I genuinely don't remember ever seeing him. Any idea who it was against? I have a feeling he might have been on the bench against West Ham in the cup in 1993, but I could be completely imagining it. Can't seem to find the lineups on the Internet.
I believe he started that game, at left back, but was injured and substituted. Pretty sure I saw him a few times.
Wiki has him playing six games for us, but your guess is as good as mine how accurate that is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Gridelet
Not a competitive game but I think he scored in a bizarre friendly we played mid season against IFK Gothenburg or somebody similar.
Reight, got my Rothmans books out: In the 94-95 Rothmans that covers the 93-94 season, Gridelet has already left us and is at Southend. It does indeed catalogue him as playing 6 league games for us, but none that season as he left in the summer of 93. In the 91-92 Rothmans that covers the 90-91 season he made four appearances for us. He made substitute appearances away at Newcastle, Brighton and Oldham and started the game away at Watford. I know I went to the Newcastle and Oldham games that season so would have seen him then. I can't find my 92-93 and 93-94 books, which is when I'm guessing he made his other 2 league appearances (they count sub and full appearances the same by this time, they used to put a + for sub appearances). Rothmans doesn't catalogue cup games along with league games. They don't even put the fixtures together, the cup games are tucked away in the back. But I'm certain he started that 4-1 victory over West Ham in the cup. Bizarrely, after all the injuries he had with us, he went on to play almost every game for years when he went to Southend. I know I saw more of him playing for Southend against us than I did playing for us.
He played in last match of season after machin left Gareth Williams got hat trick with wadsworth in charge i think.
Good research, cheers. I thought he must have played in mostly away games. I very rarely missed home games, but hardly ever went away, hence me not recalling seeing him. My deputy head at school was a massive Southend fan, and he loved Gridelet. Sounded like a proper dirty fcker from his descriptions.
We didn't play Southend in the last game of the 1992/93 season, after Machin had left. We played Glen Hoddle's Swindon and beat them 1-0.
Last home game was Southend, wasn't it? If my memory serves me correctly, Williams also scored at Swindon.
Nope, it was Swindon, old mate. Williams did score the only goal of the game. A few weeks later, Swindon won the Play Off Final at Wembley.
So the Swindon game was at home? Oddly, I have absolutely no recollection of it, but I must have been there. Strange.
Philip Raymond Gridelet - Born 30th April 1967 Edgeware. Height 5ft 11 ins Weight 12 stone. Signed from Barnet in November 1990. Reds Debut v Newcastle United ( Sub)- 17 th November 1990. Last game for Barnsley- 12 th April 1993 v Tranmere Rovers. Transferred to- Southend United September 1993. Playing career- Watford, Barnet, Barnsley (1990-93), Rotherham United ( 1993 loan), Southend ( 1993-97), Stevenage Borough, Woking, Bishop's Stortford, Hendon and Harrow Borough. Whilst with Barnsley he took part in 6 league games, 1 in the FA Cup and 1 in the Full Members Cup. He never scored in any of those games. He started at Barnet where he scored five goals in thirty nine appearances, before joining Barnsley in November 1990. His Barnsley career was blighted by injury and was only a bit part player. He was loaned out to Rotherham United and made nine appearances for the Millers, before a permanent move to Southend in 1993. He was a regular in the Shrimpers first team over the four years he spent at Roots Hall, netting ten goals in 176 games. He left Southend in 1997 and went on to play for five non league Clubs in the Home Counties.