SlowerThanPlatt
Well-Known Member
Houchen was a cup specialist wasn’t he and didn’t score many league goals?
87 cup final thread (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Sky_Blue_Daz
- Start date
Tits out!!
They might be kid's conceived By kids concieved on that night in 1987 .
DannyThomas_1981
Well-Known Member
I see what you are saying Platty. The way I see it is that Houchen was a slow starter with City; who took some time to adjust to the higher level. Once he did adjust he was a key component of the team - not just in goals scored but in terms of how the team was set up. I think in the Cup season we finished 7th in the League - the FA Cup team was actually under-rated in my view.
As Magwitch said the partnership with Regis was something that really worked, Regis was less effective for us in the new set up with Speedie (not denying Speedie's brilliance either just don't think he worked with Regis). I also think Gynny was less effective in the new set up.
DannyThomas_1981
Well-Known Member
I see your point Grendel.
But there seemed to be lots of pressure to 'shop at Harrods.'
Speedie was a brilliant player but changed the set up of the Cup Final team and never in my view worked well with Regis.
And I know Speedie completely disrupted the dressing room.
So whilst the personnel didn't dramatically change something was lost the season after the FA Cup win. The Cup Final team should have stayed together for 2-3 years after the win.
Covkid1968#
Well-Known Member
Haha... yep... got 29 mins in and the son said he was sure he had seen it before and why is there no social distancing. I said.... FFS you’re 32 years of age George .....
Hahaha!!
Gold.
Old Warwickshire lad
Well-Known Member
Proper football lol
With a slab or two in the boot .
Mine was the Orange/Red V plate iteration.
My siz who I don't think has ever attended a game made exactly the same observation.
TTG
Well-Known Member
Do you remember the days of a football?
Nonleagueherewecome
Well-Known Member
I'd say 1990-01 was his best season, 11 goals in all competitions, incredible tally from midfield. He was brilliant that season. And it included some games with Kevin Macdonald as a teamate, so that's a handicap!
Legia Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
You've posted this before about Speedie being disruptive in the dressing room and I've challenged you every time. Yes he was a fiery character and yes he might bollock someone if they didn't come up to standard, but I have never seen anything from his ex colleagues to support your statement. The only time things went publicly sour with Speedie was at the end of his time with us under Butcher, when he had a set to with a Vice President, but not one of his fellow players.
In terms of Houchen, he started 10 more league games with Regis after the cup final. We won 3, drew 3 and lost 4. The team was better with other formations, that is a fact. As pointed out Houchen did very well in the cup, but to suggest we would have done better with him in the league instead of Speedie is ridiculous, particularly in 1988/89, when Speedie was outstanding. A bigger impact on our progress were serious injuries to the likes of Bennett and McGrath, and our failure to bring in a left back, which was the one glaring weakness in our team. Shame we let Pearce go a couple of seasons earlier!
DannyThomas_1981
Well-Known Member
That's ok Legia. Different opinions. Sillett has said himself that Speedie was very disruptive. It's during an hour long interview on youtube.
Point well taken on the injuries to Bennett and McGrath, and we agree on the left back.
Letting Pearce go after he made such a big impression after stepping up from non-League was a disaster - can't remember all of the details of that one but I think we should have offered Pearce a new contract sooner?
Sky_Blue_Dreamer
Well-Known Member
SlowerThanPlatt
Well-Known Member
It looks like the 88-89 season was the best it got for the club? After 3 consecutive top half finishes and a cup win, the next 10 years were spent in the bottom half
Ring Of Steel
Well-Known Member
I was there- was about 3,000 attendance all in the Main Stand and kop, St Mirren brought about 300 or so which I thought was pretty good
Ring Of Steel
Well-Known Member
that was a different time, players stayed with clubs a lot longer.
These days ‘breaking the team up’ means selling and buying about 15 players in one close season, back then it meant not giving the team a few years to grow together. Nobody made wholesale changes very fast unless it was a top club buying 2 or 3 players at once, and players tended to stay with the same club much longer.
Speedie came in, the dynamic immediately changed, and then Bennett, Phillips, Houchen left in ‘89, Sedgely was coming on really well and also went- and they were not replaced well- in the context of how teams were built in 1987 the team was broken up.
Grendel
Well-Known Member
Our league position strengthened and we also had cup semi final appearances. Houchen was a bit player who was ever up to much and then as well as Speedie we signed Gallagher at the end of Sillett a tenure who was a great player
Ring Of Steel
Well-Known Member
We finished in the same position in 87/88 as we did in 86/87 (arguably partly due to Speedie being apparently ‘uncontrollable’ and a very bad presence in the dressing room wrecking the first 2/3 of the season), improved in 88/89 using exactly the same players we had on our books in May ‘87 except for Speedie, Bannister & Keith Thompson, then after that let pivotal players go, and our position plummeted, even with Gallacher coming in. That squad needed keeping together and building on, but straight away Speedie came in & the dynamic changed, then after a great 88/89 it started to crumble. The reasons as to why it happened that way I guess we’ll never know.
Legia Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
Football had already started to change by this time and teams were not staying together for as long as you made out in your earlier post. Freedom of Contract had been in place for about 6 years by this point, the effects of which we had already felt by the loss of players like Thomas, Gillespie, Hateley and Pearce in previous seasons. Even so Sillett only made one change, so he was hardly tearing the team apart!
This particular team peaked in 86/87, but nevertheless Sillett was right to try and keep the core strength of that team, while slowly seeking to pep it up with more quality. If you think that we would have done better in 87/88 by not signing Speedie, and sticking with the 86/87 side you are living in cloud cuckoo land. Their career records show that 86/87 was as good as it got for the likes of Downs, Pickering and Houchen. Yes Bennett, Phillips and Sedgley later left in 1989, but Bennett had started getting recurrent injuries and wasn't as effective as before, while Sedgley wanted to leave when Arsenal and Spurs came sniffing, so not much we could do there. I agree though that we did perhaps let Phillips go prematurely.
In terms of 87/88 we had Smith come in from within the club to replace Pickering, while Speedie initially replaced Houchen up front, until we signed Bannister later in the season, from when Speedie moved to a more midfield role, where he was much more influential and effective. We never replaced Downs which was 'the' glaring weakness in our team. The other thing that effected us badly in 87/88 were injuries, which were constant throughout. Our worst spell of the season through October/ November time coincided with the absence of Peake and Kilcline from the team. We then lost McGrath for the season, and had a stream of niggling injuries to others preventing a settled side. To finish in 10th as we had done in 86/87 was quite creditable given those circumstances.
In 88/89 we had our strongest league performance, with Speedie being far and away our most influential player, and we should really have finished 5th. Without Speedie that season we would have been mid table at best. The following season was not as bad as our final position suggests either. We got to the semi final of the league Cup, signed Gallacher, who was a quality player, and Drinkell who was a big disappointment, but on the face of it beforehand had looked a good signing. Until mid March we still had aspirations of a European place, but we had an awful end to the season, picking up only 5 points in our last 9 games.
That was the sign however, that the 86/87 team had largely had its day, and it was not long into the next season that Sillett was replaced by Butcher. That didn't turn out to be a great decision of course, but even if Sillett had stayed he would have had to dealt with changing an aging team. He might have sought to do it more slowly than Butcher, but he would still have had to start thinking about replacing the likes of Killine, Peake and Regis, and how to ease them out of the team with minimal disruption.
Given this history I just don't buy that we broke up the 87 team prematurely, or that we were wrong to buy Speedie. If anything we were too conservative and should have brought in more players.
Grendel
Well-Known Member
This is spot on - to suggest keeping Houchen in the team was absurd he averaged two league goals a season. We got in relative terms a great fee for him
Pickering also as you say never reproduced the form again and for some reason his career nosedived
We had some young players coming through as well and Smith was a top player for a couple of seasons
I don’t get the ripped squad apart anyway it hardly changed
usskyblue
Well-Known Member
What year was ‘the exodus’ ? My memory is fucked. Had it in my mind that Butcher butchered the side and failed spectacularly in the process.
Wembley was way more jammed for the Charity Shield. It was so packed that I was lifted off my feet and moved around by the crowd several times. If memory serves it was Speedie’s debut. I remember being excited that he’d signed but disappointed with his performance in that game. Of course, later in the season he would more than make up for it.
I do remember joining in singing: ‘We never lose at Wembley’...that didn’t last long mind
Wembley was way more jammed for the Charity Shield. It was so packed that I was lifted off my feet and moved around by the crowd several times. If memory serves it was Speedie’s debut. I remember being excited that he’d signed but disappointed with his performance in that game. Of course, later in the season he would more than make up for it.
I do remember joining in singing: ‘We never lose at Wembley’...that didn’t last long mind
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We've rectified that last bit now though.