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Following on from the various comments/postings in the video of the week thread, here are 4 videos from October and November 1992 which sum up Nicky Hammond's career with us.

Starting with the 3-2 win over Torquay in the Coca-Cola Cup where he miskicks the ball....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqeDHAYTuug

Followed by the 1-0 win at West Ham, sadly the footage i have only shows the goal but he did play a blinder that day....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Uhk05RiDyE

Then the 1-0 home win over Barnsley which was probably the best performance i saw him give for Swindon....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUN66-e_D7A

And finally the horror kick in the 3-3 draw at Peterborough which cost us 2 points!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THoY9Sz4RUA

He fucked up a kick vs Watford too which cost us

and just about every cross in the box that was over 6 ft high

Id still have him between the sticks over Lucas or Smith though.

First season Lucas shits all over the other 2. trying to chose between second season Lucas, Smith or hammond is a bit like saying which is your favourite verrucah.

That's such a load of bollocks Chalkie, yeah NH made a few mistakes but there were plenty of occasions when Diggers had a little dip in form and NH covered very well. Agreed with having NH over Smith & Lucas any day.

 :clap:

I agree, overall Hammond was a very able undersudy to Digby.

I've never had 3 Verrucas at the same time, but I guess you could apply the same to genital warts.

Yep, that pretty much sums up his STFC career. The trouble with him was that whilst being a better than average shot stopper he was absolutely shit awful on crosses and kicking, which, when you think about it, makes up a pretty large part of a keeper's game.

He was fucking shite and when he tried to catch anything in the air, his hands turned to flippers hence the Freddy Flippers nickname. Also as a shot stopper he had the habit of keeping the ball in play rather than put it over the bar or around the post. This was quite noble in nature but a fucking pain the arse when you had oncoming attackers amnd defenders facing the wrong way. Diggers had dips in form but a shit Diggers was much better than a fit Hammond.
Hammond did however have a cracking game away to Norwich in the Cup when we won 2-0

Digby's kicking was suspect at times and he had some dips in form then Hammond was then given a few games. I do think Hammond's presence did give diggers a kick up the arse at times and probably helped make him what he was. Hammond was a pretty able deputy and did pull off some cracking saves to be fair to him.

Spot on Arriba. Diggers was always the number one, but I remember occasions when Hammond came in and performed just as well as Fraser. Then NH's form would dip, Digby would return and like you say knowing NH was in the background, I think, spurred Digby on form wise.

True FD was always No1 but although NH fucked up on a couple of occassions, I still think that he would have been a decent keeper had he gone to another club in his prime.

He went to Plymouth. I used to do busniess with a large insurer down there and their MD was a mad keen Argyle fan. He asked me what I thought of NH, i said he was absolute shite and anything in the air will put the defence in trouble. On his debut he punched a corner into his own net and it didn;t get any better.

The Watford game i was on about i'm sure was a league cup game at the county ground. Hammond booted the ball straight to their player after about a minutes play and we went 1-0 down. Dunno if there is any footage available of it?

Haha true, maybe I have rose coloured spectacles for those days and those players then.

wasn't that Palace and their keeper returned the favour.

Nah it was deffo Watford.

It was posted earlier. It was what got the whole 'Flapper Hammond' discussion going:

HAHA! That just about sums up Dave Bamber as well - Only just noticed that  8)

Hehehe, I still like him if only because of teh era that he was a part of.

Doh. What a nob i am. Didn't see it mentioned in another thread. Yeah that was the match

I always thought of Digby as the consistent, safe if unspectacular keeper.

Hammond was spectacular - sometimes spectacularly amazing, sometimes spectacularly awful. When the backpass rule was brought in, his confidence took a bit of a beating and he seemed to suffer.

Top fella though. I went to an Ossie Ardiles week-long soccer school (at the time I played left-back or left-mid), but Ossie couldn't make it that week. Nicky Hammond took the goalkeeper coaching separately from the rest of the other coaches & players. So I put my hand up and said I was a keeper, just so I could get to train with Nicky for the week.

He was a top fella and I learnt loads and became quite a decent keeper (for about a year) and then went back to playing left-back & left-mid averagely.

The end.