Early 90s memories

[Emerson Thome]

To escape from the current mess and indulge in sunnier days, I've been rewatching a lot of early 90s Wednesday on YouTube (there's a treasure trove on there - VintageWednesdayVids in particular). It's one thing experiencing it as a youngster and another thing seeing the games again with slightly more critical eyes. Here's a few things that struck me:

 

Better than I remembered:

Carlton Palmer - With Palmer and Sheridan, I remembered Palmer as the midfield destroyer and Sheridan as the creative genius. But I'd forgotten just how much of an attacking threat Palmer was. E.g. the 5 full seasons they played together (1989-1994), Palmer set up just about as many goals as Sheridan. And that's despite Sheridan (along with Worthington) being on most of the free-kicks and corners. Even goalscoring wise, Palmer got 17 in those 5 seasons and Sheridan only got 4 more goals if you exclude penalties: 21 from open play and free kicks (Sheridan did score 12 pens on top of those 21 but then he did miss quite a few penalties too, so who's to say Carlton wouldn't have scored more of them?!). Some of Carlton's goals - i.e. vs Boro in the Cup, the hat-trick against QPR, vs Ipswich and Chelsea in 93/94 were sublime.

 

Mark Bright - The defences generally were a lot more ragged in the 90s. Long aimless balls forwards caused confusion, and Bright had that wonderful knack of scoring from inside the 6 yard box. Put himself about a lot too. For those two or three seasons in the mid-90s it was basically Bright's goals that held our team together.

 

Ryan Jones - Really didn't remember much about this guy other than he scored at a couple of the earliest games I went to, but looked class from what I saw on the highlights. Such a shame injury ruined his career.

 

Chris Bart-Williams - Strong, skillful and great close control. People say he had no pace, but hardly anyone did in the 90s! There's a brilliant goal at Maine Road where he dribbles 60 yards past half their team (although the goal was credited to Ryan Jones who apparently slid in on the line - the video doesn't actually capture that).

 

Same as I remembered:

David Hirst - Just as good as I remembered. In his pomp (1990-92 I would say) he had everything, pace, skills, a thunderous shot with both feet - a menace in the box but would go haring down the channels too. It's slightly sad watching the videos and seeing him diminished slightly more in speed each year as the injuries start to take their toll. Would be worth £30m these days.

 

Paul Warhurst - One of the major differences is seeing how slow most of the players were. Aside from Hirst and Paul Williams there is very little pace in the Wednesday team and even less in some of our opponents. I guess that is why this guy, along with Hirst, stood out so much, either charging forward from defence or when he played up front. Shoot-on sight and scored some real screamers.

 

Worse than I remembered:

Goalkeeping - generally the standard is ropey. For Woods vs Pressman, Woods I remembered as being decent normally but a disaster in the big games, which pretty much holds up. But seems to me Pressman was equally a disaster in the big games - two absolute howlers in the League Cup semi-final vs Man Utd, others in local derbies, e.g. at the Lane in 93-94. Perhaps he gets away with this reputation as he didn't play in as many big games as Woods?

 

Nigel Pearson & Viv Anderson - When I was younger I felt these guys were two heroes of defending, particularly Pearson who I had always put in the Steve Bruce 'unlucky to not get capped for England' category. But watching games back, flipping heck they were slow. Painful watching them at times up against players like Dalian Atkinson or Sharpe/Giggs. Those two games against Kaiserslautern we were unlucky with the outrageous Hirst red card and the penalty for Viv's foul outside the box - but seeing Pearson and Anderson playing a high line against not particularly quick forwards and get murdered for pace time and time again, we could easily have conceded 7 or 8 over the two legs. Viv Anderson at 35 was the prototype Reda Johnson, hide behind the sofa with defending to do in our own half, but lethal when attacking a cross.

 

Gordon Watson - actually scored more goals than I remembered, and not worse than I remember playing wise, but I'd forgotten what a violent nutter he was. Never seems to get mentioned in the 'crazy XI' teams on here but managed to get sent off about 3 minutes in one game and absolutely clobbered the Kaiserslautern goalie with a flying elbow that would be a 5 game ban these days. And not violent, but there's his classic dive vs Leeds which is always worth another watch.

 

Any other thoughts, memories, observations?

[areNOTwhatTHEYseem]

Waddle was alright.

 

[Justbeanz]

Fond memories of John Harkes, John Sheridan and Des Walker. Class players.

[NorfolkNChance]

Players like Mike Williams, Adem Poric and Simon Coleman actually playing in the top flight 

[malek]

Sheridan missed many penalties ?! Didn't he miss just two ?

[Frank_Lucas]

The end of the Premier!

[Kopparberg]

I was quite young but

 

Des Walker taking the ball off the opposition strikers like ‘candy from a baby’. 

 

 

[Emerson Thome]

13 minutes ago, malek said:

Sheridan missed many penalties ?! Didn't he miss just two ?

At least 4 I think. Was it against Oxford in the promotion season and then 3 in the 94-95 season (think penalties reverted back to Hirst after that)

[the monk]

Oh please no ,not again !

 

[Emerson Thome]

20 minutes ago, areNOTwhatTHEYseem said:

Waddle was alright.

 

 

Yeah, Waddle was incredible. Two things I'd forgotten about him - one was that he actually missed nearly a year out with injury at one point (this being around the time that fantastic Francis team started to go tîts up). The other was I remembered the way he used to stand there and and invite a tackle from the full back, then shift the ball and whip a cross in. But what I didn't remember so much was he also would sometimes do the same trick of standing still and instead of beating the full back would suddenly just ping a pass though the full back and pick out someone in the box. Incredible vision.

[Justbeanz]

5 minutes ago, Emerson Thome said:

At least 4 I think. Was it against Oxford in the promotion season and then 3 in the 94-95 season (think penalties reverted back to Hirst after that)

Probably had a couple of pints too many the night before the games 

[malek]

8 minutes ago, Emerson Thome said:

At least 4 I think. Was it against Oxford in the promotion season and then 3 in the 94-95 season (think penalties reverted back to Hirst after that)

 

Thanks mate. I can't remember it at all. Always remembered him as top penalty taker.

[malek]

Transfer market says he missed 3 in top division (against Leeds, but scored from rebound, and in both games Against Chelsea in 94). Not sure if it is 100% true, though. So at least 5 in his Wednesday career.

[Emerson Thome]

Maybe it was only 2 in 94 then, not 100% sure. But I think there was a third. But yeah, he definitely missed one against Oxford in Division Two.

[matthefish2002]

34 minutes ago, Emerson Thome said:

 

Yeah, Waddle was incredible. Two things I'd forgotten about him - one was that he actually missed nearly a year out with injury at one point (this being around the time that fantastic Francis team started to go tîts up). The other was I remembered the way he used to stand there and and invite a tackle from the full back, then shift the ball and whip a cross in. But what I didn't remember so much was he also would sometimes do the same trick of standing still and instead of beating the full back would suddenly just ping a pass though the full back and pick out someone in the box. Incredible vision.

 

I remember Waddle being out for a year. Made his come back at Millmoor in a reserve game (IIRC we used Millmoor for reserve games for a season to save the pitch for Euro 96) and got a crowd of about 5,000.

[areNOTwhatTHEYseem]

37 minutes ago, Emerson Thome said:

Yeah, Waddle was incredible. Two things I'd forgotten about him - one was that he actually missed nearly a year out with injury at one point (this being around the time that fantastic Francis team started to go tîts up). The other was I remembered the way he used to stand there and and invite a tackle from the full back, then shift the ball and whip a cross in. But what I didn't remember so much was he also would sometimes do the same trick of standing still and instead of beating the full back would suddenly just ping a pass though the full back and pick out someone in the box. Incredible vision.

 

Plus this...

 

 

I used to try to play like Waddle when I was a kid, which used to drive my managers mad. I'd dribble past half their team, shimmying around them and feeling like I was the dog's proverbials.

 

The only difference was that I had absolutely no idea where I was going and usually ended up further away from their goal than I'd been when I first got on the ball. On a few occasions, I actually ended up dribbling it straight off the pitch and failed to notice until the ref blew his whistle!

 

I ended up as a right-back.

[Colinwestzicoest]

I'm privileged to have been introduced to our club in the early 80's then been a season ticket holder through to the mid 90's. Easily the best period in our history in terms of quality of football & atmosphere at matches. All younger Wednesday fans should feel incredibly jealous that we experienced this, magic day's. Credit to the younger fans for with sticking with our club though. 

[Rogers]

1 hour ago, Emerson Thome said:

To escape from the current mess and indulge in sunnier days, I've been rewatching a lot of early 90s Wednesday on YouTube (there's a treasure trove on there - VintageWednesdayVids in particular). It's one thing experiencing it as a youngster and another thing seeing the games again with slightly more critical eyes. Here's a few things that struck me:

 

Better than I remembered:

Carlton Palmer - With Palmer and Sheridan, I remembered Palmer as the midfield destroyer and Sheridan as the creative genius. But I'd forgotten just how much of an attacking threat Palmer was. E.g. the 5 full seasons they played together (1989-1994), Palmer set up just about as many goals as Sheridan. And that's despite Sheridan (along with Worthington) being on most of the free-kicks and corners. Even goalscoring wise, Palmer got 17 in those 5 seasons and Sheridan only got 4 more goals if you exclude penalties: 21 from open play and free kicks (Sheridan did score 12 pens on top of those 21 but then he did miss quite a few penalties too, so who's to say Carlton wouldn't have scored more of them?!). Some of Carlton's goals - i.e. vs Boro in the Cup, the hat-trick against QPR, vs Ipswich and Chelsea in 93/94 were sublime.

 

Mark Bright - The defences generally were a lot more ragged in the 90s. Long aimless balls forwards caused confusion, and Bright had that wonderful knack of scoring from inside the 6 yard box. Put himself about a lot too. For those two or three seasons in the mid-90s it was basically Bright's goals that held our team together.

 

Ryan Jones - Really didn't remember much about this guy other than he scored at a couple of the earliest games I went to, but looked class from what I saw on the highlights. Such a shame injury ruined his career.

 

Chris Bart-Williams - Strong, skillful and great close control. People say he had no pace, but hardly anyone did in the 90s! There's a brilliant goal at Maine Road where he dribbles 60 yards past half their team (although the goal was credited to Ryan Jones who apparently slid in on the line - the video doesn't actually capture that).

 

Same as I remembered:

David Hirst - Just as good as I remembered. In his pomp (1990-92 I would say) he had everything, pace, skills, a thunderous shot with both feet - a menace in the box but would go haring down the channels too. It's slightly sad watching the videos and seeing him diminished slightly more in speed each year as the injuries start to take their toll. Would be worth £30m these days.

 

Paul Warhurst - One of the major differences is seeing how slow most of the players were. Aside from Hirst and Paul Williams there is very little pace in the Wednesday team and even less in some of our opponents. I guess that is why this guy, along with Hirst, stood out so much, either charging forward from defence or when he played up front. Shoot-on sight and scored some real screamers.

 

Worse than I remembered:

Goalkeeping - generally the standard is ropey. For Woods vs Pressman, Woods I remembered as being decent normally but a disaster in the big games, which pretty much holds up. But seems to me Pressman was equally a disaster in the big games - two absolute howlers in the League Cup semi-final vs Man Utd, others in local derbies, e.g. at the Lane in 93-94. Perhaps he gets away with this reputation as he didn't play in as many big games as Woods?

 

Nigel Pearson & Viv Anderson - When I was younger I felt these guys were two heroes of defending, particularly Pearson who I had always put in the Steve Bruce 'unlucky to not get capped for England' category. But watching games back, flipping heck they were slow. Painful watching them at times up against players like Dalian Atkinson or Sharpe/Giggs. Those two games against Kaiserslautern we were unlucky with the outrageous Hirst red card and the penalty for Viv's foul outside the box - but seeing Pearson and Anderson playing a high line against not particularly quick forwards and get murdered for pace time and time again, we could easily have conceded 7 or 8 over the two legs. Viv Anderson at 35 was the prototype Reda Johnson, hide behind the sofa with defending to do in our own half, but lethal when attacking a cross.

 

Gordon Watson - actually scored more goals than I remembered, and not worse than I remember playing wise, but I'd forgotten what a violent nutter he was. Never seems to get mentioned in the 'crazy XI' teams on here but managed to get sent off about 3 minutes in one game and absolutely clobbered the Kaiserslautern goalie with a flying elbow that would be a 5 game ban these days. And not violent, but there's his classic dive vs Leeds which is always worth another watch.

 

Any other thoughts, memories, observations?

I always thought Pearson was a weak link to be honest, even as a teenager.  Bit of a cart horse, slow.  Too similar to Shirtliff.  We’d have been better bedding in Weatherall and Newsome. 
 

Anderson was class, but was getting on a bit when we signed him. 
 

I was happy when we got the pace of Warhurst at the back and I thought he would play for England at centre back, if he just concentrated more and upped his positioning.  He was quick, could tackled, bring the bell out of defence, and good in the air. 
 

Unfortunately (and fortunately in some occasions), he had other ideas about being Roy of the Rovers.

[peacock1961]

Great memories, but it just reinforces how far we have dropped, and then look up and see Leicester, watford, Bournemouth, Burnley and you know who. Heartbreaking it really is. 

[myHero]

1 hour ago, Kopparberg said:

I was quite young but

 

Des Walker taking the ball off the opposition strikers like ‘candy from a baby’. 

 

 

Des was a £2.5 million signing from Sampdoria 

 

Waddle signed for £1m from Marseille.

 

Both signed a year or so after Italia 90 World Cup. 

 

Can you imagine that nowadays? That would be like us Signing Raheem Sterling and John Stones next year.