and struggled for the rest of the team. Definitely a hit and miss position over the years.

I raise you a Harry Agombar.....

Both only in the team because of Daddy.   Curran played far more games of course, not his fault at all.    I'm shit but don't have a rich daddy who knows a dodgy chairman.

didn't know Feruz gave up football and was reportedly selling caps

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thescottishsun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/5537510/celtic-islam-feruz-chelsea-hats-caps-tajiri/amp/

Surprised by that, we've had shed loads of dross in every position.   2, at least, go straight in from last year - Curran and Kovar.

Well, after Chelsea paid him a million quid a year for 5 years before the age of 21, he can do what the fuck he likes for the rest of his life.

Quite right forgot about Agombar! I never actually saw him play.

For anyone wondering if Simpson could return on loan with a ‘right to buy’ clause included in the loan agreement - the answer is yes. It’s fairly common.

RE: Austin (of the Charlie persuasion)


He definitely was playing as QPR fucked up my bet! He played pretty poor tbh but for a header in the first half (I think). His biggest success was some continued shithousery that resulted in a Swansea player getting his second yellow. I thought all round it was an "un-Warburton" type of instructed performance. Except for when Luke Amos hit the post and Lyndon Dykes (teehee  :girlgiggle:) failed to score a one-on-one late on.

If it weren't for his shithousery, Austin would have been pretty anonymous in that match so it's possible as to why you think he didn't play v Chief Led, Swan Vesta (Swansea, Vetch Field for the answer to the Times Cryptic Crossword Clue :) )


Athletico Mince, I hope?! Love the expression/idiom though - the last time I heard it used in a similar way was when someone was describing David Davis MP  :nod:

Talking of shit forwards, none are as shit as Shaun Close, end of shit player thread, and he played 12 times for Spurs first team. Feruz and Slabber were like Maradona compared to Close.

His finest hour was running around a lot in the 0-0 with 9 men at Brentford.
Steve White said he was the best at receiving the ball at the club.
Never quite sure what he meant by that.
Maybe he might have benefited from a proper run of games but that was never going to happen.

Not far behind was Roy Greenwood. Signed from Hull for £100,000.

Isn’t it strange how we could pay decent transfer fees way back when.

Derby County ;) and we only paid £25k for Roy back then, raising to £50k if he hit goal targets! he couldnt hit a 10 foot target on a barn door!

A few months later we paid £85,000 for Alan Mayes and for Andy Rowland the year after which were our highest transfer fees paid at the time (probably the equivalent of about £1m each now.

And then the year later we signed one of the worst players ever, great David Peach for £150k which was out record transfer fee for about another 10 years!

Surely you got a f*cking goalkeeper! Do you have no short term memory!!!!  :doh: :D

Glenn Cockerill was signed around that time as well wasn't he? A similar kind of fee, maybe a bit less but with similarly underwelming results...

Keith Scott £500k from non league Wycombe Wanderers. I win.

Couldnt think of a worse pair.

Yeah, Glenn Cockerill cost a few bob, but he did go on to much better things. Not sure why it didn't work out for him at Swindon.

I googled Shaun to ascertain whatever happened to him.  Looks like he scored 10 in 27 at Barnet after leaving us but then a nosedive and a clattering halt (caused by injury or self awareness I know not)

Even Wiki hilariously damns Shaun with faint praise.

Shaun Charles Close (born 8 September 1966) is an English former association football centre forward. He started his career as a youth player for Tottenham Hotspur, then had a spell with Halmstad in Sweden and after that, spent a season at Bournemouth. In 1989, he was signed by Swindon Town manager Osvaldo Ardiles, In 1993, he spent a season with Barnet, before moving down to non-league with Bishop's Stortford. In his later years took up Lawn Bowls and became quite proficient.

He did cost us £80k and was a great player everywhere else other than at Swindon! made a good name for himself at Southampton after leaving us playing well over 200 top division games and even made the England squad once for a friendly.

Agreed!

Surprised nobody mentioned Ben Hutchinson. Right up there with feruz and ashikodi in not giving a fuck. The others were mostly just shit but tried.

Hutch was absolutely terrible but in the main I don't count loan players as they either give everything or nothing, I do though make an exception for Kovar!

Doh, indeed :)

The club is looking at a partnership with Letraset

Word.

Roy Greenwood was signed after Mayes, Rowland and Peach. Mayes had gone by the time Greenwood joined.
I agree he wasn't that good, though.

I disagree about Shaun Close being shite. He wasn't a bad player, but couldn't score goals, which understandably clouds fans' judgement of a player, especially when that player is a striker....!. In the Town team at that time it wasn't a huge problem because there were plenty of others who could....besides, he did score against Oxford.

My memory has a few holes at times :)

Mayes signed in Feb 1979 and left December 80.
Greenwood signed in Feb 1980 and left in May 82.

So they crossed over for a fair few months, he was still pretty awful though!

Guess Jason Drysdale was pretty dreadful for £350,000.

Fola Onibuje's first touch was possibly the worst I've seen for a professional forward.

Patrick Collins

Keith Scott
Scored a lot

Managed 1 goal ever 4 games he played for us (12 in 50 games), certainly that doesn't make him get even close to this list.

At Anfield,too.

Scored in his 1st 2 games for Swindon, in the Premier League and then scored 4 goals in his first 7 games for us in the Premier League, scored the only goals in our first ever Premier League win too! yes it went down hill after then but no way is he anywhere near our worst striker IMO.

Seeing as this got deleted... :hmmm:

Couldn't trap a bag of cement though.

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Matt Hewlett

David Cole

Must have been me accidentally when I split the posts out of the transfer rumours thread :) sorry.

I remember him. Must have been around 2002?

No probs. Not sure who's "modding" atm. They all keep leaving  ::)

2000 to 2005 he was with us and 7 years with Shitty before that, a limited player.

David fucking Prutton

Yes

Adrian Whitbread was a disappointment for half a million

Kim Heiselberg and Richard Dryden who was just fat and Immobile.

Adi Viveash second time around was atrocious as well, he couldn’t actually move anymore.

Prutton is almost a special category of people who were clearly good players during their career, but performed abjectly for us. Him, Tony Thorpe and Jamie Cureton spring to mind. Maybe harsh on Cureton.

A lot of the other names in this thread were just terrible footballers.

Yes,I did mean crap for us. Not only that,Danny Wilson broke up a good midfield to pick him every week,with Simon Ferry mostly,harshly demoted to the bench

Bit harsh to include Hewlett?
The guy played about 200 games for the club so that should put him in the good servant category.
Same for David Duke, but another who might also make it into a few people's STFC crap X1.

A few candidates from the Paul Hart tenure and I'm going to pick on Alassane N'Diaye.
Possibly playing in Kuwait after knocking around most of the teams in the former Soviet bloc by the look of it.
A special mention for Mike Grella as well. Now a pundit across the pond.

Nigel Gray -Yuk.

TBF he hit some form just before he got the detached retina that ended his career, early in his Town career he was awful but he got better.

Alan Navarro
Blair Sturrock
The rotund chap often seen on TV

Richard Dryden

Jason 'have you seen my glasses?' Drysdale

But he still nearly chipped Shilton from the half way line once ;)

Vivash just Oxford just before this. Didn't play much for us on loan in 2003, just a short spell from October. I remember him being good at L1 level; slow, but wily. His legs were just about to tottaly go and against a quick front line he was done if isolated.

Harsh on Sturrock. Kovar and Belford are the worst keepers I have seen for us in my opinion. Kovar probably edges it as he made more errors directly leading to goals.

I am surprised no one's mentioned Joey B yet.

Lawrie Sanchez & Terry Gibson

TBF Adi even in his prime had little pace but knew how to read a game.

Made his league debut for Swindon coming on vs Boro as a sub on the left wing! and was promptly subbed off inside 40 mins by Ossie!

Not to gorget Frank McAvinney

Another one from that era has to be Frank McAvenny.  In fact most of the team was crap from that era.

Sorry,  didn’t read back !!

We've had many and nearly every player was crap from 1981-1984

The forwrd line, as already stated, was awesome in the 90s and 00s!!!

Geddis, McAvenie, Keith Scott, Andy Mutch, Terry Gibson, Steve Cowe, Alex Meechan, Neal Fenn, Charlie Griffin, Mark McCammon, Alan Young, Kyle Lightbourne, Jo Kuffour, Eric Sabin.

If you backtrack to the late 80's you could have had Roy Wegerle

There were plenty from the McMahon era as we sold our better players or as he dismantled the old guard like Bodin, Ooh Shaun Taylor, Lingy and Fjortoft with sub standard typically older has beens.

As well as Drysdale, we spent £400K on Darren Bullock who after a few early good performances just became an unfit, poorly disciplined player. Gareth Hall coming in after Taylor left was particularly crap.

There were a few older more genuine pros who gave a shit like Walters, Brian Borrows and Alan Mcdonald. Alan Reeves and Bobby Howe stuck around long enough for ironic cult status.

Neil 'reinforce my shorts' Ruddock?

. Funny what we all remember. I loved Roy Wegerle. He just had no place in a Macari side. He had the audacity to pass the ball.

I also can't believe Steve Cowe is on the list of crap ex Town players. Granted he didn't score a lot of goals but I don't recall him being terrible a la Terry Gibson

I was having abit of fun with Norman who listed forwards from the 90's & oo's. Wegerle was a class player similar to Neil Webb but often drifted out of games making him look lazy.

I remember seeing Roy Wegerle tear Hull City a new one up there one night.

He definitely doesn’t deserve to be on any list of crap players

No he dosen't he was a very gifted footballer

I agree! That's why I didn't include him! 😂

Andy Mutch may have been ok if we had signed Steve Bull as well😀

I remember that too, both Jimmy Quinn and Dave Bamber could have had hat-tricks that night. I think Brian Horton got sacked by Hull after that match.

Bow legged as a very recent awful CF we plucked from non league

Stick a pin in the list of Colin Todd's signings in 2000/2001 season.

Kim 'pig farmer' Heiselberg

What about Marko Tuomela or Adrian Bakalli. Fuck that squad was full of "players" that spent less time on the pitch than one of the mascots.

Ben Martin. Signed because he was a family friend of King and 6ft 7, couldn’t actually play football though.

Not a great signing sure but did we ever even play him? Maybe a LDV trophy game but despite having a season ticket that season - I don’t think I ever saw him full stop

He came on in one EFL trophy game and in true King style he played up front. I remember seeing him in a couple of preseason friendlies and he was pretty terrible. Looking on wiki we sent him on loan to Lincoln and he didn’t play a game there either so he must have been bad.

Anyone mention John Buttigieg  ?

He was an international (umm Malta)

97 caps for Malta😮

In my time (basically post premier league)          



               Kovar

    Curran Drysdale Rose

Agombar Howe Whalley Duke

    Thorpe Slabber Pericard



Subs: Lanzano (GK), Nouble, Pook, Opara, Dossevi, Mikolanda, Prutton



Manager: John Sheridan
Assistant: Paul Hart
Coach: Maurice Malpas



I realise I have two left backs in there. Hardly going to make a difference, is it?

No way Howe and Duke get in there. Bobby Howe played over 100 games for us at Championship level and did have a few good games. Similarly Duke wasn’t truly atrocious and was a regular in a league 1 play-off team.

Comazzi has to get the nod in defence.

Duke and Howe played a lot for us granted, but at a constant source of frustration on a regular basis.

I'm sure there are worse players but flown under the radar without playing much. Agombar and Curran have the disadvantage of being recent so I still remember them.

You could probably field an entire 11 from the PdC era alone!

His first season definitely…

Truly awful:
Lanzano
Comazzi
Daniel Boateng - now he was truly awful!
Esajas
Atiku
Tehoue
Abdulla
Risser
Cibo - he was a cult hero but pretty woeful

Crap but shouldn’t have been:
Magera
Clarke

Fucking fuck the fuck off

Non vuoi ballare con Cibocchi?  :soapy tit wank:

On loan from Brentford I seem to remember. Didn't stay long

Duke was a decent winger with a very good delivery who couldn’t defend but we played at full back anyway for the most part.

Lilian Nalis anyone?

Good player...legs had gone.

George Barker one of the worst i have seen up front.

Ryan Harley. Absolutely no presence whatsoever. Like playing a ghost but not in the Martin peters sense.

Not read back

Dossevi been mentioned?

FFS Don’t you ever give that bloke a minute’s peace ?.   I liked him.

George Barker?

come on, he was useless. But not in my worst ever strikers list.

Supermarket Trolley, Slabber, Sutton, and that's just the 's' ones

Anton Rogers

He wasn’t very good, but Could take a good free kick

However, Harry made him look like the next Messi

Played sexy football, too. First sung at Port Vale.

Never really understood the "Duke dislike" to be honest

My irritation with him, is that he blamed every other cunt but himself.

Anton Rogers should not have been paid to play football

Only from May to December  ;)

He did have some technical ability and scored some fucking good goals.   A crap player in a crap side but nowhere near the Agombar/Curran level of crapness.

And Bessone who started off this whole thread.

well played Mr Callender

Mine was more that he was afraid of a tackle.

Ironically it was Billy Paynter (who is clearly nowhere near this list) that used to annoy me with the ability to blame everyone else.

Popped by for some transfer rumours, stayed for this... has anyone mentioned Dean Hooper yet?

He was second season wasn’t he?

He was not good, but he was a non-league long shot signing so I didn't find him annoying. It's the ones that have a previous career at pro clubs and then look like they've never seen a ball before are the ones that baffle me.

Not sure if I've mentioned it before but Roy Greenwood.

I'll paraphrase a piece about him on the much-missed 'Bring the Noise". It went:-

"When Roy Greenwood was at Derby, he was know for his turn of pace and his ginger beard. When he got to Swindon, the pace had gone and a ginger beard was not much use in tormenting opposition defences."

they have now.

aside, are the London Reds still a thing. someone was looking for a London group in Twitter yesterday

Yeah there is. But it's probably 50/50 with people that now live in London versus people that used to and moved away.

cheers Bob, got an official Twitter for the group? I'll try and find the tweet...

edit: bugger if I can find it now

Ah no nothing as organised as that, just a WhatsApp group Batch.

Risser wasn't that terrible. There's been worse than the former Namibian international. He's what I would call an "ambition player". No doubt the commitment and model pro from him. Also a gent in real life (I'm aware that doesn't count a jot on the pitch) too.

I think the trouble that comes from several players in the PdC era, is that they were paid above average for their ability/level. Fruitful if you were an average L2/decent NL level pro player and got picked up by the Italian scattergun.

Had Town signed Risser's brother Wilko (which Town very nearly did) then he likely would have made this list.

OR was Captain as well I believe? Scored a few decent goals and has a L2 title to boot. I can't really put him in a ShitXI.

Ibrahim Atiku however...it's kind of nuts for him. Had he obtained a work permit he would've signed pro terms with Manchester United; he was never going to be the next Michael Essien though  :nonono:

My ultimate for me is always Yinka Casal. That guy managed to obtain a pretty lucrative 2yr contract and yet spent most of his time with his posse of mandems scouting the 'burbs of El Dene, Coate Water and presumably Clyffe Pypard ;)

If you want a player who blamed everyone else then aljofree is as bad as o can remember. If I'll normally being on the receiving end of his stares. He was fucking useless and an even worse captain. If I'll played a lot better alongside Vincent than he ever did alongside aljofree

Yeah,but his goal relegated Gillingham. That makes him a legend for me!

Transfer market reminder me of kovar, who I blatted from memory already.

I expect he is on page 1 ...

The late Dave Mackay would have made Boris Johnson look a handy defender.

He unbelievably took the place of Stan Harland, dropped him completely on becoming manager, sold the Don and immediately re-invested a third of the transfer fee on Tommy Jenkins (4 goals in 100 games).

At that point, he showed the fans his only ever turn of pace - by buggering off within days "for personal reasons" and popping up a week later as manager at Forest.

Under stiff competition possibly our worst ever manager

I was too young when he was manager to be able to judge him but it would take some beating to be rated as worse than Sheirdan IMO, most defeats, least wins, zero personality etc etc.

I think statistically, of those that have managed for more than 10 games, Paul Hart is our least successful manager. Include  caretakers and I think, hope, it's the utter cunt that used to own the club.

Depends if you count wins or defeats or even games unbeaten when in charge, if you value points ganied vs defeats.

Hart
Played 11 games, won 1, drew 4 and lost 6
He won the club 7 points at an average of 0.6 points per game.
His win ratio was 9%
His loss ratio was 54.5%
So he averaged 45.5% of his games that we earned at least a point from

Sheridan
Played 33 games, won 8, drew 4 and lost 21
He won the club 28 points at an average of 0.8 points per game.
His win ratio was 24%
His loss ratio was 63.5%
So he averaged 36.5% of his games that we earned at least a point from

By comparison -

Mackay
Played 61 games, won 18, drew 18 and lost 25
He won the club 72 points at an average of 1.2 points per game.
His win ratio was 29.5%
His loss ratio was 41%
So he averaged 59% of his games that we earned at least a point from

If you judge by lowest win ratio then Hart is the worst
If you judge by most defeats then Sheridan is the worst
If you judge by coming away from most games without any points then Sheridan is the worst

I was coming from the "fucked up a good side" angle rather than a statistical one.But as you rightly point out those 3 were shit!

Oh no i understand that there is far more to being a shit manager than just results on the pitch, look at Steve McMahon!

Paul Hart however does get credit for allegedly cracking an Oxford fan whilst in the service station. That's if I'm remembering correctly 🤔🤔

Wasn't it in Witney?

Notice that Hart along with Sheehan is a 1st team coach at Looton now.

Yeah Witney hight street after the team went for a meal in ASK.

I remember when Aljofree offered most of the away end out into the car park at half time at Stockport.

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I was supposed to spend new year in ask in witney once but it went up in flames between Christmas and New year

True story

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