One-Season Wonders At Your Club

[Satchmo Distel]

Barnsley: Clint Marcelle was great in the 1996-97 promotion season but was out of his depth in the top flight and (perhaps partly due to racism) made a scapegoat for their disastrous start to 1997-98.

[Fearful Symmetry]

Geovanni, and even then I'd probably only say that he was a half a season wonder. The epitome of on field displays from January 2009 to May 2010, for most of that time he was lazy, disinterested and already trading on the glories of the early months of the season.

[Sporting]

How about Romario at Barcelona?

[Satchmo Distel]

Savicevic at Milan didn't seem to do much outside the 1994 CL final, although that performance alone deserves immortality.

Schillaci, Juventus, 1989-90.

[Snake Plissken]

Mike Conroy - joined from Reading in summer 1991, scored the goals that got us promoted out of the Fourth, didn't too many more before being shipped out to Preston for twice what we paid for him.

[EIM]

Dwight Yorke. After winning the treble he asked Ferguson if he could take the year off to travel round the world celebrating. His request was denied. He was never really the same player after that first season, so we should have let him go enjoy himself.

[Crusoe]

We’ve had loads of these, almost always loans who dragged us to safety. Luke Beckett, Sam Surridge, Connor Ripley, Daniel Iversen, Callum Lang, etc.

[blameless]

Albert Craig, 1993-94. A midfielder who'd been a journeyman at Dumbarton, Hamilton, Newcastle and Dundee (and indeed, in his first season for us too) suddenly conjured up a 19-goal season out of absolutely nowhere; this unexpected goal binge kept us in the top flight in a season where 3 teams out of 12 were relegated from the Premier Division.

Next two seasons he was decent but not great, before drifting off to play for Falkirk and Stenny. Sadly ended up going to prison after his playing career finished for his part in a postal fraud.

[Foot of Astaire's]

Barnsley: Clint Marcelle was great in the 1996-97 promotion season but was out of his depth in the top flight and (perhaps partly due to racism) made a scapegoat for their disastrous start to 1997-98.

What an exciting player he was that promotion year.

We've had plenty of loan players fulfill the role but permanent transfers..

Reo Coker was very good in a struggling side.
Arnar Gunlaugsson burst onto our scene with a flurry of great goals and performances, was sold to Leicester for 2 million quid and disappeared pretty quickly.
Sasa Curcic is probably the stand out. Came as an unknown, was virtually unstoppable in full flow and was our only glimmer of hope in keeping us up in 1996. He had a meltdown in a pre season friendly, was flogged to Villa and was never the same player or person afterwards.

[Third rate Leszno]

For Liverpool, probably Ryan Babel. Terrific first season, shit second, roused himself to mediocrity in his third and was offloaded during the fourth.

[longeared]

Two spring to mind. Gary Madine - "Goal Machine" scored 18 goals in the joyous 2012 promotion season. He did that so we could buy players to replace him, because he was badly out of his depth a level higher and the only thing I remember him doing was smacking a penalty into an advertising hoarding against Barnsley. Later had, erm, legal troubles and he's now not scoring many at Blackpool.

Mark Pembridge - was with us for three years and in the middle season was absolutely brilliant, a real presence in midfield, scored some important goals, won some of the player of the year awards and generally was a big factor in us having a strong campaign. The other two seasons he was completely shite.

[delicatemoth]

Arnar Gunlaugsson burst onto our scene with a flurry of great goals and performances, was sold to Leicester for 2 million quid and disappeared pretty quickly

He scored a couple of great goals for us - I think he was very good in an FA Cup win at Villa, as was a young Damien Delaney - but it would be stretching things to call that a flurry.

Les Ferdinand's and Marcus Bent's single season at Leicester was the relegation year 2003-04, but that wasn't their fault as they played well in an exciting forward liine alongside Paul Dickov. Ferdinand especially was great, apart from a pointless sending off (Villa again).

[Billy Casper]

Barnsley: Clint Marcelle was great in the 1996-97 promotion season but was out of his depth in the top flight and (perhaps partly due to racism) made a scapegoat for their disastrous start to 1997-98.

I'm not going to argue with the choice, but I've not heard he was made a scapegoat the season after. If anything I would have thought it would be Georgi Hristov ("He cost how much money and said what about ar lass?" etc). I'll also question the 'perhaps partly due to racism' bit too. Yes, as we both full well know, Barnsley has (much) more than it's fair share of racists, but these were the same fans that voted Bruce Dyer Player of the Season two years in a row a few years after.

David Currie would be my other pick.

[3 Colours Red]

Andy Morrell's goals during his original five seasons with us: 0, 1, 3, 4, 35 (THIRTY FIVE).

Juan Ugarte as well - 22 in 36 during the 2004/05 season, came back from Crewe a broken man.

[jwdd27]

Centre back Steve Foster (not the headband one, born 1974) was player of the year for Scunthorpe in the 2007 League One title winning season, having joined at the back end of the previous season.
He could have done a job in the Championship, but apparently got a better offer from Darlington in Division 4. Didn't work out particularly well as they began their financial collapse, and eventually had to bin him off because he was about to trigger an appearance linked automatic extension.
Good player though.

[elguapo4]

For Bohemians, there's three off the top of my head. Larry Wyse came to us from Athlone Town for the 84/85 season. He was brilliant all year and starred in the UEFA Cup tie against Rangers. Allegedly Jock Wallace said "It's a pity you're not a protestant son" to him, but that's probably an urban legend. Dundalk came calling with more cash the following year.

Ashley Bayes arrived in goal from England for the title winning side in 2003, then promptly got on Stephen Kenny's bad side ( not difficult to do) and was shipped out.

Fuad Sule came from St Patrick's Athletic reserves in 2016, and only got into the Bohs side after an injury crisis. He held onto his place so well he won player of the year, then subsequently grabbed the first contract with an English club that came along. He spent the following season unable to get into a Barnet side going out of the league, and was last heard of not doing very much for Larne in the Northern Ireland league.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Not my club, but isn't Gary Lineker the person this award should be named after? Joined Everton in 1985, won the golden boot in both League and World Cup, then fucked off to Barcelona without even as much as a farewell appearance in the Charity Shield.

[Amor de Cosmos]

For QPR it must be Adel Taarabt in Colin's promotion season. Dominated the division that year. Never the same anywhere else before or after, though he finally seems to be making a decent fist of it at Benfica.

[Tony C]

Mark Kennedy looked like the finest winger in the country as he tore through Championship defences whilst at Manchester City in 1999/2000. However...

[Patrick Thistle]

In recent years Grant Holt played one season for Shrewsbury and left after they almost made it out of league 2 via the play offs. He signed for Norwich, went up two divisions with them and then was playing in the Premier League.

[Tony C]

Grant Holt is a very nice bloke apparently.

[Artificial Hipster]

He's in a very short list of people whose politics I can forgive.

[Foot of Astaire's]

David Adekola at Bury in the early 90s. Seemingly appeared from nowhere and hit a vein of form where he looked destined for a big money move to the premier league. After that one high spot he spent the next few years moving around the lower divisions and non league, never stopping long anywhere.

[Simon G]

Dan Holman - Joint top scorer in the National League in our 15/16 season having scored goals for fun in the first half of the season for Woking and then 16 in the second half of the season with us. Picked up a toe injury in the last pre-season friendly before our return to the Football League and never really recovered. Let out on loan a year later to Boreham Wood, then released. Now pretty much retired having dropped down to the Southern League with Kettering.

Dan Parslow - Mine and the Player's Player of the season in our 15/16 title win, then was way out of his depth in the Football League. Went back to York and was forced to retire last season due to concussion.

Tony Naylor - Outstanding in our 01/02 playoff winning season, building an excellent partnership with Julian Alsop. The third tier was too much for him though, what with him being right at the end of his career.

[Tony C]

[QUOTE=Simon G;n2391391

Tony Naylor - Outstanding in our 01/02 playoff winning season, building an excellent partnership with Julian Alsop. The third tier was too much for him though, what with him being right at the end of his career.[/QUOTE]

Former Droylsden star Tony Naylor, as he is generally referred to..