Agree with most of what you put about Beattie. I thought his attitude while at the Lane was for the most part disgraceful. Annoyingly in his first season he had 6 weeks at the start of the season and 6 weeks at the end of that season (a fair weather player if ever there was one) where he was prepared to go to war with the opposing centre half (and come out on top) and really looked the part. Those first 6 weeks I remember thinking wow, we've got another Deano here. Then the 6 months in between and his second season his all round game and attitude waere awful, he couldn't give a f**k about the team.
As you, Sheffsteel state (and many of the "Beattie was great" brigade are quite happy to overlook) in that second season when we got shut of Beattie we were 7th in the division (a borderline play-off team and performances to match), after that for the second half of the season, our form was that of title winners. I always felt if Beattie would have been fit in summer 2008 (he was injured during the summer transfer window) we'd have got shut then and gone up in the top two, as Henderson or Hulse would have been much more effective as the leader of the line (Henderson proved that once Beattie went to Stoke).
