August 11 – Big Al’s Bow Blighted

WHEN Kevin Keegan brought Alan Shearer back to St James’ after the Geordie’s Golden Boot-winning antics in Euro 96 the Toon Army were typically jubilant. Today in 1996 however, they fell quite when Big Al made his Newcastle debut in the Charity Shield, losing 4-0 to Manchester United.

Shearer had famously turned down Fergie’s advances, choosing to return to the club that had put him in goal during his trial there as a youngster. His £15m move back north had seen him become the world’s most expensive player, but if it was trophies he was after he shouldn’t have bothered.

Incredibly, the 1996 Charity Shield was the last, until Portsmouth took on Manchester United yesterday, to feature a team from outside the ‘big four’, as the next 11 contests would be a closed-shop affair.

Mancehster United had secured their second double after Fergie had out-mind-gamed Keegan to the title and Eric Cantona’s strike in the FA Cup Final put paid to Liverpool’s cup hopes.

Fergie was determined not to let his side fall behind the Premiership pace-setters again this season and his charges got off the best possible start, finding themselves 2-0 up after only half-an-hour of the season’s curtain raiser thanks to goals from Cantona and Nicky Butt.

Newcastle managed to steady the ship and began to press forward as the clock ran down, but KK’s gung-ho tactics backfired leaving David Beckham and Roy Keane to add another couple of goals to turn the scoreline into a bit of a drubbing.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom for Keegan and the lads that season though, as two months later they turned the tables spectacularly, beating Manchester United 5-0 at St James’ Park, a match which Keegan decribed as: “Undoubtedly the most enjoyable day I have had as a manager… Unfortunately, the League won’t give us more than three points for it.” By the end of the season though, Fergie was back on the ball and United romped home to the title.

See what happened when Kev told his side to go for the jugular that day below, have a look at what else happened today in history here and come back tomorrow for a look at where one of KK’s former charges was ending up.

August 10 – Fox on the Rocks

AS PORTSMOUTH and Manchester United get the ball rolling on another season of Premier League action in today’s Community Shield, we thought we’d take you back the 2003 curtain raiser when Man United took on Arsenal at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.

Manchester United ended up pipping the Gunners to the trophy, winning in a penalty shoot-out after the two sides drew 1-1. The game was notable for marking the end of Francis Jeffers’ Arsenal career, as Arsene Wenger realised that he had made his biggest boo-boo in the transfer market.

Jeffers arrived at Highbury in 2001 as Wenger answered his transfer market critics by buying British to secure the ‘fox in the box’ that would bring yet more trophies his way.

Bursting onto the scene at Everton, Jeffers scored 20 goals in his first 60 games and became a mainstay of the England Under-21 side. Wenger signed up the young scouser for £7m, but after a couple of years of injury and a distinct lack of cunning in the box Wenger was wishing he hadn’t bothered and sent his scouts back out onto the continent.

Wenger brought Jeffers on as a 60th minute substitute in the clash with Premiership winners Manchester United and after 12 minutes of running around the penalty area Jeffers was red-carded after he petulantly kicked out at Phil Neville.

Jeffers was soon dispatched back on loan to Everton for the season but failed to find the net in 18 Premiership appearances. He then got his journeyman on, with spells at Charlton, Rangers and Ipswich Town, only managing a grand total of seven goals over the next three seasons.

For some reason Sheffield Wednesday still thought he was worth a punt and paid £700,000 for his services. After scoring a 25-yard screamer on his debut against Hull to end Wednesday’s six-game losing streak at the start of the last season, he returned to his usual ways, struggling with injury and only scoring once more that year.

See Jeffers finest moment below, when he scored on his one and only England game. Have a look at how OTFD rolled this time last year here and make sure you’re back here so we can help you get over those Monday morning blues.

August 9 – Ding Dong Dion

WHEN Glenn Hoddle trimmed down his 1998 World Cup squad, he famously left out Paul Gascoigne, who proceeded to smash up Hoddle’s hotel room, breaking chairs, lamps and injuring his foot in the process. Needless to say, he took the news pretty badly and his career never really recovered.

Another man that didn’t make the final cut was then-Coventry City striker Dion Dublin, but he dealt with his disappointment with in a slightly more composed manner. Today in 1998 he got back to work, scoring a hat-trick in Coventry City’s opening day win over Chelsea.

As Coventry prepare for another season in the top flight it’s easy to forget that until their relegation in 2001 that they were top-flight mainstays for 34 years after Jimmy Hill and his famous chin hoisted the club up from the lower leagues in the 1960s.

Dion Dublin’s four-and-a-half year spell at Highfield Road saw him establish himself as one of the top strikers in England after failing to win a regular place in the Manchester United team following his £1m move from Cambridge United in 1992, despite Fergie’s alleged envy of his “magnificent” physique, if the rumours are to be believed.

During the 1997/98 season Dublin bagged 23 goals for Coventry and was the Premier League’s joint leading scorer with Chris Sutton and Michael Owen which lead to an England call-up.

The lanky striker would only manage to win four caps for the national side, as England were remarkably well-stocked with up-front at the time, with Shearer, Owen, Sheringham and sometimes even Andy Cole all ahead in the pecking order.

Soon after his hat-trick against Chelsea, Dublin upset the Coventry faithful by moving across the midlands to Aston Villa in a £5.75m move. A rip-roaring start saw him score seven goals in his first three games, but things soon went sour when he suffered a life-threatening broken neck against Sheffield Wednesday. He went on to make a full recovery, but now has a permanent titanium plate in his neck as a legacy of the accident.

Dublin hung-up his boots at the end of last season and has now taken his seat on the SkySports old-boys club, so expect Jeff Stelling and company to be giving him a ribbing or two in the coming months.

See Dion’s cheekiest ever goal below and check out what else happened today here. Enjoy the start of the season this weekend and make sure you’re back tomorrow for more of the same.

August 8 – Venables’ Old Boys FC

UNDOUBTEDLY one of England’s best recent performances was the 5-1 thrashing of Germany in Munich in 2001. But, can you name who started in the perennially problematic left sided spot in Sven’s midfield?

Yes! That’s right, Nicky Barmby was the latest player to prove he was not the answer to the Three Lions south paw difficulties in Germany that night, but one man still never lost faith in the midfielder and today in 2002 Terry Venables paid £2.75m to bring him to Leeds United.

Venners had of course been brought in by Peter Ridsdale to steer the good ship Leeds into the Champions League after David O’Leary had failed to do just that. A surprise choice for the job, Venables had not really done much since leading England to the semi-finals of Euro 96, save for failing to get Australia to the World Cup and holding Bryan Robson’s hand at Middlesbrough for a couple of months.

Once in the managers office Terry reacted to having to the problem of having to sell some of his best players like Rio Ferdinand with the solution of panicking and buying all his favourite players from five years previously. In came Paul Okon and Barmby as Tel tried to turn back time to when either of them were actually any good.

Barmby had first played under Venners at Spurs, his first club, and had since had spells at Boro, Everton and Liverpool. Unfortunately things did not work out at Elland Road for Terry or Nicky, with Venables sacked in March 2003 as Leeds officially became a crisis club.

In February 2004 Barmby was farmed out to Nottingham Forest on loan. “I’m delighted to have a player of Nicky’s quality on board with us,” said Forest boss Joe Kinnear at the time.

“He has got a great pedigree and he’s enthusiastic to play for Nottingham Forest, and his record of international appearances speaks for itself.

“So does the fact that he has been involved in transfer deals totalling almost 20 million pounds.”

He eventually returned to Hull City, his hometown club where he expected to play out the final days of his career in comfortable obscurity. The highly competitive anyone-can-beat-anyone nature of the Championship has ruined these plans, with Hull promoted last season, earning Barmby an unlikely last stab at top-flight football.

Watch the clip below if you want to cheer yourself up. More from us tomorrow, and here is what we had to say this time last year.

August 7 – Mary Poppins’ Red Card

DESPITE what Freddy Shepherd might think, Alan Shearer finally proved he is not the Mary Poppins of football today in 1999. He was not even the Gary Lineker because it was on this day that he was sent off for the first time ever at the age of 28 – an incredible stat for a man who has made a whole career out of backing into defenders and pulling their shirts.

Newcastle were playing Aston Villa at St James’ Park in a Premiership clash on the opening day of the season and Shearer, who was England captain at the time, was making his 100th appearance for his hometown club.

In the match referee Uriah Rennie dismissed Shearer for a 71st-minute challenge on midfielder Ian Taylor and Villa took advantage of the England captain’s sending off four minutes later.

Joachim met Delaney’s cross from the right and glanced a header past Magpies keeper Steve Harper to make it 1-0.

A bad-natured match, seven players were booked in total, including Shearer who walked after being shown two yellow cards.

Despite the home team dominating most of the game, John Gregory’s Villa held on to take the three points.

Newcastle manager Ruud Gullit was apoplectic at his captain’s red card and at the final whistle he strode across the pitch towards referee Uriah Rennie, gesticulating wildly and had to be restrained by United officials and a policeman.

“I have never known a referee to be such a bad influence on a game,” he said afterwards. “If these are the new FA instructions to referees, they will destroy the game. I just hope people can see on television just how bad he was. Why did he keep stopping the game all the time?

“There was no bad tackling. Two years ago, I thought he was one of the best referees. I don’t know what’s happened to him. Maybe he is under pressure from the FA.”

When it was put to Gullit that he might face a fine or suspension for his outburst, he said: “I don’t care. I’ve got to speak out.”

Gullit’s outburst may have been a window into the soul of a man already under pressure at the club, despite it being only the first day of the season. Things did not pick up for the Dutchman and within three weeks he had left the club after famously leaving Shearer on the bench for a 2-1 defeat to hated rivals Sunderland.

Here is a little clip of Shearer winding up Roy Keane to earn the Irishman a red card. We will be back tomorrow but if you can’t wait until then for more football nostalgia click here to see what else happened on this day in football.

August 6 – Sporting Cronaldo Dazzles Fergie

WE’RE really sorry to do this to you, but today’s story is all about the one man we’ve all had enough of this summer. Today in 2003 Manchester United were undone by Sporting Lisbon in a preseason friendly thanks to match-winning performance from an 18-year-old Christiano Ronaldo.

United were in Portugal to commemorate the opening of Sporting’s brand new stadium, the Estádio José Alvalade, a shimmering 50,000-capacity citadel of a stadium, built as part of Portugal’s winning Euro 2004 bid. In a stroke of genius the stadium designers arranged the seats in random colours to give the impression that the ground is always full. If only the same was done at the Reebok Stadium in Bolton.

Sporting secured a glamour tie with United for their opening game and stunned their English opponents with a 3-1 win. Young Cronaldo was at the hub of all the action, creating two goals for the Portuguese and generally running rings around his soon-to-be team-mates.

Ronaldo had previously impressed for Portugal in the European Under-19 Championships in Liechtenstein as the likes of Chelsea and Liverpool cast admiring glances in his direction.

But it was Ronaldo’s performance against United that made Fergie make the first move, as he said: “After we played Sporting last week the lads in the dressing room talked about him constantly, and on the plane back from the game they urged me to sign him – that’s how highly they rated him. He is one of the most exciting young players I’ve ever seen.”

On August 12 the young winker signed on the dotted line at Old Trafford, become the first Portuguese player to sign for United after the clubs agreed a £12.24m fee.

He’s not fared too badly since. At the moment – quick check of the gossip column on the BBC website – it looks as though United have held off the interest of Real Madrid to keep him at the club, but if we don’t see another headline until the transfer window slams shut at the end of the month we’ll eat our hat.

See the dead-ball prowess of everyone’s favourite modest, down to earth and humble player below and to tide you over until tomorrow’s next dose of OTFD have a look at what we were educating the world about last year here.

August 5 – Red Rom Flexes His Muscles

WHEN news came out of Roman Abramovich’s takeover of Chelsea in July 2003 no one really knew what to expect. Would this mysterious billionaire Russian splash the cash and bring in the world’s best players or was the whole thing part of a bigger Hank Scorpio-esque plan centring on world domination?

Today in 2003 Abramovich showed he meant business when he got the chequebook out and signed the midfield pairing of Joe Cole and Juan Sebastian Veron for £6.6m and £15m respectively.

Headliner-writers and rumour-mongers were having their best summer in years following the takeover, as talks of £70m bids for Raul and £35m for Alessandro Nesta were the talk of Fleet Street despite Ken Bates’ claim that “it’d be madness to buy players and throw them in willy-nilly.”

Joe Cole had just suffered relegation with West Ham, so balked at the chance to join the revolution at Chelsea. Although blessed with the kind of natural talent that would make a wolverine purr, Cole still didn’t have the all-round game to force his way into the England team, but that would soon change under the tutorledge of Claudio Ranieri and then Jose Mourinho as Cole soon began to fulfil his potential, making him one of the best signings of the Abramovich era.

Veron meanwhile was a different kettle of poissons. Fergie had signed the Argentine from Lazio for £28.1m two years earlier, breaking the English transfer record in the process. At Old Trafford Veron had struggled to reproduce the kind of form that made Fergie break the bank. Flummoxed by the pace and power of the Premier League, Veron saved his best performances for the Champions League, but when Chelsea came calling United were all ears.

Fergie was willing to let Veron go for half the fee that United had paid for him, causing many to question Ranieri’s wisdom. Veron fared even worse at Stamford Bridge, making only 14 appearances for the club and earning himself a slot at the wrong end of The Times’ 50 worst transfers list.

Soon after his appointment Mourinho wasted no time in sending Veron out on loan to Internazionale and ‘the Little Witch’ can now be found back home Argentina, playing for his boyhood heroes Estudiantes, where he has found his form of old.

So despite having all the money in the world, it’s still a case of you win some, you lose some for Chelsea. Check out the many tricks and skills that J.Cole, the man with the shortest shorts in the Premier League, has to offer below and have a gander at what we were up to last year right here.

August 4 – The League’s Top 100

TODAY in 1998 The Football League was engaging in a bit of reflection on the past as they marked 100 seasons of the League. It all started of course in 1888 but ten seasons were missed during the world wars so the League reached its century ten years late.

It was on this day that, as part of their celebrations the League released a list of the top 100 players ever to have plied their trade in England’s divisions throughout the 100 seasons. Thankfully they resisted the temptation to let Jimmy Carr narrate the list on a four hour Channel 4 special.

The list was compiled by football journalists who must have had some stormy debates over who to include in the final draft. The Football League chief executive Richard Scudamore said that he thought the list was “almost impossible to better”, but Jack Charlton, Trevor Brooking, David Seaman, Ian Wright and Peter Beardsley probably all disagreed with him as they did not make the illustrious list.

Dixie Dean, Tommy Lawton and Sir Stanley Matthews were there, as were Nat Lofthouse, Billy Wright, Sir Bobby Charlton, Geoff Hurst and Denis Law.

Players from the 1980s or 1990s included George Best, Malcolm McDonald, Peter Shilton, Kevin Keegan, Glenn Hoddle, Kenny Dalglish and Gary Lineker, while the most recent stars included were Dennis Bergkamp, Alan Shearer, Ryan Giggs, Paul Gascoigne, Tony Adams, Peter Schmeichel, Eric Cantona and John Barnes.

Member of the list who were still with us were all invited to a special centenary dinner where they were presented with a special award to mark their achievement.

Sir Stanley Matthews, who played from 1932 to 1965, said: “I think this is a wonderful initiative and it’s great to see so many of my footballing friends and colleagues on the league legends list.”

Sir Tom Finney added: “It’s a great honour to be nominated as a Football League legend among so many outstanding players.”

If you want to know what else happened on this football day, go here. We will leave you with a montage of the skills Eric Cantona used to pay the bills while at Old Trafford, for no other reason than he is on the list and all our other entries about him are all about his take on martial arts so it’s sometimes good to watch him at work to remind yourself that despite all the baggage he was a bloody handy player.

August 3 – Why I Hate Jürgen Klinsmann

IN June 1994 Guardian writer Andrew Anthony wrote a piece for his newspaper entitled ‘Why I hate Jurgen Klinsmann’. Just a couple of months later he penned another article about the German striker, this time called ‘Why I love Jurgen Klinsmann’.

In the intervening time, on this very day in 1994, Jurgen the German signed for Tottenham Hotspur from Monaco for a £2m fee, and he arrived with a reputation as a diver, a cheating German with no sense of fair play.

He had been in the team that had knocked England out of the 1990 World Cup and to say he was not universally popular in England would be akin to saying Roy Keane and Alfie Inge Haaland did not always see eye to eye. Within months of arriving at Spurs however, Jurgen had turned his image around and was being lauded up and down the country for his sense of humour – quite a feat given his nationality.

Signing the player was quite a coup for Spurs, with chairman Alan Sugar apparently the decisive factor. Klinsmann said: “I had the choice of three clubs but met Alan Sugar in Monte Carlo and just liked the way he approached me.

“As a little boy I watched a lot of English football on television and loved the atmosphere, so I took a decision to try something new and ended up in London. I soon learned how much Spurs meant and was very proud to be part of it.”

The British press were on his back from day one, with his reputation as a diver entrenched in the minds of the media and the fans. Klinsy would have the last laugh however when he scored on his debut at Sheffield Wednesday and dived along the pitch the celebrate the strike.

He said after the match “It was a very special moment because before the game started we were welcomed at Sheffield Wednesday’s stadium by all the diving signs, 5.9, 5.8, all that sort of thing and we were all laughing about it. Teddy Sheringham came up and said ‘Jurgen, if you score your first goal here, we’re all going to do a dive’. It was like all the pieces of the puzzle came together, I scored the goal and the whole team came over and did the dive. The wonderful thing was that the fans from Sheffield even laughed about it. Everyone took it the right way and it was a great way to start the season.”

That one moment started to turn the tide for his image and helped by his impressive form in front of goal he was soon a firm favourite at White Hart Lane. He scored 29 goals that season as Spurs finished seventh and reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup under Gerry Francis.

The love affair was not to last however and Klinsy left north London after just the one season – a decision that incensed Alan Sugar who even threw his shirt to the floor at a press conference saying he wouldn’t even wash his car with it. Despite this Jurgen it seems does not bear grudges. He later said of his former chairman, “I admired him, The only little issue I had with him is that he thought I had a two-year deal but it was a one-year deal with a two-year option. He got upset, but no big problem.”

Klinsmann left for spells at Bayern Munich and Sampdoria before returning to Spurs in 1998 on a mission to keep them in the Premiership. Once their safety was secured, he retired from club football and then left the game altogether after the 1998 World Cup.

Here is the famous Kilnsmann dive and point your mouse this-a-way to see what we were banging on about on this day last year.

August 2 – Not Very Wise

Sir Alex Ferguson once said that Dennis Wise could ‘start a fight in an empty house’.
Leicester City were agreeing with him today in 2002, as they sacked the midfielder following his fracas with team mate Callum Davidson on the Foxes’ pre-season tour of Finland.

Wise had signed for Leicester after Claudio Ranieri realised his pre-Abramovich squad of has-beens wasn’t going to bring the title to Stamford Bridge in 2001. The fact that Wise had been convicted of assaulting a taxi driver in 1995 and missing 15 games though suspension in the 1998/99 season probably had a factor in the Tinkerman’s decision too.

Wise joined Leicester in 2001 and during his year-long spell at the club he cemented his place in the Foxes’ hall of shame, long with manager Peter Taylor who brought him in. City were doing as so many clubs in the ITV Digital age did and spending beyond their means, going into administration in 2002, just after moving into their new stadium, with debts of over £30m.

Wise’s most famous act as a Leicester City player was not on the pitch, but, as his predecessor Stan Collymore, on a pre-season tour. Leicester bosses obviously believed Finland would be a peaceful pre-season retreat where the squad could mix a spot of training with some chillaxing in saunas.

How wrong they were. Throughout his career Wise’s little-man complex has been never been far from the surface and it was back with a vengeance in Scandinavia. A spot of late night cards erupted into a brawl, as Wise and a still-unnamed player went at it. Defender Callum Davidson stepped in to try and act as a peacemaker, but Wise was having none of it.

According to rumours at the time Wise was so unimpressed by the Scottish international’s glasnost take on the situation that he attacked him whilst he was sleeping, breaking his nose and jaw.

In an online biography he would later claim that is tenure at Leicester was a “less successful” time in his life. After his subsequent sacking Wise’s fate interwined with the one club that was happy and deserving enough to have him: Millwall.

Here he would become player manager and take them to the 2004 FA Cup Final where they lost to Manchester United. Subsequent spells at Southampton and Coventry followed before he gave management a proper stab at Swindon Town and then Leeds United, before deciding to take the money and run to join the Mike Ashley (revolution).

See how much the Leicester fans like Wise in this terrace footage below and have a look at what OTFD was bringing you this time last year.