Taking on board some helpful hints and tips given to me (you have FEn to thank!) I thought would try something a little different. It may not be to everyone`s taste, may even be viewed as pointless? In theory at least it should get us all talking and if nothing else gives us the chance to get our view across, and put forward our own input?
Recently one evening at work with little or nothing else to do I started thinking about Pompey, as one does, thinking about my favourite or worst moments, goals, players, and managers etc. but on this particular occasion the biggest donkey`s I`d thought had played for Pompey.
I decided I would base it purely on players that I`d actually witnessed play for the club since watching my first game (when I say first game I mean first LIVE at the ground game.) There are many names that I know of or would have seen on TV or video before but to be fair I decided I would only include those in my own frame of reference. Sadly as I left Pompey when I was a kid, having not been able to see a game before moving and subsequently not being in a financial position to be able to afford to travel from my current base in Plymouth it wasn`t until 1998 that I was first able to travel and watch Pompey.
Every club has its fair share of bad, often forgettable players and each likes to think they`ve had the most! But I think it is fair to say we have had our fair share, but it could`ve been worse…
Nikos Kyzeridis is a name that always sticks in my mind coming to us from Paniliakos for £100,000 with a big reputation and was going to be our next scoring hero? was released before too long. Sven Andreasson, Steve Soley and Thomas Thogersen were also all players that arrived in the 1998/99 season who could fit the bill. Although I have to admit that at first Thogersen may have looked like a footballer who had rarely kicked a ball let alone played International and Champions League football he did redeem himself somewhat in the end, having some superb games even going on a goalscoring spree!
Andy Thomson was a defender I never rated and to get £50,000 for him when we sold him to Bristol Rovers was a bonus although he is by no means the worst. Matty Robinson, another bad footballer for us on the whole, but falls into the Thogersen category to a degree.
Michael Panopoulos was a big money signing for the club, at that time anyway, somewhere around £750,000 and was going to be huge, allegedly superb? I rarely saw this. Lee Mills arrived for £1 million, I saw him score most of his few goals but can`t say I ever saw him play well but he did have some personal issues didn`t he.
Valery Mezague was bad, I`d heard good things of him and in all fairness I only saw him play one game, the 3-0 beating from Villa but he looked out of his depth, didn`t even look like a football league player of any level. I really felt for him and prayed he would be substituted luckily he was, but it was too late. I can`t give him the tag for the simple reason I only saw the one performance and even the best have an off day, maybe that happened to be his?
Boris Zivkovic comes very close in my eyes. Signed with a wealth of experience, captain of Croatia, years of Champions League experience behind him but I`d never seen anyone pull out of so many tackles as he did, but I`d guess he had a few moments didn`t he? I like the story that is told of him going into Redknapp`s office looking for a transfer away with Redknapp already on the phone that very moment looking for a replacement anyway!
I have to go with the Greek so called Goalkeeper Konstantinos Chalkias. Absolutely incredible, I swear I have never seen a worse footballer in the Pompey colours arguably in any clubs colours. How on earth he ever played International football for Greece is beyond me. They must have been very, very, very short of options.
How could he have been a better option than Shaka Hislop or Jamie Ashdown? He didn`t have a clue. You like your ‘keepers to come for things and not be rooted to the line but there is coming for crosses and coming for crosses if you know what I mean. You know when you feel embarrassment for someone? I felt that for him almost every minute of every game he played once it became apparent he was BAD. Sends a shiver down my spine just thinking of him now, makes me cringe even.
I`m sure I`ve missed out many names that you will add but I`m sure I`d agree, but as I say wanted to keep it really within my frame of reference to be fair. I`m sure I could also have even added more but the other names I thought of mentioning had more than their fair share of good moments in my own opinion so I thought it unfair to type cast them, feel bad maybe even putting Thogersen, but he was worth it for his early games.
So Konstantinos Chalkias is my worst ever, what about you?
If this is a kind of feature that proves to be liked then I`ll happily do more to get us talking. I`d speak of my other moments good or bad relating to goals, games and players etc. I have many ideas stored in my head to let us all have our say about.
* This article may appear similar to the recent Underachievers article, but I wrote this at the end of July. I haven`t posted sooner as I haven`t had the chance, then the previous mentioned was posted so I felt it too similar at the time. *
Share this article
