Spending big on a player and receiving very little back in return is a situation most fans and managers can associate with. No manager goes out looking to waste money, apart from maybe Barry Fry, Ron Atkinson and John Gregory that is, but what can you do when the talented player you have just signed suddenly turns into Ian Marshall? Looking back into the transfer time tunnel we can find numerous players whose names are enough to make some of us clench our fists, roll our eyes and shake our heads in disappointment.
The most recent and unimpressive player to fit into this category has to be Chris Sutton. Chelsea paid £10 million to Blackburn in the summer of 1999 in a bold move to take Vialli’s men a step closer to the Championship. What did they get, one Premiership goal, 5th place in the league and a £4million loss. Lets hope for his and Celtic’s sake that his dire run of form does not continue. Having said this, it would seem that any old donkey can score goals in Scotland.
What about Kevin Davies? A talented young player who has shown a lot of potential after his first full season in the top flight. This may have been true when Roy Hodson decided to add the Saint to his Blackburn squad back in 1998, but £7.25 million for a player who had only ever played 20 Premiership games! As if by magic Davies suddenly turned into a fat and clumsy striker who couldn’t score to save his life. Again a return of one League goal was surprisingly not enough to win over the Lancashire crowd, and Davies was sent back to the South Coast for a grand total of £1.25 million.
The name of Marco Boogers will go down in West Ham history, but not because of his contribution on the football pitch. Harry Redknapp signed the Dutch striker from Sparta Rotterdam for £1 million in 1995. Boogers went on to make only four substitute appearances before disappearing from London never to be seen again. Rumours that he was in a caravan in Belgium and that he had suffered a nervous breakdown were branded around, but at the end of the day the Hammers fans didn’t really care because he was crap anyway.
A player learns his trade in the lower leagues, works hard for a number of years, and if they are lucky enough a big club comes in and whisks them off to the top flight. This is probably the dream of every footballer playing in the Nationwide League - that is apart from Joey Beauchamp. West Ham paid £1 million for the services of the tricky winger, but his Upton Park career was a non-starter because little Joey was homesick. After two months and no competitive games, Beauchamp was sold to Swindon Town for £850,000. Still he could not settle, and so Joey was granted his one wish and sold back to Oxford one year later for only £75,000. All in all Joey Beauchamp is without a doubt a mummy’s boy.
With the new season upon us, we anxiously await the next player to suffer from Chris Sutton syndrome. Let us hope that Mark Viduka and Segei Rebrov have both been vaccinated.
