All time British+Irish Fantasy Draft

And...not least...this one:

U2P12083.jpg


One of the greats, surely - a historically great crosser of the ball. In later years probably more famous as a director, obviously, but still.

One of those players whose natural trajectory - so to speak - was upset by the war. Many of those. Imagine losing half a decade like that.
 
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Chesterlestreet said:
Others, off the top o' me boozy head:

Trevor Francis
Paul Mariner
Ray Wilkins
Steve Nicol
Roger Hunt
Ronnie Whelan
Dean Saunders
Steve Staunton
Steve Heighway
Sammy Lee
Frank Stapleton
Gary Bailey
David Rocastle
Matt Le Tissier
Colin Hendrie
John Wark (fer fecks sake - he was brilliant on his day, outscored bloody Rush in his first season with the scousers)
John Aldridge

...oh, many others, no doubt.

Not saying people should have, positively, gone for 'em - just mentioning a few worthy enough names.

Given who ended up being picked, I'd say there were a few glaring omissions.
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We heavily considered Ronnie Whelan. He was our go-to guy if Gio beat us to Murdoch. Hughie Gallacher was another notable omission. A goalscoring record not far off your man Dean, and as we established in our match thread a gratifyingly mad bastard too! I was highly tempted to go for him, but in the end we decided to avoid the old, old timers.
 
Pat_Mustard said:
We heavily considered Ronnie Whelan. He was our go-to guy if Gio beat us to Murdoch. Hughie Gallacher was another notable omission. A goalscoring record not far off your man Dean, and as we established in our match thread a gratifyingly mad bastard too! I was highly tempted to go for him, but in the end we decided to avoid the old, old timers.
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Aye, grand goal grabber, no doubt. And an interesting enough story as well.

Many, many strikers could've been mentioned (and picked), though, in fairness.

I listed Taylor, Viollet and Rowley from the United ranks. Could have mentioned David Herd too. But there are just too many. Too many strikers.

EDIT Tommy Lawton wasn't nominated or picked, fer feck's sake. And that doesn't mean the drafters were idiots - more a testimony to the depth of the pool.

And...guess who Lawton played for? Two feckin' seasons on the trot in his autumn years. I'll give you a hint: Male models are their main claim to fame.
 
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Stobzilla said:
robinfriday.jpg


I missed the chance to get Robin Friday in this draft.

Now THERE is wasted talent.
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I suggested a special "wasted geniuses" round for the likes of Friday, Trundle and Le Tissier to be picked, but crappy didn't like it, I guess. I thought that if they were to appear in any draft, it would be this one - and those were some characters! I underestimated the draft pool though, so many great players here.
 
Malcolm MacDonald, Tommy Lawton (both more to do with the pool of strikers), Alex Young (Golden vision, underappreciated I guess), Colin Bell(City legend but great player)
 
MJJ said:
Thanks Raees, should be a good one.

When do you want the match to be played btw?
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Whenever I'll do write ups on weekend, doubt I'll be active during the week though so just start whenever.
 
Chesterlestreet said:
At any rate, chasin' gold tinted dreams doesn't diminish his talent as a footballer. The latter is not to be questioned here. Ol' Cornelius was special. Perhaps he was too eccentric for his own good - perhaps he was simply a bit too greedy: It happens. My other wasted talent, Alec Jackson, could be accused of the same.

Greed, dreams, talents gone to waste - 'tis a story told many times, but always a good 'un.
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Sounds a bit harsh tbh. He was well within his rights to go for it as the players of that era were grossly and unfairly underpaid with players being treated like cattle.

I'd also like to think of it as a testament to his quality that the others who were offered to go to Colombia included Hector Rial, Lorenzo Di Stefano and Billy Liddell. I'm sure most players would have unashamedly jumped at it.

Liddell only turned it down as he was fiercely loyal to Pool with him being a club icon there and his wife had just given birth to two kids which meant he was unwilling to move but he seriously considered it. He actually turned down a £12 000 contract package to play in Colombia when he was earning a woeful maximum wage of £10 per week under a yearly contract.

More on the contract situation in those days.


Franklin, like all top professionals at the time, earned £12 per week in the season and £10 per week in the summer. There was also a £2 win and £1 draw bonus, the £750 benefit every five years. He also received £20 every time he played for England.


Other clubs would be unable to pay more because of the maximum wage rule. If he managed to get a transfer to another club he would only be paid a £10 signing on fee. However, while on international duty he heard that some clubs offered illegal cash inducements and jobs that did not really exist as an attempt to fool the authorities.


Other legal methods of persuading players to join or stay with a club included setting them up in a business or finding them lucrative part-time jobs. Stoke City did not do any of these things and Franklin wanted to go to another club that did. At the start of the 1948-49 season Franklin asked for a transfer. The club refused and Franklin was forced to stay at Stoke.


Wilf Mannion of Middlesbrough also wanted a transfer and when it was refused he went on strike. Jimmy Guthrie, chairman of the Players' Union, added his support of Mannion: "The transfer system as it is at present was evolved in the days of Alf Common. It just will not do today. We want a free market and none of this present restriction." After losing £400 in wages Mannion was eventually forced back to work.


Franklin told his friend Tom Finney: "You know, Tom, we are at the top of the tree and clubs are taking fortunes off people who want to see us play. We should be getting more of that money. It's a scandal."


On 15th April 1950, Franklin played in his 27th international game against Scotland. England won the game 1-0. A few days later Franklin announced that he was leaving Stoke City to play for the Independiente Santa Fe club in Colombia. Rumours began to circulate that Franklin and his club colleague, George Mountford, had been promised down payments of around £3,400 each plus £170 per match, plus free accommodation.


As his friend Stanley Matthews later pointed out: "At first all went well, but Santa Fe were never forthcoming with the money they had promised. The country was very unstable politically and at 6.30 p.m. street curfew fueled anxieties. Neil returned to England after two months having received only one week's wages and no signing-on fee." He only played in six games while in Colombia.


Franklin was then banned from playing in Britain by the Football League and the Football Association and he was unable to play for Stoke City or England. The ban was eventually lifted and in February 1951 he was sold to Second Division club Hull City for £22,500, at the time a world record fee for a defender.

Injuries, Hull being poor and him being ostracized for being a 'greedy deserter' meant he never quite regained his former glory
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The WILF MANNION contract dispute

At the beginning of the 1948-49 season Mannion refused to sign his yearly contract with Middlesbrough and made a formal transfer request. David Jack, the club manager, responded by saying: "Even if a club came to us with a cheque for £50,000 we would not transfer Mannion. Why should we let the best player in Britain go?"


The problem for Mannion was that at this time players were owned by their clubs. At the start of each season players had to sign a new one-year contract. If the club offered the maximum terms, the player was bound to accept. If, like Mannion, they rejected the contract, the club retained the player's registration and they were not allowed to play for anyone else.


When David Jack refused to sell Mannion, he decided to go on strike. In return, Middlesbrough refused to pay him. As a result of this action he was dropped from the England team that played Northern Ireland on 9th October 1948.


Alan Hoby of the Sunday People wrote: "Now personal liberty is a precious thing. It is one of the things we went to war about. David Jack, giving the club's side, told me recently: 'If Mannion won't play for us, he will never play in League football again.' Frankly this seems to me to savour of dictatorship."


Mannion replied: "The club can put me right out of the game if it wants to. Why, in the name of fairness, must I, or any of my colleagues, be treated like cattle at an auction and be forced to go only where the club desires? I do not hold Middlesbrough entirely responsible. I blame the system which allows such treatment."


Frank Armitage, a businessman who supported Oldham Athletic in the Third Division, offered Mannion a job with his company. Mannion accepted the post and later admitted: "I think he wanted me to join Oldham, but he never said anything specific." Middlesbrough suggested they would be willing to accept a £30,000 fee for Mannion. This was clearly much higher that Oldham could afford.


Mannion then announced in a statement that: "I will not stand for this rocketing of transfer values. I have considered the matter from all angles and with all its implications and I am stating without reserve that I shall absolutely decline to sign for any club that pays, or even offers to pay, Middlesbrough over £12,000 for me."


Oldham eventually offered £15,000 for Mannion. Middlesbrough rejected the bid and refused to negotiate with the club over the matter. Aston Villa offered £25,000 for Mannion. The Everton manager, Cliff Britton, announced he was willing to pay £27,000 for the England international. Tom Whittaker of Arsenal, announced he was willing to offer a player-exchange deal.


David Jack was determined to hold on to Mannion and after a meeting with Boro director, Tommy Thomas, the club and Mannion issued a statement: "Middlesbrough Football Club and Wilf Mannion have agreed to sink their differences. It is agreed that there have been faults on both sides. Middlesbrough are delighted to have the player back and he is delighted to return to the scene of his formal triumphs."

The dispute had cost Mannion £400 in lost earnings from football. He was also still stuck on the maximum wage of £12 a week.
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Joga Bonito said:
Sounds a bit harsh tbh. He was well within his rights to go for it as the players of that era were grossly and unfairly underpaid with players being treated like cattle.
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Not Chester's fault, I brought it up. I find the entire thing completely unreal, he must have been way out of his depth in Bogotá. I imagine some sort of football-playing Dilbert character going around asking who is paying his money and no one speaking English. Two months? He should have demanded the signing bonus upfront before even breaking the news.

The entire Colombian experiment was borne in dissatisfaction. Players being pissed off with wages wasn't just a Franklin thing. It all started when both Argentinian and Uruguayan league players started striking for better pay (Obdulio Varela's leadership was further strengthened, with him being the spokesman for the players throughout 1948). During these strikes Millonarios got Pedernera, who spent a few months there, loved it, got paid obviously, and went back to Argentina to recruit Di Stefano himself. There was another team making an entire XI of Uruguayan players, but I've never heard of any of them. Then there was some random Estonian goalkeeper... it was a circus really. The truth is, they didn't really pay the sort of extraordinary figures quoted relative to Franklin, nor was that league packed with the best around. Di Stefano was an exception to the rule, and it was a very young Di Stefano as well, no one would even remember that league ever existing if Di Stefano didn't go on to be the fabulous player he was for a dominant Real.

He just got mugged by letting the player exploitation red mist get the better of him. Shame really, and sure nothing to hold against him. Most players are thick as pigshit, that isn't news really.
 
Chesterlestreet said:
And...not least...this one:

U2P12083.jpg


One of the greats, surely - a historically great crosser of the ball. In later years probably more famous as a director, obviously, but still.

One of those players whose natural trajectory - so to speak - was upset by the war. Many of those. Imagine losing half a decade like that.
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He was an option for me after getting his partner on the right flank George Young. Some decent footage of Waddell against England here -

 
Plenty of great players weren't picked due to only going for 12 managers here. The original concerns of the amount of super star quality was right, but the players behind are a very balanced bunch with little in between them in overall quality.

I had to spend 10 mill per player but it wasn't at all a pickle like in the other draft, considering 50-60 players went for 10 million here - Hurst went as a second pick for 10 mill. Plenty of managers had enough money to raise a 10 mill player to a 12 one and a 12 one to a 14 one etc but it was rarely the case.

Instead the people with money just picked their own 10 mill player as the pool was so big and it wasn't worth paying extra money very often. Paying extra turned out to be more about paying for the name and how recognizable they were than a noticeable skill difference.
 
Chesterlestreet said:
Others, off the top o' me boozy head:

Trevor Francis
Paul Mariner
Ray Wilkins
Steve Nicol
Roger Hunt
Ronnie Whelan
Dean Saunders
Steve Staunton
Steve Heighway
Sammy Lee
Frank Stapleton
Gary Bailey
David Rocastle
Matt Le Tissier
Colin Hendrie
John Wark (fer fecks sake - he was brilliant on his day, outscored bloody Rush in his first season with the scousers)
John Aldridge

...oh, many others, no doubt.

Not saying people should have, positively, gone for 'em - just mentioning a few worthy enough names.

Given who ended up being picked, I'd say there were a few glaring omissions.
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I thought Steve Nicol was a good call for his versatility and ability to perform from full-back, one of the weakest areas in the pool. Did think about Hendry as well, but I'm not sure how well regarded he is when up against his peers such as Adams, Keown, Bruce and Pallister. John Wark was a good shout and a hell of a goalscorer.
 
Gio said:
I thought Steve Nicol was a good call for his versatility and ability to perform from full-back, one of the weakest areas in the pool. Did think about Hendry as well, but I'm not sure how well regarded he is when up against his peers such as Adams, Keown, Bruce and Pallister. John Wark was a good shout and a hell of a goalscorer.
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I would say he was their equal myself, with Adams being the best of that lot. Add nationality and I was surprised he got overlooked.
 
Edgar Allan Pillow said:
The only thing surprising to me were the number of people going for English Keepers. For me a non English Keeper was crucial to get around the player quota more freely!
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The player quota is quite irrelevant so long as you manage to secure 3-4 top quality non-English players, and there's truckloads of them. You could argue the Draft XI only has 2-3 nailed on English starters (Banks, Charlton, maybe Moore, depending on the defensive lineup) and that Scotland, Wales and Ireland jointly have more of these.
 
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