March 5 – Stan Sets His Standard | On This Football Day

March 5 – Stan Sets His Standard

EVEN without a playing career that saw him rise from the non-league to the international scene Stanley Victor Collymore has fit more into his 38 years on this rock than most. A former tabloid favourite, Collymore has since been on the big screen opposite Sharon Stone and now appears to be a fully-fledged Twitter-addict.

Today in 2000 though, Stan the Man was doing his talking on the pitch, as he scored a hat-trick on his Leicester City debut.

Collymore had just come off the back of a three-year spell at Villa following his £7m move from Liverpool in 1997. His time at Villa was marred by poor form and clinical depression that saw him only score 15 goals.

Villa manager John Gregory’s patience ran out, so he allowed Collymore to leave the club on a free transfer to Leicester City where he would hook up with Martin O’Neill. A week after he signed though, Stan was up to his same old antics, this time in a fire extinguisher-related incident in Spain, as we’ve told you before.

O’Neill would stand by his new signing and when he handed him his debut it looked for a while like he might be worth the trouble. Collymore looked back to his devastating best when he fired in his debut treble as Leicester downed Sunderland 5-2.

Opening his account with a magnificent 25-yard strike, Collymore headed a second home, before a close-range finish sealed his hat-trick with a close range strike, as it looked as though he would form a formidable partnership with Emile Heskey.

Sadly for the Foxes fans, Heskey was soon sold to Liverpool and Collymore would break his leg against Derby County. O’Neill completed a triple-whammy by leaving the club that summer and his replacement Peter Taylor, like so many of Collymore’s managers, appeared not to know how to get the most out of the striker.

When Taylor left the former Southend striker on the bench at the start of the 2000/01 season Collymore left the club, joining Bradford City, where he would score another memorable goal when he fired in an overhead kick in the West Yorkshire derby against Leeds United.

Bradford would then realise that paying huge wages to the likes of Collymore, Benito Carbone and Dan Petrescu wasn’t the best idea for long-term success and Stan jetted out for a short spell in Spain with Real Oviedo. After three games in sunny Spain he would hang up his boots and announce his retirement, much to the chagrin of Oviedo who moved to sue him for breach of contract.

See what other dodgy dealings were going on today here and we’ll be back tomorrow for another nugget of footballing history so make sure you click yourself back here then. If, like Stan the Man, you’re rocking Twitter, follow us here.