Southend's Best/Worst Ever Sporting Decisions

[South Bank Hank]

Interesting discussion on Sky Sports News this morning about Sport's best ever decisions. Contenders included Andy Murray's decision to appoint Ivan Lendl, Sir Alex Ferguson's decisions to sign Cantona from Leeds and bring on Teddy Sherringham in that final, Jimmy Hill's idea to bring in 3 points for a win, etc.

Let's get some contenders then run a Totty Cup style comp to vote the absolute pinnacle and nadirs of SUFC decision making? So, what might be some of Southend's best and worst ever sporting decisions?

Best: Signing a young lad called Stan Collymore from Crystal Palace's reserves?
Worst: Allowing Barry Fry to talk to Birmingham and derailing our best ever chance of reaching the top flight?

 

[Pubey]

Hammell stepping over the ball when awarded a free-kick against Man United.

 

[onlyonekingkevin]

Signing Billy Paynter for £250,000 ?

 

[GNH]

BEST Having Ron Martin step in and save us from the Vic Jobson era

WORST Having Ron Martin step in and save us from the Vic Jobson era

 

[South Bank Hank]

BEST Having Ron Martin step in and save us from the Vic Jobson era

WORST Having Ron Martin step in and save us from the Vic Jobson era

I like where you've gone with that.

Good: Signing Ronnie Whelan as a player
Bad: Appointing Ronnie Whelan as a manager

*edited as neither of the above are our best or worse.

 

[Sandbach Shrimper]

Appointing Tilson as caretaker manager when a lot of the fans wanted Stan Collymore as manager. Re-signing Flahavan, and then taking on some kid called Freddy Eastwood from non-league. Sturrock was the right man at the right time, too.

Worst: Turning down that bid from West Ham for Moshni. Releasing Michael Kightly. Signing Matt Harrold for the Championship.

Criticise Ron all you want but when you look at the key managerial and player decisions during his reign, he's not done too badly.

 

[RHB]

Best: Signing Shaun Goater. Worst: Signing Jason Lee and then letting him go to the barbers for his topknot.

 

[londonblue]

Interesting discussion on Sky Sports News this morning about Sport's best ever decisions. Contenders included Andy Murray's decision to appoint Ivan Lendl, Sir Alex Ferguson's decisions to sign Cantona from Leeds and bring on Teddy Sherringham in that final, Jimmy Hill's idea to bring in 3 points for a win, etc.

Let's get some contenders then run a Totty Cup style comp to vote the absolute pinnacle and nadirs of SUFC decision making? So, what might be some of Southend's best and worst ever sporting decisions?

Best: Signing a young lad called Stan Collymore from Crystal Palace's reserves?
Worst: Allowing Barry Fry to talk to Birmingham and derailing our best ever chance of reaching the top flight?

Vic didn't allow Barry Fry to talk to Birmingham. He did it anyway.

 

[amsemp]

Best: Appointing Tilson
Worst: Releasing Kightly!

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

Best: reappointing Webb
Worst: Rob Newman not signing triallist Leon Brittan as he was "no better than what we already had"? Actually, I think I'll go for appointing Alvin Martin.

 

[Uncle Leo]

Best: reappointing Webb

Which time? :smile:

 

[londonblue]

Best: Allowing David Crown to leave, and replacing him with Brett Angell
Worst: Handing over Roots Hall to Vic Jobson.

 

[Norwichshrimper]

Hammell stepping over the ball when awarded a free-kick against Man United.

Totally agree - definitely the worst decision. I had Hammell at 40/1 to get the first goal :smile:

 

[Norwichshrimper]

BEST : Signing Francisco Cagigao
WORST : Releasing Francisco Cagigao

 

[danburyshrimper]

BEST: Having a proper training ground at Boots + Laces rather than kick around at Gloucester Park in Basildon

WORST: Turning big money down for Royce ( £1mio) ,Tilson ( £650k ) , Jae Martin ( £350k) , McCormack (£200k) , Mohsni (£150k), etc etc etc + then allowing them to walk away for nothing.zilch.nil. zippo.

 

[danburyshrimper]

BEST: Putting Ricky Duncan in charge of the youth team + bringing through lots of youngsters into the 1st team squad.

WORST: Continually over the last umpteen years overlooking the majority of these youngsters in the team in favour of kids from premier clubs or other loan players

 

[united we stand]

Great idea for a thread


worst- The timeline for the signing of the Fossets financing with Morgan Stanley in 2008. One month earlier and it would have been signed before the offer was retracted IIRC


Best - tough one. either signing Stan (for the memories and the cash ) , signing Eastwood ( cash and beating Man Utd) , or appointing Tilson as Manager- again for the memories , and maybe no Tilson would have meant no Eastwood (then again no Tilson might have meant we would still have signed and kept Hooper :winking:)

 

[Bromley Blue]

Totally agree - definitely the worst decision. I had Hammell at 40/1 to get the first goal :smile:

Same here mate!

 

[Rick Parsnip]

Hi Shrimpers! I'm a new contributor to the web site as only now gone into the 21st century technically with a laptop and broadband. Whew, what have I been missing!

Been a Blues supporter for many years and hope to be able to contribute to Chit-Chat when I can.

On this topic, I can only say I have two worst, if you don't mind:

1. Signing Bilel Mohsni. He has cost us so much over the past few season and
2. Leaving Ryan Leonard out of the JPT Final in favour of 1 above. Bad, bad decision as we all witnessed on that wonderful day.
Best decision: Signing Phil Brown - big things ahead for us.

 

[South Bank Hank]

Hi Shrimpers! I'm a new contributor to the web site as only now gone into the 21st century technically with a laptop and broadband. Whew, what have I been missing!

Been a Blues supporter for many years and hope to be able to contribute to Chit-Chat when I can.

On this topic, I can only say I have two worst, if you don't mind:

1. Signing Bilel Mohsni. He has cost us so much over the past few season and
2. Leaving Ryan Leonard out of the JPT Final in favour of 1 above. Bad, bad decision as we all witnessed on that wonderful day.
Best decision: Signing Phil Brown - big things ahead for us.

Agreed on all counts although, while I still look back with some misguided fondness on Mohsni's particular brand of flawed genius, I'd love to be able to turn the clock back to Wembley to have him excluded from the squad.

Welcome to the board Rick.