Barnsley 3 Tottenham 1 : 23 years ago today

I'm not old enough to have seen Glavin play, but he must have been some player to have been better than Neil Redfearn. I had a Barnsley's 100 greatest goals video from the late 90s and 50 of them must have been Redfearn. Obviously skewed by the availability of footage but like you say that was only one part of his game. Tackling, passing, positioning, leadership, reading the game. Unbelievable player.

 

Seeing Bully running at Premiership defenders and leaving them trailing was a wonderful sight indeed.

 

Ronnie Glavin is the best player I've ever seen play for Barnsley. I also think Neil Redfearn was a truly outstanding player for us, too.

 

Remember him turning Sol Cambell inside out one match and leaving him literally sat on his ar*e. Crowd gave a right cheer when it happened!

 

My top two as well. Ronnie Glavin as an attacking midfielder, was the best I've seen, and should have had Scottish caps.

Neil Redfearn had the lot as a versatile midfielder. As someone else commented, he was ahead of David Batty in all departments, yet unlike Batty, never had a call-up.

 

Watching that again and remembering the Prem season side, I am convinced the turning point was the Liverpool game and Willard who led to their downfall and had we survived that season, we would have possibly established as a bottom half Premiership side. Happy memories of that time taking my 10 year old to see the top teams like Arsenal etc. and quite often more than holding our own against them.

 

Stephen Clemence (son of Ray) was sent off that night.

 

No doubt about it. That game and Willard killed whatever fighting spirit we had left in us. I truly believe the events of that game relegated us, losing 3 key players at that stage in the season was criminal.

How he reffed another game after that is beyond me

 

And I'm sure Bully would have had an even greater turn of speed without his shirt billowing out behind him. Several sizes too big!

 

Number 1 Ronnie Glavin, Number 2 Neil Redfearn as well

It's going to take some player to break into that top 2 in my lifetime

 

You’re probably right about the Liverpool game. Although our naivety, especially defensively in the first few months cost us. Getting spanked 6/7-0 put us on the back foot.
The lads grew into the season but only really looked capable of scoring enough goals after signing Ward and Fjortoft. We needed a seasoned premier division quality centre half to steady the ship as Peter Shirtliff was well past his sell by date by that point.
Poor recruiting probably to blame in hindsight?
Too many players brought in who didn’t make an impact,

Tinkler was exactly what we needed alongside Redders but sadly didn’t turn out to be durable enough.

Hristov promised so much but was far too raw for the premiership at that time.

Krizan was again not durable enough after promising so much.

Markstedt had one good game away at Liverpool but looked like he’d borrowed his limbs from someone else.

Ten Heuvel Why?

 

I thought he had been brought in earlier than the prem season along with Carol Van De Velden who had 1 decent game away at Ipswich in which I think he scored the winner

 

Glavin outscored Dalglish at Celtic. Not only that, he created most of Dalglish's goals. Although to be fair to Dalglish (Glavin was that good I feel comfortable using that phrase) Dalglish created many of Glavin's goals.
We shouldn't have had Glavin. He should have been playing in the English first division, or a top team in Europe, or continued at Celtic. And he should have been a mainstay in the Scottish national team. We got him because it was perceived he was a bad boy. He wasn't. He was a nice family man. He lived next door to my dad's best mate in Staincross. I knew him when I was a kid. I do more nasty s1ht on an average afternoon than he did in his life.
Glavin was as fleet of foot and as fast over the first 20 yards as Martin Bullock but he had the size and strength of John Hendrie and could finish better than Ward, Fjortoft or Winnall.

We shouldn't have had Banks, McCarthy, Evans or Aylott when Glavin was playing either. All Premier League players. We were lucky that Banks and McCarthy were born here. We were lucky that Evans had suffered what was thought to be a career ending injury. And we were lucky that Aylott got a bit depressed and had a few beers when his amazing start to his 1st division career as teenager, that looked like he was going to be the next England striker, took a bit of a dip in form.

We shouldn't have had Redfearn either. He was going to play in the Premier League for Oldham, first pick on the team sheet, and I've no doubt would have soon been signed by a much bigger club. But for whatever reason Joe Royle wanted him to play on the right. He would have done an excellent job, it may have even been the right call by Joe, but Redfearn didn't like it and he came here.

I don't like comparing Glavin and Redfearn. They were different, but both brilliant, and I'm just happy I got to watch them both for so long.

 

Apologies you’re correct. March 96 he signed.
Lars Leese was the other player signed for that season. What pointless bizarre signing considering we had a backup keeper in Tony Bullock.

 

Both brought in the season prior to the Premier League for little money. They were what we'd call under 23 signings these days. No problem with those signings even though they didn't work out.

 

Both had lovely hair though

 

Exactly how I remember it bud

 

I'd have swapped the cup wins and draws against Bolton, Tottenham and Man Utd for League wins and points.

 

(sigh) I'd forgotten how beautiful our football was. I wish we could have 10% of it back.

Weirdly enough I'd misremembered that it was Justin Edinburgh (RIP) sent off that night, not Stephen Clemence.

 

Not signing premiership experienced defenders was always the issue I had.

Best signings we made were

Ward
Barnard
Fjortoft

Should have tried to have gone for someone of the ilk of Richard Gough or Gary Mabbutt.

Wilson was also too loyal to a number of the squad who were not good enough for the premiership (Shirtliff Wilkinson)

Plus blowing £1.5million on Hristov was a massive faux pas when we could have got Dyer Hignett or Kevin Davies for less.