December 16 – Wise Words
MANY consider him to be the nastiest five-footer since the one Bernhard Langer missed in the 1991 Ryder Cup, but if you ask a Chelsea, Wimbledon or even Leeds fan, they’d tell you good things come in small packages. Either way, it was today in 1966 that the crafty cockney Dennis Wise was born so we’d like to wish him a happy birthday.
As a player it’s safe to say that Wisey’s career was explosive to say the least. As an 18 year old he fell out with Lawrie McMenemy at Southampton, but soon found his calling as part of Wimbledon’s Crazy Gang, picking up their player of the season award in 1988 after the Dons upset Liverpool in the FA Cup Final.
An eleven-year stint at Chelsea followed where he made 445 appearances for the club, but this figure could’ve been a whole lot higher if he didn’t spend quite so long on the sidelines through various suspensions.
Sir Alex Ferguson once remarked that he could start a fight in an empty house and when the tough tackling midfielder wasn’t getting carded on the field he was causing trouble off it. In 1995 Wise was convicted of assaulting a London taxi driver and whilst at Leicester he broke team-mate Callum Davidson’s jaw, ensuring that the boo-boys were always out in force when he came to town.
When he hung up his boots in 2006 Wise could boost an impressive haul of medals and had already started on a so-far impressive managerial career. As player-manager of Millwall he took them to their first FA Cup Final and is although he failed to beat the drop with Leeds United last season he has galvanised the side from an admin-hit car crash of a club with a 15-point deduction into red-hot favourites for the title, bringing in attendances unseen in the English third flight for almost thirty years.
So by our rationale, he’s earned himself a happy birthday. Sit back and watch one of the little guy’s best moments on the pitch here and come back tomorrow for more goals than you can shake a stick at.
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