Alan Kelly and Simon Tracey at The Lane tonight.

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Bill Johnson said:
Tracey was organising a collection for a member of staffs 21st birthday shortly after Warnock took over. Warnock made it clear he wasn't interested in putting a penny in.
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I was expecting something a bit juicer than “man doesn’t put pound into birthday collection for person he doesn’t know”
 



Silent Blade said:
Tony Agana said in an interview some years ago

The post season trip to Magaluf hit the headlines as trouble erupted on the return flight.


“There was some boisterous behaviour, complaints were made and players were being picked out that were not even involved. The next thing we know we were landing at Birmingham – not our intended destination – and the police were waiting. We got the train back to Sheffield and were shocked to see the picture of us leaving the plane plastered all over the front of the local Birmingham paper. By the time we got home and put the telly on, Billy (Whitehurst) and David Barnes was on News at Ten!”
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It was one of the “BONG” headlines.. :D :D
 
Grecian2000 said:
[QUOTE="Bill Johnson, post: 1977177, member: 20251"waiting for Jostein Flo to have his shirt half off before slamming a dustbin over his head and trapping him from head to waist and twatting him. On a regular basis.
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I'm now presuming this was prior to every match. Would explain a great deal about how he always played.[/QUOTE]


Flo was described as needing a cigarette a couple of hours pre match and a beer about an hour later. He was also described as a brilliant player. Nielsen was the consumate professional.
 
SwissBlade said:
Having these two keepers Tracey and Kelly (plus Mel Rees as well) at the club at the same time wouldn't happen in today's football.
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We had (ex-)Scotland international Jim Leighton as fourth choice GK at the time too! [edit - I just checked and he was still playing for Scotland at the time, as his last international game was 1998!]

SwissBlade said:
They were both fantastic keepers, with Tracey being a little less 'predictable'.
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It's funny that people always cite Tracey's unpredictability; I always thought he was the more reassuring of the two. In terms of 'errors' (i.e. dropping a catch or letting a shot through his fingers), I'm not even sure that I can remember a single one from Tracey in his 13 years at the club. Kelly was more prone to those basic clangers (at home to Chelsea on the last day of the season in 1993 was an example). I suppose with Tracey, people are thinking about the occasions when he'd fly out of the box (e.g. Spurs away, or the Battle of Bramall Lane) and get sent off (and probably his off-field persona). Either way, you're right that both were truly fine goalkeepers - genuinely both in the top five in the country at the time, and leagues better than Chris Woods. Brave, commanding, fantastic shot-stoppers and both regarding quite correctly as club legends.
 
Bill Johnson said:
Tracey was organising a collection for a member of staffs 21st birthday shortly after Warnock took over. Warnock made it clear he wasn't interested in putting a penny in. Tracey acknowledged Warnock was very good as a manager in getting that bit extra out of players but felt he was a mean, not very pleasant person.
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I went to Tracey's testimonial do at Aston Hall and Bassett was critical of Warnock for not attending any of ST's testimonial events.
 
Davalon said:
I went to Tracey's testimonial do at Aston Hall and Bassett was critical of Warnock for not attending any of ST's testimonial events.
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I thought he managed the first team in one of them, the game vs Middlesbrough?
 



Bill Johnson said:
Both Kells and Trace.(Their pet names for each other) tagged Digger as THE biggest character they'd played with. He was 7 stone wet through and had a practical joke for every hour of the day from nicking Dooleys false leg whilst he was enjoying a swim in the hotel pool on a pre season tour to waiting for Jostein Flo to have his shirt half off before slamming a dustbin over his head and trapping him from head to waist and twatting him. On a regular basis.
Bradders got quite a few honourable mentions as well.
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I recall the day David Barnes played against United, for Aldershot, at the Lane
Shorts got ripped.
He changed shorts in front of the John Street terrace.
Derision galore ☺️
May 1 1989.
Deano.
Won 1 0.
 
Bill Johnson said:
Bradders got quite a few honourable mentions as well.
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Probably told this on here before but I played with Bradders in non-league when I was early 20’s and still had working ankles. He was a bit of a big time Charlie but some of the things he did were hilarious.

Best one was when our striker (we’d just paid £3k for him so he thought he was the dogs bollocks) turned up in a pair of £200 trainers that were fucking horrific and box fresh white. We all went on the pitch to start the game (muddy as anything in mid November at Buxton) but Bradders hung back saying he needed a massage last minute. He came out just as the coin toss was being done with the £200 trainers on, I was playing at RB and he played sweeper so I spotted them along with the other defenders. We were howling and he could hardly stand up. The manager started screaming at him to stop fucking about and the striker then started kicking off. His shoes were fucked and Bradders quickly put his own boots on before kick off.

He then started to tell the oppo striker how Norwich had paid a load of cash for him and asked how many league appearances the striker had made. Bit of a twat at times but he was funny.
 
It was a really good evening. Warnock and Roger Nielsen got it in the neck as has been mentioned. A few other stories:

Alan Kelly was on a hitlist for being English and playing for Ireland. Special Branch had to visit him and offer him protection advice.

Alan Kelly also had a couple of weird stalkers at Bramall Lane - much akin to that Alan Partidge episode. One fan repeatedly walked around Bramall Lane saying she’d made love to him.

Alan Kelly, within hours of signing for the club was on a coach to the airport for a pre-season game in Sweden. He fell asleep, got put in a headlock by Carl Bradshaw and was asked how hard he was? Kelly then had his shirt ripped off and had blood all over him. Carl Bradshaw then stopped, asked Kelly to hit him - so he did- and Bradshaw who had by now slumped next to the toilets on the coach said “welcome to the club”.

Steve Thompson’s team talks were awful. He used to ask a question and always answer his own question with “yeah”. In the team talk prior to the Newcastle game at Old Trafford his speech was “you lot are 90 minutes away from immor-fucking-taking’, yeh” - lads cracked up.

Spackman was a nice bloke but his team talks were also a bit odd. He once said “Here we are at Wolves today, the sky is blue and Wolves play in Gold and Black. Go get them.”

Tracey’s relationship with Bassett soured towards the end, and he was regularly made linesman for internal games.
 
Bill Johnson said:
Excellent evening of reminiscing, behind the scenes stories, why Tracy dislikes Warnock and fell out with Harry.
Kelly was very eloquent, diplomatic and witty.
Tracey was enjoying a beer, witty and a tad less diplomatic.
Subjects covered.
Warnock.
Harry.
Spackman.
Flo.
Fjortoft.
David Barnes in abundance.

And others. £10 well spent.
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Brilliant evening & summed up so succinctly yerself !
 
Geordie Blade said:
We had (ex-)Scotland international Jim Leighton as fourth choice GK at the time too! [edit - I just checked and he was still playing for Scotland at the time, as his last international game was 1998!]



It's funny that people always cite Tracey's unpredictability; I always thought he was the more reassuring of the two. In terms of 'errors' (i.e. dropping a catch or letting a shot through his fingers), I'm not even sure that I can remember a single one from Tracey in his 13 years at the club. Kelly was more prone to those basic clangers (at home to Chelsea on the last day of the season in 1993 was an example). I suppose with Tracey, people are thinking about the occasions when he'd fly out of the box (e.g. Spurs away, or the Battle of Bramall Lane) and get sent off (and probably his off-field persona). Either way, you're right that both were truly fine goalkeepers - genuinely both in the top five in the country at the time, and leagues better than Chris Woods. Brave, commanding, fantastic shot-stoppers and both regarding quite correctly as club legends.
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Tracey dropped the ball on his debut.

We beat Huddersfield 5-1 and Tracey dropped a cross and the striker put it in the net.

Both great keeepre though.

I remember Tracey asking a save against West Brom I think when Booker scored two and I don't know how he got it over the bar. Banksesque!

Kelly will always have Wembley. Shame such an imperious performance couldn't have seen him on the winning side.
 
Tracey was asked about the Battle of Bramall Lane. Obviously he was first to be sent off but he was extremely critical of Warnock’s decision to send Santos on with the team down to 10 men given the history with Johnson. He also was critical of the actions after we were down to 8 men and said that if it wasn’t for Derek Dooley, Warnock would have been out.
 



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