Who is your favourite player, and why?

Almost goes without saying - Andy Hessenthaler, current manager and was the Roy Keane of the Championship for a number of years. Absolutely rock solid, always played with heart and lead by example.

Whilst not really known for his goals, there are a couple of stunners on here. He was a dirty bastard but there is a reason why nearly every other team's fans hated him.



2.33 - Hess vs Millwall 9.20 - vs Stoke

Andy we salute you.

Best player I've ever seen play for Gillingham?

Marlon 'Cunt' King - Ignore his off field problems and he was one hell of a striker in his day. His goals against Arsenal at Highbury and merking David James at home to West Ham from miles out with a free kick still raise the hairs on the back of the neck (all included in the vid btw).

Wish I'd made the most of the Championship days

Non-Gills:
Ryan Giggs



To be honest, need I say anymore?

For me it has to be Eric Cantona. Don't think much was expected of him when Fergie signed him but what a coup he turned out to be. He was a joy to watch, made things look effortless and besides all that, he was cool as fuck.

I remember the whole incident with the Crystal Palace fan. It was fantastic. It was unheard of for a footballing icon like Cantona to do something so outrageous but the fact that he didn't care was brilliant. It was inevtible he was going to get a lengthy ban and when he did I was gutted. But, when he returned, it was magnificent and besides the Champions League win over Bayern Munich in 99/00, it's greatest football related memory in my brain.

I remember listening to Man Utd vs Newcaslte a few years after on the radio when he scored a goal from a near impossible angle. I remember the commentators on the radio being as good as speechless and remember thinking that Cantona must be the best player ever. Then there was the FA Cup Final against Liverpool. I went fucking ballistic when Cantona scored the winner and got my Dad to buy me a massive Cantona picture to put on my bedroom wall.

What a man.

well ive had a fair few players who ive idolised at newcastle during the last 15-20 years, Ginola, Given, Ferdinand, Rob Lee and Robert to name a few but its gotta be Shearer hasn't it, the amount of times ive sat in the gallowgate, growing up, watching him smash the ball in the net is unreal, Mr Newcastle, i dont believe that he has no regrets about turning fergie down but also i dont belive that Fergie has no regrets about missing out on him, Man Utd would have won boatloads more with Big Al's goals, here's a nice sample

Andy Carroll has to be a close second though, yeah?

What a man.

haha well to be fair he isn't quite a don yet but if gets 20 goals a season for the next few years then he will be getting up there

this guy was my hero as a kid and has conducted his life in a don like manner so quite possibly its him...

hyypiä probably. to go from the pathetic shithole that my hometown is to captain liverpool in their recent heyday is such a fucking astonishing achievement. plus he has always been really classy and just a perfect example of a hardworking, hardplaying footballer.

hasse blomqvist
best skills ever in football. he got injured with some hamstring shit when he was about to break through. this video is sadly the only video on youtube of him and it's when he was doing his comeback after all those years injured.
played with him too when having a kick aboot with some friends and he joined and nutmegged the shit out of us. what a true hero. Met him on the tram some years ago and told him so. was a bit funny cos I was twice the size of him.



and zlatan obviously

David Beckham tbh. Loved him when I was growing up, and tried to be him so much he's pretty much the reason my finishing is shit, but my crossing is alright tbh.

Remember being at this match tbh, amazing moment:


and tbf, he completely owned the whole pitch with his crossing, all the time tbh.

Forgot how much I loved him til I thought about it for this thread

oh and you can't forget this tbh...



as a kid it's probably the most impressive thing I ever saw

Henrik Larsson

When he was with Celtic was when I first started to get into the sport more than just in passing. Used to watch games late at night on Fox Sports.

My favourites from before my the days I was old enough to really start following football: Johan Cruijff, Marco van Basten and Stefan Pettersson



The Ajax fan who organised Petterssons goodbye talking about it. The talking in Dutch isn't that interesting for you guys but the video footage is beautiful

From the players I've really seen play: Jari Litmanen and Rafael van der Vaart.



OMG

Neville Southall because he's the best goal keeper of all time. BAR NONE.

Forgot to say that my favourite non Ajax related players of all time are Fernando Redondo, Santiago Solari and not surprisingly Stefan Effenberg. As you can see I do not really have one particular favourite



Redondo

Will never forget that Passarella, Argentina's manager at the time said none of the Argentinian players could have 'long' hair no more and had to cut it off. Redondo refused and when Passarella withdrew the rule the first thing he did was cut his hair off. Legend ;D

RE: Andy Carroll

(I quoted the wrong post and cannot be bothered to put it right )

Carroll has been involved in many off-the-pitch incidents in his career. On 14 September 2008, Carroll was arrested by police called to the Pudding Chare in Newcastle responding to a report that a woman had been assaulted, and later accepted a police caution for assault. On 7 December 2009, he was arrested in the aftermath of a nightclub brawl, accused of smashing glass in a man's face outside of the Blu Bambu night club in Newcastle city centre.[45] He was charged with assault [46] and is currently on bail awaiting a Crown Court trial. He was also arrested after an incident on the training ground which allegedly left teammate Steven Taylor with a broken jaw.[47] Carroll reportedly suffered a broken hand in the incident, and he was shortly photographed in a pop concert with bandages to both hands.[48] Manager Chris Hughton and club representatives declined to comment any further on the incident.[49] On 18 October 2010, Carroll was charged with assaulting a former girlfriend. Claiming self-defence, and having given a local hotel as his address, Carroll was granted bail on the condition that he resides with Newcastle captain Kevin Nolan until the case resumes in January.[50] Two days following his bail, Carroll's car was torched by vandals whilst parked on Nolan's driveway, with the club captain's garage door also being daubed with obscenities.[51]

And that's not forgetting the barnet.

DON

Davie Cooper - I first starting going to watch rangers in the 80s with my Grandad who used to play for them in the 20/30s. We didn't have the best team at that time but Cooper was a player who always got you out your seat. A wand of a left foot and just an amazing player to watch. Gullit even called him "one of the best players he's ever seen"..some accolade

He also did this against Celtic in the League Cu Final


Sadly he died of a brain haemorrage while doing a coaching video for the SFA

Rest In Peace Coops

I also have a huge man crush and love for Brian Laudrup cos he was amazing

that coops goal is a peach. like that forgotten and mythical pele goal. I love when players take the ball over the head of another player. Made a similar goal when I was a wee kid

that gigga goal gave me the "ahhhhss" even though its morning, cold and raining. says something about the goal.

I'll post mines some day in the future or I won't, but Luis Garcia I wanna hear that story

Over the years I’ve had a few favourite players, my first hero was …

David Jeffrey, aka Big Davy.

When you’re young you usually looked up to forward players because football is about scoring goals and they scored them however I was different I loved Davy and he was as ungraceful a centre half as you could get. He’d throw himself into a tackle, win the ball and hoof it up the pitch as hard as he could; there was no playing the ball out from the back.

What I loved about him though was how much it meant for him to play for Linfield and you knew he’d run through brick walls for the cause. There was also the added bonus of Glentoran fans hating him. I met him loads when I was young and despite being a crazy looking bastard he was a really nice guy.

When he stopped playing for Linfield he moved around a few Irish League clubs until he decided to get into coaching, he returned to Linfield as assistant manager and in 1997 was appointed manager. In his time as manager he’s lead us to some glorious highs but he’s changed as a person. He’s become an egotist and a not very pleasant person who picks his favourites instead players in form, and as cheeky as it is to want rid of a man who has delivered 4 doubles in 5 seasons I want him out to fuck.

When Davy left as a player I was gutted but the year he left we signed a guy from Bohemians in the League of Ireland who became my all time favourite player …

Dessie Gorman, aka The Hawk

Unlike Davy, Dessie Gorman was real flair player a wide man / centre forward who was probably the most skilful player I’ve ever seen play for Linfield. His signing at the time was massive news, not only was he regarded as a great talent but he was Catholic. During the Troubles in Northern Ireland Linfield hadn’t signed any Catholic players. The media said we had an unwritten rule regarding this and labelled the club sectarian, the truth of the matter was we had tried to sign several Catholic players but they had been intimidated out of the move by the IRA.

Dessie wasn’t for being intimidated though and he signed for us which in turn lead to players like Raymond ‘Soupy’ Campbell and Pat Fenlon signing as well.

I can’t put into words how much I loved this man, he made the most difficult things look easy. The highlight of his career was probably the 1993/94 League Championship, we’d dominated the league until about Easter time when we hit a rough patch our lead was cut back and we found ourselves in a three way fight for the title with Glenavon and Portadown.

Going into the final game we found ourselves 2 points behind both teams. They were playing each other in the final league game of the season and we had the Glens at home. Our game kicked off about 10 minutes before the other due to over crowding at the other game.

At half time we were sat at 0-0 and Glenavon had gone into the break up 2-0. Second halves kick off, again 10 minutes apart we eventually won our game 2-0, Dessie had scored a screamer to settle the nerves. News came through the Ports had levelled, if it stayed that we we’d win the league on goal difference.

The 10 minute for the other game to finish felt like a life time but the rush of emotions when the final whistle went was something I’ll never forget, it was the first time I’d seen us win the league and I don’t think it’ll ever be topped.

Since the days of The Hawk I’ve had other favourite players Michael Gault, Bobby Geddis, Phil Charnock, Kenny Irons, Tim Mouncey, Peter Thompson, Billy Joe Burns … I could go on and on tbh, but nobody has ever come close to topping The Hawk.