Footballers / Athletes who failed to fulfill their potential

[PowerButchi]

Are they a bigger wasted talent than Graeme Hick?

 

Seriously, I want someone to beat Hick.

[John Matrix]

Many of the original group of Fergie's fledglings:

 

Speaking of which, and again, maybe i'm just being romanticised by memories of his Champ Manager stats, but wasnt Ronnie Wallwork supposed to be a shit hot up and comer who ended up playing in Belgium and getting arrested?

 

Butchi, i cant do it mate so flex your new found managerial muscle if required!

[air_raid]

Darren Anderton playing for Portsmouth aged 20 at the tail end of the 1992 looked a combination of terrifying pace and lethal finishing, especially the composure with which he scored against Liverpool at Highbury in the FA Cup semi. All the pundits (by which I mean Saint & Greavsie) were convinced the lad would set the top flight on fire, and so was I. When he signed for Spurs I thought we had bought a world beater, the signing that would have us back near the top of the table and rendering 1991-92's disaster as strictly an anomaly. Didn't quite turn out that way.

 

Still, he scored a goal for England at a World Cup, not many of his contemporaries can say that. Such luminaries as Gazza and Teddy Sheringham can't, and Wayne Rooney still can't. Plus "Sicknote" had the fairytale finish at Bournemouth. coming off the bench to score the winning goal before bowing out in his final professional game.

 

Speaking of which, and again, maybe i'm just being romanticised by memories of his Champ Manager stats, but wasnt Ronnie Wallwork supposed to be a shit hot up and comer who ended up playing in Belgium and getting arrested?

 

The wrong attitude will always put paid to a promising career and he had it in spades. I had a friend whose extended circle he used to knock about with Droylsden way. This friend of mine being blonde, pretty and with tits the size of basketballs, Wallwork on numerous occasions would just come up to her and tell her how hard he was going to fuck her. Classy guy. He never did, either.

[Sergio Mendacious]

Many of the original group of Fergie's fledglings:

 

Speaking of which, and again, maybe i'm just being romanticised by memories of his Champ Manager stats, but wasnt Ronnie Wallwork supposed to be a shit hot up and comer who ended up playing in Belgium and getting arrested?

 

Wallwork was really versatile, and could play all over the pitch - his tackling stats were right up there with... wait, I'm also just being romanticised by his Champ Man stats. I think that's the same reason I always wanted Forest to get in for Natipong Stritong-In - we could have had some of that sweet, sweet Thai merch money, and stopped him being bored playing football and turn to take good sport way Golf.

 

Netipong Srithong-In (Thai เนติพงษ์ ศรีทองอินทร์) or "Alfred" is a former Thai football player. He is a famous Striker who scored 25 goals for the Thailand national team. He played for Thailand national team since 1995-1997[1] He played for Thailand in the 1996 AFC Asian Cup finals.[2] in year 1999 Netipong bored playing football and turn to take good sport way Golf.

[Your Fight Site]

I don

[Devon Malcolm]

Was he the natural talent that was Hick? A man in 1983 knocked everyone about everywhere for Zimbabwe as a child. Took 5 wicket hauls in ODIs while banging 50+? To this day just pissing about in Beach Cricket smacks them out of the ground. The most respected player by the Australians of the 90s....

 

But Fletcher, Illingworth and Dexter happened to him.

 

He should have been the best Batsman/All Rounder in English cricket history. He's only second to Jonty Rhodes in the field. Fuck, his off-spin as a part timer was better than the majority of wastes we had slow bowling and his average shows that, and it's not as if he wasn't pitching many. In the subcontinent his off spin was superb. People forget how decent a bowler he was. But people fucked with his head. Imagine a prime Hick playing 20/20, or under the modern ECB coaching structure. We'd be discussing a real legend of the game.

 

Agree with all this. Kevin Pietersen is the player now that Graeme Hick should have been. Except Hick was better.

 

When he scored his first test hundred against India on those dustbowls in the early 1990s, a lot of people at the time said it was one of the best test innings ever played by a visiting batsman in INdia. It should have made him except when he came back home, instead of keeping that same place in the batting line-up, he was pissed up and down the order and even dropped.

 

He's not like Ramprakash, who just suffered from mental fragility at that level, he was just never looked after in the ways he should have been. Even his captains didn't help - Atherton declaring with him 99 not out in an Ashes test was a microcosm of how crap he was treated.

 

A mate of mine went to a 50 over exhibition match at Old Trafford in the late 1990s - it was Asia v Rest Of The World or something. He said it was a full house, probably about 90% Pakistani. They'd all come to see Wasim Akram and Mushtaq Ahmed but he said that when they finally got Hick out, most of them booed. He twatted 140-odd off about 100 balls and was battering Mushtaq especially.

 

He was more admired by the opposition than he was by us.

[Guy Bifkin]

Devon has beaten me here slightly but I was going to offer up Mark Ramprakash? Averaged 53 in 461 first class matches but only 27 in 52 test matches. Hick has a very similar first class average but managed to average 31 in 65 tests.

 

With Hick, you see the way Mervin Hughes used to bully him. Brutal stuff. I think he had as many mental deficiencies as Ramps.

[PowerButchi]

Gladstone KNOWS.

 

Shane Warne and Steve Waugh have always talked scarily highly of Hick in their autobiogs. Fuck, Warne was scared of him and said so was the whole changing room and that's why they got Merv (another Hick fan) to nobble his already fragile psyche as he did. Other fan Alec Stewart, the one Captain we had who'd go to bat for him. Even in 2000, just to have him in the team put him at 7 to mentor Flintoff (who was Hick but a Seamer instead of a Spinner essentially) and to shore up Peter Such or Croft or whoever else was skidding awful slow bowling.

 

Thing is, if on your Test debut you're on THE FRONT OF THE RADIO FUCKING TIMES, and given a massive standing O before you've taken a ball like what happened to Hick in '91, it's going to fall apart. But he was a great batsman, and his averages really picked up. But if you're going to blame someone, blame Hick, drop him, bring in fucking Maynard or something, and make Hick less effective.

[Rule One]

Speaking of which, and again, maybe i'm just being romanticised by memories of his Champ Manager stats, but wasnt Ronnie Wallwork supposed to be a shit hot up and comer who ended up playing in Belgium and getting arrested?

 

The wrong attitude will always put paid to a promising career and he had it in spades. I had a friend whose extended circle he used to knock about with Droylsden way. This friend of mine being blonde, pretty and with tits the size of basketballs, Wallwork on numerous occasions would just come up to her and tell her how hard he was going to fuck her. Classy guy. He never did, either.

 

He also drove a really shit VW Golf and even though he was/made fair money off United, wouldn't pay to move a bed from his parents house and tried to use his name to get a few teenagers to carry it around five hundred yards to his new gaff.

 

His family are an ok bunch though, must have been the fame of playing for Manchester United that got to him.

[PowerButchi]

Devon has beaten me here slightly but I was going to offer up Mark Ramprakash? Averaged 53 in 461 first class matches but only 27 in 52 test matches. Hick has a very similar first class average but managed to average 31 in 65 tests.

 

With Hick, you see the way Mervin Hughes used to bully him. Brutal stuff. I think he had as many mental deficiencies as Ramps.

 

"It was his fate that his mentality didn't match his talents" - Some Oz Autobio. Guessing Waugh or Border. But it was an Aussie. But when THAT Australian team respect you more than anyone else on that England team (How can you not respect Chris Silverwood?), you know that was a real talent. If he stayed in Zimbabwe we'd be talking about a legend for South Africa. Just imagine that duo ad 1st and 2nd slip. Jonty and Hick.

[Devon Malcolm]

Devon has beaten me here slightly but I was going to offer up Mark Ramprakash? Averaged 53 in 461 first class matches but only 27 in 52 test matches. Hick has a very similar first class average but managed to average 31 in 65 tests.

 

With Hick, you see the way Mervin Hughes used to bully him. Brutal stuff. I think he had as many mental deficiencies as Ramps.

 

I don't think they were Hick's doing, though. He came around at a time when the only really dominant batsman we had was Robin Smith. Atherton was still developing, Gooch was playing pretty well, but neither of them would kill an attack.

 

So they stuck Hick in straight at 3 and told him to do what he did at Worcestershire without any real A team grounding or anything. They should have started him at 6 and steadily moved him up. Instead he was up and down like Jimmy Saville's kecks in a children's hospital.

 

If Ramps had been brought back in his late thirties when he was scoring insane amounts of runs, I reckon he would have had an Indian summer in his career - but England didn't need him then like they needed him in the mid-nineties.

[PowerButchi]

Also, Devon Malcolm. The only real quick we had in the 90s. The era of Defreitas, Headley, fucking Mullally, MARK ILLOT, Martin McCague who was so shite the Aussies gave him back...

 

When Devon's head was on he was Caribbean dangerous. Ask those 9 South African wickets.

[Devon Malcolm]

Also, Devon Malcolm. The only real quick we had in the 90s. The era of Defreitas, Headley, fucking Mullally...

 

When Devon's head was on he was Caribbean dangerous. Ask those 9 South African wickets.

 

We also had Syd Lawrence. Like with big Dev, though, instead of being encouraged to just go out and bowl fast, they were chewed up and spat out for not having 'control'. Never bothered the Aussies when Brett Lee came along. A real waste of those two.

[PowerButchi]

Devon has beaten me here slightly but I was going to offer up Mark Ramprakash? Averaged 53 in 461 first class matches but only 27 in 52 test matches. Hick has a very similar first class average but managed to average 31 in 65 tests.

 

With Hick, you see the way Mervin Hughes used to bully him. Brutal stuff. I think he had as many mental deficiencies as Ramps.

 

I don't think they were Hick's doing, though. He came around at a time when the only really dominant batsman we had was Robin Smith. Atherton was still developing, Gooch was playing pretty well, but neither of them would kill an attack.

 

So they stuck Hick in straight at 3 and told him to do what he did at Worcestershire without any real A team grounding or anything. They should have started him at 6 and steadily moved him up. Instead he was up and down like Jimmy Saville's kecks in a children's hospital.

 

I always liked Hick at 5. Smith at 3 (also dropped far too early, he ruined seamers), Thorpe at 4, Hick at 5, and whatever shite all rounder at 6.

 

 

But, in all fairness, Hick at 6 would have had legs. In my eyes he was a legit all rounder and a better bowler than Robert Croft. If Craig White is playing, him at 6, Hick at 5. But otherwise, Put another batsman at 5 (Ramps? Crawley?) and Hick at 6 as a Batting All Rounder.

[PowerButchi]

Also, Devon Malcolm. The only real quick we had in the 90s. The era of Defreitas, Headley, fucking Mullally...

 

When Devon's head was on he was Caribbean dangerous. Ask those 9 South African wickets.

 

We also had Syd Lawrence. Like with big Dev, though, instead of being encouraged to just go out and bowl fast, they were chewed up and spat out for not having 'control'. Never bothered the Aussies when Brett Lee came along. A real waste of those two.

 

You've another three seamers to do line and length, let the dangerman do his stuff. Fuck, I hate English Cricket in the 90s so much, but I'm a sad bastard for talking about it because it's fucking interesting. Ray Illingworth was a mong.