yes they whistled through shanklys silence, 2-2 it finished an pretty sure swansea went 2-0 up, seem to remember 2 terry mac pens to rescue us, lots of swans made the trip up that day, ray kennedy play for them that day? colin irwin also had a spell there, swansea had a good side then, im guessing they got top 6.
sorry to hear about the disrespect for shanks....unforgiveable...stupid kid yobs!
as for the team, toshack cobbled together an amazingly good squad mostly made up of a bunch of nearly-has-beens but still enough quality and desire (doesn't seem to happen these days) to have one last hurrah at the top level and a backbone of good Welsh talent.
our 1st division (i.e. top level) debut was at Elland Road when Leeds were still pretty good and we thrashed them 5-0. we were top of the table up until about Christmas but fell away to finish 6th. the bubble burst the next season as several of the old players retired. we were relegated and eventually went bankrupt but were somehow reprieved.
colin irwin was our most expensive buy at that time at 340,000 pounds (a lot in those days) but he didn't play much due to injury and had to retire prematurely. we also had ex-Red Phil Boersma but his career also ended early due to injury. he was through on goal at Swindon and was just about to shoot from about 12 yards when the Robins' centre half clattered him. The ball went OVER the main stand such was the force of the tackle. Sadly Phil's ankle was badly broken and he never played again i think.
a few players Toshack brought in that may be remembered by some: Bob Latchford (ex Brum and Everton i think), Leighton Phillips (Villa and Wales skipper), Leighton James (ex Burnley winger), Tommy Craig (ex Newcastle and Scotland midfielder), Terry Yorath (ex Leeds), John Mahoney (ex Stoke City...1st Division club for years, world's best goalie Gordon Banks et al), Ante Rajkovic (Yugoslav international....still the best central defender I ever saw, including Jockey and Thommo), Dzemel "Jimmie" Hadziabdic (another Yugoslav international, a left back), Dai Davies (ex Everton keeper i think), Jimmie Rimmer (also ex-Everton goalie), Alan Waddle (a Crouch-like near-7-foot striker from...umm....Newcastle i think, or Spurs...hmmm...not sure now. He became a bit of a cult hero.), oh....and Tommy Smith and Ian Callaghan who you may know something about!
Sorry to ramble on with my reminiscences...hope not too boring for everyone.
One Tommy Smith story to close....Spurs were at the Vetch and they had the Argentine duo of Ricky Villa and Osvaldo Ardiles in their team. This was early days of foreign players so they were seen as somewhat "exotic" especially Ardiles who was a small, twinkle-toes kind of player (truly world class, played in world cup final, physically somewhat similar to Nobbie Solano currently up at Newcastle). Anyhow, they kicked off and the ball was passed sideways to Ossie who was facing his own goal from around the halfway line just outside the centre circle. Tommy was already on-the-sprint before Ossie even received the ball and he was already airborne before the Argie had the ball controlled then.....smack....Smithy clattered into the back of Ardlies' legs. he went down in a heap and his expression of a mix of fear, anger and outright disgust at such brutal treatment was quite the picture.
I think the ref just gave Tommy a warning as to future conduct and Ardiles was like a frightened chicken for the rest of the game, literally jumping in the air every time he received the ball just in case Smithy was on his bike again.
Brutal of course and really no place in the game but....bloody effective. Funny thing is, Tommy Smith could really PLAY as well....how many remember him starting as a #10 and dribbling his way past defenders...hilarious! Tommy wouldn't last 5 minutes these days (not unless he adapted anyway) and it is probably true that football is better without that kind of stuff going on but....well....you know....it WAS a MAN's GAME played by MEN and at least people just picked themselves up and carried on unlike the pansying about that goes on now....bunch of babies!
AAAAAHHH.....SOD IT! I just knocked over a full glass of Scotch (The Glenlivet) all over my mouse pad....bugger, that's about 5 dollars worth gone for nought and there is only a tiny drop left in the bottle....double bugger legs! I knew I should have kept this post shorter and focussed on the drinking.
OH well....'night all!
