'Memries' Shock signings

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Going to stick the permanent deal for John Brayford in this category, as it certainly felt like one at the time. Obviously fans had been hoping it would happen, but generally those hopes were thought far fetched, and the reality of the deal when it happened still felt a bit out of the blue. A really big fee for a League 1 club at the time, when we already had several right-backs that had appeared for us that season (and were still desperate for a centre-back if making any deals for defenders), and it had always been felt that wages wise we were never at that level going to come close to what he was on at Cardiff. Also, it wasn’t like the year previous where we were loaning an out-of-favour player – following the loan with us, he became a regular for Russell Slade’s Cardiff side and was still starting right till he signed. I think I remember when the rumours on here began to happen he played the next Cardiff game and many then dismissed the rumours as nonsense. A big shame it didn’t quite go to plan ultimately.
 



JohnDenver said:
I thought he took the mick out of us. Dropped a league and thought he didn’t need to try. Did better at Everton back in the prem after he left.

And yeah, the booze. No welcome back from me.
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Me and my mate watched him specifically one game, as we were always slagging him off for misplaced passes until one game when my mate said, 'actually, that was a good ball, it was 'the other player' (whoever it was at the time) that wasn't on the same wavelength'. So we paid attention and he was right. The other players around him weren't on his wavelength. If they were, we would have been winning at a canter. That's probably why he did better at Everton, because he had better players around him.
 
Bruce Rioch on loan in the 1978/1979. His arrival coincided with an upturn in form and results and I thought we were going to comfortably avoid relegation. However, he then got a better offer in America and left us in the lurch. We went down, and I blamed it all on him.
 
Greenwich Blade said:
Bruce Rioch on loan in the 1978/1979. His arrival coincided with an upturn in form and results and I thought we were going to comfortably avoid relegation. However, he then got a better offer in America and left us in the lurch. We went down, and I blamed it all on him.
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He went to USA in April 1979? I thought it was just a month's loan to us rather than to the end of the 1978/79 season?
 
Silent Blade said:
He went to USA in April 1979? I thought it was just a month's loan to us rather than to the end of the 1978/79 season?
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I'm not sure we knew the length of the loan, but there was an assumption it was until the end of the season, certainly in my mind anyway. I was most annoyed when he cleared off, anyway.
 
Red Hot Currie said:
One maybe for the slightly older Blades, but I remember being amazed and delighted when we signed Glen Cockerillin the early 80s. We were in Div 3 and we paid over £100k I think to get him from Lincoln where he was doing really well for them. He was a great player for us and when he was inevitably sold (to Southampton?) he went on to have a good career in the top flight.
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Glen Cockerill was and still is one of my all time favourite Blades midfielders and have always thought it to be a great shame that he wasn’t part of a much better team than the one we had at the time .

It came as no surprise to me that when he inevitably moved on he was a success at a higher level . I understand that among Southampton supporters of a certain age , he is still remembered with great affection and admiration and given his many qualities I can well understand why .
 
Greenwich Blade said:
I'm not sure we knew the length of the loan, but there was an assumption it was until the end of the season, certainly in my mind anyway. I was most annoyed when he cleared off, anyway.
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Sometime last century I met Rioch at an event and I asked him why he didn't stay on. He said that when the initial loan period ended nobody from the club asked him to stay on longer. I think that your annoyance should be directed at the ineptitude of the club rather than Rioch.
 
Curran is the hands down winner for me.

Peter Withe in a United shirt 12 months on from being in the England side was also a bit of a surprise.

Vinnie Jones was a big shock and very exciting at the time. What a big letdown he was.

This century, Beattie, Madine, Bamford, Hao Haidong, and Brayford all fit this category.

I do not include the second signing of Ched Evans as you could see that coming a mile off.
 
Glenn Cockerill for me. Couldn't believe we had signed someone so good. When he was at Orient, after us, he was in the same hospital as me. I have a vague memory, I might have dreamt this, that he was 2 or 3 years older than he had actually declared to everyone. He was a nice bloke and spoke really fondly of his time at the Blades.
 



Isaw Joeshaw said:
Glen Cockerill was and still is one of my all time favourite Blades midfielders and have always thought it to be a great shame that he wasn’t part of a much better team than the one we had at the time .

It came as no surprise to me that when he inevitably moved on he was a success at a higher level . I understand that among Southampton supporters of a certain age , he is still remembered with great affection and admiration and given his many qualities I can well understand why .
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Great header of the ball too, even with his short neck...or was it his perm hiding it...

Anyway....I'm sure it was Cockerill who scored a 'ghost goal' header...for some reason I'm thinking Grimsby at home, it hit the horizontal stanchion (fixed to inside of the post) which held the netting and bounced out and ref waved play on. Anyone remember this?
 
Conroy said:
Great header of the ball too, even with his short neck...or was it his perm hiding it...

Anyway....I'm sure it was Cockerill who scored a 'ghost goal' header...for some reason I'm thinking Grimsby at home, it hit the horizontal stanchion (fixed to inside of the post) which held the netting and bounced out and ref waved play on. Anyone remember this?
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Yes, it was 0-0 at the time, and it happened at the Lane end.

Gary Lund scored a hattrick for Grimsby and we went 3-0 down. We ended up losing 3-2.

29 September 1984. The date is burned in my brain as it was a milestone birthday for a family member.

I have seen United score 2 other goals like that: at the 2-0 defeat at Palace in the first PL season, where Deano headed against the bar when it was 0-0 and it clearly bounced over the line and came out, and at Coventry in 2001-2, where Rob Page headed in and the keeper scooped it out from behind the line. We lost 1-0.

There is also the Villa ghost goal, of course.
 
Spending over 20m on a hot young prospect from Liverpool who was potentially going to be the next big thing and a future England star. That went well.
 
Mark Morris for 175k, wasn't it almost double our previous record signing (Perhaps Colin Hill 90k) at the time?

I thought he must be like Franz Beckenbauer and Bobby Moore rolled into one, turned out to be more like Franz Klammer and Bobby Knutt!
 
For me (whilst attending games not from afar) it's probably Jostein Flo. Some unheard of 6'4 Norwegian, who from memory, scored against Wimbledon on his debut. We were flabbergasted on the Kop!
 
Sportbilly /Detroit Blade said:
Mark Morris for 175k, wasn't it almost double our previous record signing (Perhaps Colin Hill 90k) at the time?

I thought he must be like Franz Beckenbauer and Bobby Moore rolled into one, turned out to be more like Franz Klammer and Bobby Knutt!
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The previous record signing was Alex Sabella at £160K in 1978, we broke that recors 11 years later when we signed Morris.
 
Revolution said:
And we had previously tied it when we signed Alan Young in 1982.
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Forgot him.

When I started supporting United in 1970s I read that our record signing at the time was John Tudor from Coventry in 1968. The fee was quoted at £65K. We didnt break the record until 1975 when we signed Chris Guthrie. Papers were saying the fee was £100K but Ken Furphy said it was £90K when he was being interviewed by Gary Armstrong for the Bladesrunners book.
 
Cheets said:
You're right. Dane was the first Blades player who was younger than me and I was 12, but I didn't realise his birthday wasn't til October. Gary Speed was the last Blades player who was older than me.
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How the hell do you know this????
 



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