Random Premiership Footballers of the 00's

James__10

Michael Ricketts:
Michael Ricketts had one good season in the English top flight, 2001-02. He scored the winner against us at Old Trafford for Bolton. He was capped by Sven Goran Eriksson, playing 45 minutes in a friendly against Holland. Middlesborough (under Steve McClaren) spunked £3million on him. He barely scored a goal in his career again. He's currently clubless aged 32, having had his contract at Tranmere cancelled.

Steve Marlet
He was so poor for Fulham that Al Fayed took the manager to court thinking he must have got a cut of the £11.5 million they paid for him.

Rami Shabann
For two seasons Rami Shabaan was a reserve goalkeeper at Arsenal who looked half decent. He suffered quite horrendous injuries though that made him leave the club. However we should all be thankful because the summer he left, Wenger was forced to look for an alternative, he brought in Manuel Almunia.

Collins John
Played well for Fulham when he was 19. Ended that season as their number 1 scorer. Got 2 caps for Holland. Now he's 29 or something. Failed in the MLS and went recently to Azerbaijan.

MrJoeSoap

Zatman

Ricardinho - World Cup winner ended up at Boro and barely got a game

Mateja Kezman - arrived with a big reputation as a goalscorer and now playing for BATE Borisov

Paully D

Dan Smith:

A very promising youngster at Sunderland and made his league debut for us as an 18 year old against Arsenal in 2004. Broke Diaby's leg/ankle with a horror challenge, was sent off for it and never recovered mentally from the incident. Now working as a salesman for EDF Energy.

monkey9

Paully D wrote: »

Dan Smith:

A very promising youngster at Sunderland and made his league debut for us as an 18 year old against Arsenal in 2004. Broke Diaby's leg/ankle with a horror challenge, was sent off for it and never recovered mentally from the incident. Now working as a salesman for EDF Energy.

Maybe he was just genuinely sh!t

geeky

Darius Vassell. How someone could look the part for England, and then prove so 'meh' at club level, is beyond me.

Also, (though he's still playing) Andy Johnson looked absolutely brilliant for a few years with Everton before the injuries.

Leiva

The Fox In The Box ....

Francis Jeffers .
Showed signs of brilliance at Everton then it just went downhill so fast .

tommyhaas

Mark Ward; Not the usual route former Premier League footballers take. His book, Right Wing to B Wing is well worth a read

My football career lasted two decades, during which I achieved many of my ambitions. I played for Everton, my hometown club, and scored in Merseyside derbies. I played in cup finals at Wembley. At West Ham we came within a couple of games of winning the league in 1986. I committed everything to football because it was so important to me. When my career came to an end it left a huge hole in my life. I ended up making some terrible decisions for which I am now paying the price.

I grew up as one of seven brothers and sisters in Huyton, Liverpool. It's the same place that Steven Gerrard, Peter Reid and Joey Barton come from; Huyton United would have had a hell of a midfield. My family were Everton fans and I used to be a ballboy at Goodison when I was 12. When I left school they signed me up and, by my late teens, I was playing in the reserves. It was a dream. But when I was 18 Everton let me go because they said I wasn't big enough. I went home and cried my eyes out.

Soon afterwards I got a second chance, at a much lower level with Northwich Victoria. My wife, Jane, got pregnant with our daughter, Melissa, and after that I treated every game like a cup final. I knew I had mouths to feed. I once ran 12 miles to training because I didn't have a car at the time.

Eventually, Joe Royle came in for me and I went to Oldham for £9,000 in 1982. It was a big step up to the old Second Division, but I played well and never missed a game in two years. One night, Joe called me while I was watching Coronation Street. He said: 'John Lyall [the then West Ham manager] is about to knock on your door. The board have agreed to sell you to West Ham for a quarter of a million pounds.'

There was no mention of whether I wanted to go or not - that was what it was like in those days. I signed on the same day as Frank McAvennie. We went on to achieve West Ham's best league position ever [third, in 1985-86]. It was the only side I ever played in where I felt like we could beat anyone. But we failed to build on that success over the following two seasons.

After we were relegated in 1989, the board sacked Lyall and I wanted out. I signed for a £1 million fee for Manchester City under Howard Kendall and thought he was a great manager. When he returned to Everton, I became one of his first signings, this time for £1.1m. It had taken me 10 years, but I'd eventually made it back to Goodison. I made my debut against Arsenal and scored twice in the best game of my career [Everton won 3-1].

My time under Howard was brilliant - but he eventually left and I moved on to Birmingham City as player-coach. Barry Fry was in charge, but we never really got on. By the mid-Nineties I was looking for another club, but it was hard. With my level of experience a lot of managers at smaller clubs saw me as a threat to their job.

My big break came when i was named manager of Altrincham. It was a good job, but they were in financial crisis. Although we were doing well, a new chairman came in and sacked me with no explanation. He obviously wanted his own man in charge. It was the worst day of my career. I remember going round to the kit man's house and bursting into tears.

That was when things started to go bad for me. Jane and I split up and I struggled to find more work in the game. People saw I had been sacked and that put them off. I helped out in my brother's pub and then spent some time in Australia. But I had to come home eventually to arrange a work permit.

On my return to England, I became severely ill, with a suspected aneurysm, and had to spend months in hospital. By the time I got out I'd missed my chances in Australia and I was skint. My family helped out financially, but there are only so many handouts you can take. That was when someone made me an offer I shouldn't have accepted. They said they'd pay me a weekly wage if I rented a house in my name and handed the keys over to them. I was surviving on income support at the time and foolishly agreed to go along with it.

I knew something dodgy was going on in the flat, but wasn't sure how dodgy. I never went there. Then the police raided it one day and found £700,000 worth of cocaine. My name was on the rental agreement; I was arrested. Through overcrowding, I was put in remand on the lifers' wing at Walton prison, Liverpool. It was a shocking experience.

In my initial statement to the police I had admitted to handing the keys of the flat over to someone to use as a drug stash. That basically obliged me to plead guilty to possession with intent to supply once the case came to trial in October and I was sentenced to eight years in prison. I'm hoping to do my time as straightforwardly as possible and get out as soon as I can. I'm keeping fit and trying to write a book about my life.

I've never been in trouble before and have never dealt in drugs. Adapting to life after football was too much for me at times. When today's Premiership stars retire they'll be set up for life. But the biggest contract I ever had was £2,000 a week and, when my playing career ended, I soon wound up with nothing. When the money, fame and glamour disappear it's hard to adjust.

But that's no excuse for the stupid things I've done. I'm proud of what I achieved in football - I was a tough player and Stuart Pearce described me as the most difficult opponent he faced. Brian Clough told the newspapers I should have gone to the 1986 World Cup finals with England. I hope that the strong attitude that saw me through my career will see me through my time in prison.

The life facts

Mark Ward was born in Liverpool in 1962. He was released as an apprentice by Everton but, after playing for West Ham and Manchester City, rejoined his boyhood club in 1991. After a spell at Birmingham City, he retired in 1996. In October he was jailed for eight years for possessing cocaine with intent to supply

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2005/dec/04/features.sport4

MrJoeSoap

tommyhaas wrote: »

Mark Ward; Not the usual route former Premier League footballers take. His book, Right Wing to B Wing is well worth a read



http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2005/dec/04/features.sport4

Hardly "of the 00's" though...

tommyhaas

MrJoeSoap wrote: »

Hardly "of the 00's" though...

**** yea, didn't notice the of the 00's part

Dotrel

James__10 wrote: »

Collins John
Played well for Fulham when he was 19. Ended that season as their number 1 scorer. Got 2 caps for Holland. Now he's 29 or something. Failed in the MLS and went recently to Azerbaijan.

I always thought it was a pity that Collins John and John Collins never played together. They missed each other at Fulham by just one season.

population

Michael Reddy under Peter Reid at Sunderland looked like he was going to be a talent but it never happened after a bright enough start

steelcityblues

Hamilton Ricard - had a few decent seasons for Middlesboro, then disappeared off the mainstream radar.

Jimmy Iovine

population wrote: »

Michael Reddy under Peter Reid at Sunderland looked like he was going to be a talent but it never happened after a bright enough start

My mum taught him in primary school.

Used to always look out for him on RTE2 on Saturday nights. I remember he got a tap in goal once. Think it was one of 2 he scored in the Premiership. Pity it never happened at Sunderland.

Had a look at his Wikipedia page there and it seems he got on good at Grimsby Town.

He remains the only player from Kilkenny to ever play in the Premiership. There's another young lad coming through at Villa who will hopefully get a run soon enough and share the achievement.

super_furry

Richie Partridge. The Irish Freddy Adu who was part of the Ireland under-18 team that won the European Championship. During his time as a Liverpool youth and reserve player he was tipped for massive things but suffered from some really unfortunate injuries. He went out on loan to Coventry where he was named their player of the year but was plagued by injury again when coming back to Liverpool. He eventually dropped down the leagues and ended up with TNS but was forced to retire this August because of major knee problems.

He's training as a physio now and married to Michael Owen's sister.

SlickRic

Carlos "Next Maradona" Marinelli.

Muzzy Izzet.

Benito "17 clubs in my career" Carbone.

Mustapha Hadji and his mate from Morocco Hassan Kachloul.

paddy978

Massimo Maccarone- Signed by Boro was expected to be the next big Italian, never happened.

super_furry

paddy978 wrote: »

Signed by Boro was expected to be the next big Italian, never happened.

Wasn't there dozens of them? So many dodgy signings during the Robson era.

Paully D

super_furry wrote: »

Wasn't there dozens of them? So many dodgy signings during the Robson era.

And judging by his activity involving dodgy businessmen buying football clubs I doubt many of those signings were a coincidence.

Xylophonic

super_furry wrote: »

Wasn't there dozens of them? So many dodgy signings during the Robson era.

Didn't McClaren sign Maccarone?

Corholio

Najwan Ghrayib.

Signed by Gregory for Villa for 1 million after move to Spurs fell through. Described by a Villa scout as 'the best left back he'd ever seen', he hardly played and was sold back to Israel for 150k.

Gregory took over Maccabi Ahi Nazareth in 2009, Ghrayib joined as assistant manager.

Luc Nilis. Signed on a free from PSV, scored a great goal against Chelsea and a few games later broke his leg horrendously against Ipswich after colliding with Richard Wright, and had to retire from playing football. Could have been a fantastic player for Villa, makes me sad to think about.

Eathrin

Luke Chadwick, once a promising product of Manchester United's youth academy, now playing his trade going on 31 at MK Dons.

smokedeels

James__10 wrote: »

Michael Ricketts:
Michael Ricketts had one good season in the English top flight, 2001-02. He scored the winner against us at Old Trafford for Bolton. He was capped by Sven Goran Eriksson, playing 45 minutes in a friendly against Holland. Middlesborough (under Steve McClaren) spunked £3million on him. He barely scored a goal in his career again. He's currently clubless aged 32, having had his contract at Tranmere cancelled.

The similarities between Rickets and Andy Carroll are notable.

James__10

smokedeels wrote: »

The similarities between Rickets and Andy Carroll are notable.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/3487268/Michael-Ricketts-My-regrets.html