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Tommy Craig


Guest sandbachowl

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One of my all time favourite players, he was such a talent.

 

When Tommy first arrived I used to watch him closely, partly to see what all the hype was about and partly because it was the only actual football on display, his vision and execution of a cross field pass is the best I've ever seen, problem was none of the other players could read them, he was far too good for us.

 

We soon brought him down to our level though.

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It seems that, according to earlier posts, Tommy Craig's debut was also my debut. First trip to Hillsborough, under the lights, and I was hooked.

 

My abiding memory of TC was his thumping shot. I remember standing behind the kop goal when he blasted in from 25yd v Chelsea.

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Agree, Tommo was a very good player in a poor team for most of his time with Wednesday. He was a terrific ball player, if you watched him in the warm up he could do some reight tricks. Apparently in training him and Sisso used to keep the ball up between them for ages using all the legal body parts (not sure if wee wee tails were used). His volleying, passing and shooting was great to watch, once saw him volley a cross field pass from South stand touch line to either Sinclair or Wee Willie over by the North  stand, straight to feet! Can't remember who against, but remember him volleying in at the Leppings Lane end and I was right behind it standing on the Kop, top right hand corner, great goal. Always a pleasure to watch Tommo, something about a dominantly left footed player that always looks classy.

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We were under stiff completion from Aston Villa for his signature and he was thought of very highly in Scotland as the next John White. We bought Tommy from Aberdeen for a then record fee for a teenager. Unfortunately Wednesday's Board would not go the extra mile and invest in another couple of players who could play with him and take him to the next level. We never really realised his true potential.  He was a very good player, but would have done better elsewhere to be fair to him. Wednesday were notorious in those days for not spending on the team, preferring to develop the stadium.

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Was my hero at the time. Trusted left foot, very rarely put a pass wrong, he could knock it short or spray it 40 yds straight to feet. At the time in my opinion he was the player most likely to turn a game in our favour albeit he was playing alongside some reyt dummies. Top player and would even fit into todays side.

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14 hours ago, torryowl said:

in 74-75 we were a side with fighting chance of avoiding relegation ,we then sold tommo in dec and in the next 21 games won 1 and scored 3 goals .....he was a brilliant player in a very very bad team .

This - plus he was Scotland's answer to Alan Ball

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Craig was highly overated by most,his first full season he looked way out of his depth much of the time,all be it in a side that was under a heavy restructure and fire saleing its quality players,Wed competed hard with Liverpool for his signature but payed WAY over his value at 100k,when 50K was closer to his true value at that time.

Despite dropping a division he barely set pulses racing in his 2nd season and despite looking stylish at times flattered to decieve.

He began to flourish during the 71-2 season,and became a regular penalty taker.and came more to fore the following season,when at one stage we looked like promotion contenders.

All in all he was bright light in a VERY poor side for a couple of years,but the fans of the time would have clung to just about anything the club was so bad from top to bottom.

In his final season at our place he was eclipsed by a loanee,but by then the board had sold everything bar the ground and we were in dire straits.

He was ok,not a hero to me,but to some he was,Id seen Fantham,Mac,Layne and Swan,he had a feirce shot when he let go from distance,scored a few spectacular goals,but so did Jimmy mullen!

Liverpool judged him better than we did.

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7 hours ago, legendaryswan said:

Craig was highly overated by most,his first full season he looked way out of his depth much of the time,all be it in a side that was under a heavy restructure and fire saleing its quality players,Wed competed hard with Liverpool for his signature but payed WAY over his value at 100k,when 50K was closer to his true value at that time.

Despite dropping a division he barely set pulses racing in his 2nd season and despite looking stylish at times flattered to decieve.

He began to flourish during the 71-2 season,and became a regular penalty taker.and came more to fore the following season,when at one stage we looked like promotion contenders.

All in all he was bright light in a VERY poor side for a couple of years,but the fans of the time would have clung to just about anything the club was so bad from top to bottom.

In his final season at our place he was eclipsed by a loanee,but by then the board had sold everything bar the ground and we were in dire straits.

He was ok,not a hero to me,but to some he was,Id seen Fantham,Mac,Layne and Swan,he had a feirce shot when he let go from distance,scored a few spectacular goals,but so did Jimmy mullen!

Liverpool judged him better than we did.

cant agree with any of that  and it was villa who we beat to his signature .......

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On 14/10/2016 at 10:24, Blatter said:

A skillfull cultured player who took quite a while to slot into his role in the team.

 

Eventually stood out as the best player in what you have to admit though  was a pretty average Wednesday team.

did we once put out a m/f of craig, colin harvey, and eric mcmordie?

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23 hours ago, Owl Capone said:

I remember his debut against Spurs. We had a lot of possession that night and Tommo took all the corners. Everyone was placed right under the bar. Unfortunately Spurs had the great Pat Jennings in goal then (in my opinion the best keeper in the country at the time) and he took every one. A more experienced player would have used theat accuracy to mix it up and try something different, but it was a clear sign of things to come from him. He could drop a ball on a tanner from 40 yards. Instead though he usually dropped it onto the heads of our strikers who couldn't usually hit a barn door from point blank

jennings might have been the best in the world at that time...

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10 hours ago, legendaryswan said:

Craig was highly overated by most,his first full season he looked way out of his depth much of the time,all be it in a side that was under a heavy restructure and fire saleing its quality players,Wed competed hard with Liverpool for his signature but payed WAY over his value at 100k,when 50K was closer to his true value at that time.

Despite dropping a division he barely set pulses racing in his 2nd season and despite looking stylish at times flattered to decieve.

He began to flourish during the 71-2 season,and became a regular penalty taker.and came more to fore the following season,when at one stage we looked like promotion contenders.

All in all he was bright light in a VERY poor side for a couple of years,but the fans of the time would have clung to just about anything the club was so bad from top to bottom.

In his final season at our place he was eclipsed by a loanee,but by then the board had sold everything bar the ground and we were in dire straits.

He was ok,not a hero to me,but to some he was,Id seen Fantham,Mac,Layne and Swan,he had a feirce shot when he let go from distance,scored a few spectacular goals,but so did Jimmy mullen!

Liverpool judged him better than we did.

the first question to ask on a saturday when meeting up was 'is craig playing?'

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2 hours ago, dnhc said:

the first question to ask on a saturday when meeting up was 'is craig playing?'

eric taylors famous quote " tonights team will be tommy craig and 10 others"..............which didnt go down well with some of the others.

 

2 hours ago, dnhc said:

did we once put out a m/f of craig, colin harvey, and eric mcmordie?

we did ...coincided with our best spell of the season ,sadly mcmordie went back to boro , harvey's leg finally dropped off leaving tommo on his own and we sold him the following week to newcastle .......

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13 hours ago, legendaryswan said:

Craig was highly overated by most,his first full season he looked way out of his depth much of the time,all be it in a side that was under a heavy restructure and fire saleing its quality players,Wed competed hard with Liverpool for his signature but payed WAY over his value at 100k,when 50K was closer to his true value at that time.

Despite dropping a division he barely set pulses racing in his 2nd season and despite looking stylish at times flattered to decieve.

He began to flourish during the 71-2 season,and became a regular penalty taker.and came more to fore the following season,when at one stage we looked like promotion contenders.

All in all he was bright light in a VERY poor side for a couple of years,but the fans of the time would have clung to just about anything the club was so bad from top to bottom.

In his final season at our place he was eclipsed by a loanee,but by then the board had sold everything bar the ground and we were in dire straits.

He was ok,not a hero to me,but to some he was,Id seen Fantham,Mac,Layne and Swan,he had a feirce shot when he let go from distance,scored a few spectacular goals,but so did Jimmy mullen!

Liverpool judged him better than we did.

I'm afraid you are wrong on a number of points here. Wednesday fought off Villa for his signature not Liverpool. We had to match what Villa had offered, thus 100K. How can you suggest Swan and Layne were hero's !!! they took bribes remember. Jimmy Mullen was not in the same class as Tommy Craig.I think your memory could be playing tricks.

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Guest minsk owl
14 hours ago, legendaryswan said:

Craig was highly overated by most,his first full season he looked way out of his depth much of the time,all be it in a side that was under a heavy restructure and fire saleing its quality players,Wed competed hard with Liverpool for his signature but payed WAY over his value at 100k,when 50K was closer to his true value at that time.

Despite dropping a division he barely set pulses racing in his 2nd season and despite looking stylish at times flattered to decieve.

He began to flourish during the 71-2 season,and became a regular penalty taker.and came more to fore the following season,when at one stage we looked like promotion contenders.

All in all he was bright light in a VERY poor side for a couple of years,but the fans of the time would have clung to just about anything the club was so bad from top to bottom.

In his final season at our place he was eclipsed by a loanee,but by then the board had sold everything bar the ground and we were in dire straits.

He was ok,not a hero to me,but to some he was,Id seen Fantham,Mac,Layne and Swan,he had a feirce shot when he let go from distance,scored a few spectacular goals,but so did Jimmy mullen!

Liverpool judged him better than we did.

 

Presumably, you're referring to Eric McMordie,......  McMordie had a great spell for us,  but  " eclipsed " is definitely the wrong word, considering he only played 9 games.

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