Striker's Graveyard

[Pancho Regan]

Possibly the biggest disappointment that I’ve seen from a striker was Terry Austin way back in the early 80’s. He came to us as part of a swap deal with Huddersfield for Daryl Pugh and he had a pretty decent record, but  when he arrived at Belle Vue we absolutely got the short straw with this guy.  It wasn’t just his goals per games average that was poor, it was the fact that he didn’t even attempt to hide the fact that he really, really didn’t want to be at Rovers. His effort was absolutely diabolical and when he did score for us, the cheers from the crowd and the celebrations from his team mates were largely ironic. He was utter shit, not through lack of talent but through a lack of effort and desire. One of King Billy’s few bad calls.

That's a good shout Herbert

[In the box]

This takes me back to our conference years, I'm sure I posted something similar about Justin Jackson...

Why do we think so many decent strikers absolutely fail with us?

Just look at the League One top scorers - Two out of the three joint top scorers (Devante Cole and Alfie May) are players who didn't make the grade with us, now they're banging them in a level above.

There's a litany of other examples, with admittedly a rare few who have managed to do the business for us, but generally we've missed out on getting the best out of a lot of talented strikers.

The lack  of continuity of club management , together with insufficient investment in potential year on year has left the club baron of home grown talent . The club is stagnant of ideas on the player recruitment side and is now run season  to season on a reducing budget devoid of foresight that has emptied the club of its senior pro’s on the back room staff . The creation of Club Doncaster has not progressed The Rovers one iota !!

[donnievic]

This takes me back to our conference years, I'm sure I posted something similar about Justin Jackson...

Why do we think so many decent strikers absolutely fail with us?

Just look at the League One top scorers - Two out of the three joint top scorers (Devante Cole and Alfie May) are players who didn't make the grade with us, now they're banging them in a level above.

There's a litany of other examples, with admittedly a rare few who have managed to do the business for us, but generally we've missed out on getting the best out of a lot of talented strikers.

harsh one with Alfie he wasn’t really played as an out and out striker with us a lot and he was raw and just starting out league football for the 1st time

[DonnyBazR0ver]

This takes me back to our conference years, I'm sure I posted something similar about Justin Jackson...

Why do we think so many decent strikers absolutely fail with us?

Just look at the League One top scorers - Two out of the three joint top scorers (Devante Cole and Alfie May) are players who didn't make the grade with us, now they're banging them in a level above.

There's a litany of other examples, with admittedly a rare few who have managed to do the business for us, but generally we've missed out on getting the best out of a lot of talented strikers.

The lack  of continuity of club management , together with insufficient investment in potential year on year has left the club baron of home grown talent . The club is stagnant of ideas on the player recruitment side and is now run season  to season on a reducing budget devoid of foresight that has emptied the club of its senior pro’s on the back room staff . The creation of Club Doncaster has not progressed The Rovers one iota !!

What you're saying could be applied to our entire history with some of the strikers referred to on this thread were a consequence of the lack on continuity , poor recruitment etc, but that's football in general. At all levels, people come and go with different ideas, and even when we have better times, things don't always work out.

[roversdude]

This takes me back to our conference years, I'm sure I posted something similar about Justin Jackson...

Why do we think so many decent strikers absolutely fail with us?

Just look at the League One top scorers - Two out of the three joint top scorers (Devante Cole and Alfie May) are players who didn't make the grade with us, now they're banging them in a level above.

There's a litany of other examples, with admittedly a rare few who have managed to do the business for us, but generally we've missed out on getting the best out of a lot of talented strikers.

The lack  of continuity of club management , together with insufficient investment in potential year on year has left the club baron of home grown talent . The club is stagnant of ideas on the player recruitment side and is now run season  to season on a reducing budget devoid of foresight that has emptied the club of its senior pro’s on the back room staff . The creation of Club Doncaster has not progressed The Rovers one iota !!

Why is the club stagnant of recruitment ideas please

[scawsby steve]

Possibly the biggest disappointment that I’ve seen from a striker was Terry Austin way back in the early 80’s. He came to us as part of a swap deal with Huddersfield for Daryl Pugh and he had a pretty decent record, but  when he arrived at Belle Vue we absolutely got the short straw with this guy.  It wasn’t just his goals per games average that was poor, it was the fact that he didn’t even attempt to hide the fact that he really, really didn’t want to be at Rovers. His effort was absolutely diabolical and when he did score for us, the cheers from the crowd and the celebrations from his team mates were largely ironic. He was utter shit, not through lack of talent but through a lack of effort and desire. One of King Billy’s few bad calls.

Dead right, Herbert. The Huddersfield fans used to nickname him "Tracey", after the tennis player, because he was crap for them as well.

The mystery is how he performed at Mansfield, when he scored goals for fun. He was prolific before joining Huddersfield.

[MagicMartinoWoods]

Have to say I'm a bit surprised at some of the names being put forward as to doing well for us...

Should have been more specific though - not saying they haven't been great players for us, just we haven't had many prolific goalscorers up front (see Afro goal machine as a great example of this)

Gregg Blundell - 28 in 86 games (less than 1 in 3). Had a great first season back in football league of course but overall wasn't prolific.
Paul Heffernan - 35 in 127 games. As much as I loved him, he only scored more than 10 league goals in a season once for us (13)
LFW - 19 in 90 games
Paul Barnes - yes scored 26 in our promotion season in a team that was clearly a top team in the division, but season before he scored 6 for us.

Wasn't thinking back as far as Cramby, but he was great in shocking teams - slightly before then too I would offer Mike Jefferies.
I mentioned the rare few which I would include Marquis, Billy, and possibly Ironside if he continues in this form. We haven't had many 20+ goal-a-season strikers, and they aren't that rare.

I actually think 20+ goal a season strikers are pretty rare.

Not sure they are. There's likely to be five above 20 in league one this year, and probably around 10 in league two if you look at the top scorers tables. 3in league two are already there!

[ncRover]

Have to say I'm a bit surprised at some of the names being put forward as to doing well for us...

Should have been more specific though - not saying they haven't been great players for us, just we haven't had many prolific goalscorers up front (see Afro goal machine as a great example of this)

Gregg Blundell - 28 in 86 games (less than 1 in 3). Had a great first season back in football league of course but overall wasn't prolific.
Paul Heffernan - 35 in 127 games. As much as I loved him, he only scored more than 10 league goals in a season once for us (13)
LFW - 19 in 90 games
Paul Barnes - yes scored 26 in our promotion season in a team that was clearly a top team in the division, but season before he scored 6 for us.

Wasn't thinking back as far as Cramby, but he was great in shocking teams - slightly before then too I would offer Mike Jefferies.
I mentioned the rare few which I would include Marquis, Billy, and possibly Ironside if he continues in this form. We haven't had many 20+ goal-a-season strikers, and they aren't that rare.

I actually think 20+ goal a season strikers are pretty rare.

Not sure they are. There's likely to be five above 20 in league one this year, and probably around 10 in league two if you look at the top scorers tables. 3in league two are already there!

All that matters is the points on the table at the end of the season. Don’t care who scores them.

Dom Telford was a league 2 20+ goal striker season before last and he’s done bugger all since

[Iberian Red]

Possibly the biggest disappointment that I’ve seen from a striker was Terry Austin way back in the early 80’s. He came to us as part of a swap deal with Huddersfield for Daryl Pugh and he had a pretty decent record, but  when he arrived at Belle Vue we absolutely got the short straw with this guy.  It wasn’t just his goals per games average that was poor, it was the fact that he didn’t even attempt to hide the fact that he really, really didn’t want to be at Rovers. His effort was absolutely diabolical and when he did score for us, the cheers from the crowd and the celebrations from his team mates were largely ironic. He was utter shit, not through lack of talent but through a lack of effort and desire. One of King Billy’s few bad calls.

Dead right, Herbert. The Huddersfield fans used to nickname him "Tracey", after the tennis player, because he was crap for them as well.

The mystery is how he performed at Mansfield, when he scored goals for fun. He was prolific before joining Huddersfield.

I remember reading the program notes on him when he made his debut.
"One of the most powerful headers of a ball in the game",or in a the similar kind of vein.
Maybe he was,I just never saw him win a header.

[Iberian Red]

Paul Dobson anyone?
I was out with a couple of players the day he signed for us.
We went to Archives,and there he was sat on his own. The players introduced me to him,lovely lad and I asked him what he'd been up to. He told us he'd had a few beers alone and then proceeded to name about 8 pubs around town,he couldn't remember the names of the others!
Turned out he'd had 12 pints of Guinness alone on a night out.
Maybe that's why he never did the business for us.
By all accounts he was the same at Scarboro when he went there.
Good bloke tho,and not a word slurred!

[MagicMartinoWoods]

Have to say I'm a bit surprised at some of the names being put forward as to doing well for us...

Should have been more specific though - not saying they haven't been great players for us, just we haven't had many prolific goalscorers up front (see Afro goal machine as a great example of this)

Gregg Blundell - 28 in 86 games (less than 1 in 3). Had a great first season back in football league of course but overall wasn't prolific.
Paul Heffernan - 35 in 127 games. As much as I loved him, he only scored more than 10 league goals in a season once for us (13)
LFW - 19 in 90 games
Paul Barnes - yes scored 26 in our promotion season in a team that was clearly a top team in the division, but season before he scored 6 for us.

Wasn't thinking back as far as Cramby, but he was great in shocking teams - slightly before then too I would offer Mike Jefferies.
I mentioned the rare few which I would include Marquis, Billy, and possibly Ironside if he continues in this form. We haven't had many 20+ goal-a-season strikers, and they aren't that rare.

I actually think 20+ goal a season strikers are pretty rare.

Not sure they are. There's likely to be five above 20 in league one this year, and probably around 10 in league two if you look at the top scorers tables. 3in league two are already there!

All that matters is the points on the table at the end of the season. Don’t care who scores them.

Dom Telford was a league 2 20+ goal striker season before last and he’s done bugger all since

Lol, it's an interesting topic for discussion, y'know, on a discussion forum

[ncRover]

Have to say I'm a bit surprised at some of the names being put forward as to doing well for us...

Should have been more specific though - not saying they haven't been great players for us, just we haven't had many prolific goalscorers up front (see Afro goal machine as a great example of this)

Gregg Blundell - 28 in 86 games (less than 1 in 3). Had a great first season back in football league of course but overall wasn't prolific.
Paul Heffernan - 35 in 127 games. As much as I loved him, he only scored more than 10 league goals in a season once for us (13)
LFW - 19 in 90 games
Paul Barnes - yes scored 26 in our promotion season in a team that was clearly a top team in the division, but season before he scored 6 for us.

Wasn't thinking back as far as Cramby, but he was great in shocking teams - slightly before then too I would offer Mike Jefferies.
I mentioned the rare few which I would include Marquis, Billy, and possibly Ironside if he continues in this form. We haven't had many 20+ goal-a-season strikers, and they aren't that rare.

I actually think 20+ goal a season strikers are pretty rare.

Not sure they are. There's likely to be five above 20 in league one this year, and probably around 10 in league two if you look at the top scorers tables. 3in league two are already there!

All that matters is the points on the table at the end of the season. Don’t care who scores them.

Dom Telford was a league 2 20+ goal striker season before last and he’s done bugger all since

Lol, it's an interesting topic for discussion, y'know, on a discussion forum

I didn’t mean to sound like I was shutting you down, sorry.

Look at McCann’s 20/21 League 1 winning Hull team for example. No 20+ scorer, but Hull scored the 2nd most in the whole division and got 89 points. The goals were spread out across the front 3:

Wilks (19)
Magennis (18)
Lewis-Potter (13)

Leyton Orient got promoted with a side last year where no one scored more than George Miller.

We do need to create more chances though!

[BillyStubbsTears]

This takes me back to our conference years, I'm sure I posted something similar about Justin Jackson...

Why do we think so many decent strikers absolutely fail with us?

Just look at the League One top scorers - Two out of the three joint top scorers (Devante Cole and Alfie May) are players who didn't make the grade with us, now they're banging them in a level above.

There's a litany of other examples, with admittedly a rare few who have managed to do the business for us, but generally we've missed out on getting the best out of a lot of talented strikers.

Alfie May’s departure was down to a failure, Darren Moore.

May was fit throughout 2018-19. McCann picked him 8 times. Go figure.

[Bessie Red]

Paul Dobson anyone?
I was out with a couple of players the day he signed for us.
We went to Archives,and there he was sat on his own. The players introduced me to him,lovely lad and I asked him what he'd been up to. He told us he'd had a few beers alone and then proceeded to name about 8 pubs around town,he couldn't remember the names of the others!
Turned out he'd had 12 pints of Guinness alone on a night out.
Maybe that's why he never did the business for us.
By all accounts he was the same at Scarboro when he went there.
Good bloke tho,and not a word slurred!

Although he only played 24 games for us he was one of my favourite players that season. He scored 10 in 24 which is a good return for a striker.

[Iberian Red]

He was a poacher and lethal around the 6 yard box. I don't recall him getting many outside the box.

[pib]

This takes me back to our conference years, I'm sure I posted something similar about Justin Jackson...

Why do we think so many decent strikers absolutely fail with us?

Just look at the League One top scorers - Two out of the three joint top scorers (Devante Cole and Alfie May) are players who didn't make the grade with us, now they're banging them in a level above.

There's a litany of other examples, with admittedly a rare few who have managed to do the business for us, but generally we've missed out on getting the best out of a lot of talented strikers.

Alfie May’s departure was down to a failure, Darren Moore.

May was fit throughout 2018-19. McCann picked him 8 times. Go figure.

Nobody could really argue with that given the front 3 picked itself that season.

Marquis - 44 league starts, 21 goals, 5 assists
Wilks - 42 league starts, 14 goals, 8 assists
Copps - 38 league starts, 4 goals, 14 assists

I'll die on the hill that letting May go when we did wasn't a mistake. It made total sense at the time. I'm not a big fan of Moore but can't really chastise him for that decision.

[Herman Hessian]

I feel duty-bound to mention Neil Campbell - not entirely sure in what context on a thread ostensibly about strikers who were either properly good, or had a reputation that would have you think they ought to be, but a curious compulsion nonetheless....good old Neil 

[craigdrfc]

Maybe not completely in keeping with the real meaning of the thread … but I recall a very young striker who started out with us - Gary Jones - who I believe went on to be fairly prolific at Notts County for a couple of seasons.

[BobG]

Was he a young lad played for us in the mid 70's Craig?

BobG

[Draytonian III]

Gary Jones played from 1988 -1990 , I think he was from Rosso

[BobG]

Ah. Ok. Thank you.

There was a young lad called Jones who played in the mid 70's. He was in the side that got walloped 6-0 at Watford. I think but only think, he was a midfielder. David Jones maybe? He wasn't around very long. I remember him because I shouted something unpleasant, vulgar and completely unnecesary at him - and he heard me. I am still ashamed of myself today.

BobG

[Draytonian III]

Chris Jones would be the player you were thinking of, he was a replacement for Peter Kitchen

[BobG]

Ah. Thank you Draytonian. I've always remembered Chris then - because of my terrible behaviour that day. All I can say today is that I have never (!) shouted abuse at a Rovers player since and I have almost never at an opposition player either - apart from that cheating w**ker, whose name now escapes me, who  handled the ball into our net.

BobG

[MachoMadness]

Bob, that would be the original Kitson himself, Dave Kitson.

[BobG]

Ah!! Thank you. Yes. Bloody Kitson. I could still happily abuse him right now

[drfchound]

Carl Alford, Justin Jackson and arguably Gary (?) Williams came with high expectations and massively underachieved but that’s over 20 years ago now. We’ve had many, many crap strikers in the intervening period but I don’t think we’ve had that many who’ve had a big discrepancy between expectation and achievement. We’ve also had a lot of decent strikers who have either scored goals or brought a lot to the team, or both.

May was a victim of unfortunate circumstance in that he was competing with Marquis, who has one of the best scoring records we’ve ever had up front as well running his blood to water every game, whilst Cole was only ever on a short term deal with us - not sure he gave a shit about us or us about him.

With regards to Devante Cole, as poor as he was for us he had one of the best songs.

[scawsby steve]

Carl Alford, Justin Jackson and arguably Gary (?) Williams came with high expectations and massively underachieved but that’s over 20 years ago now. We’ve had many, many crap strikers in the intervening period but I don’t think we’ve had that many who’ve had a big discrepancy between expectation and achievement. We’ve also had a lot of decent strikers who have either scored goals or brought a lot to the team, or both.

May was a victim of unfortunate circumstance in that he was competing with Marquis, who has one of the best scoring records we’ve ever had up front as well running his blood to water every game, whilst Cole was only ever on a short term deal with us - not sure he gave a shit about us or us about him.

With regards to Devante Cole, as poor as he was for us he had one of the best songs.

Remind me, mate. I've forgotten it.

[Colin C No.3]

I feel duty-bound to mention Neil Campbell - not entirely sure in what context on a thread ostensibly about strikers who were either properly good, or had a reputation that would have you think they ought to be, but a curious compulsion nonetheless....good old Neil 

Neil Campbell was a latter day Joe Ironside but unfortunately without Joe’s goal record at Rovers.

He always busted a gut though & was good footballer who knew how to ‘look after’ the ball.

[drfchound]

Carl Alford, Justin Jackson and arguably Gary (?) Williams came with high expectations and massively underachieved but that’s over 20 years ago now. We’ve had many, many crap strikers in the intervening period but I don’t think we’ve had that many who’ve had a big discrepancy between expectation and achievement. We’ve also had a lot of decent strikers who have either scored goals or brought a lot to the team, or both.

May was a victim of unfortunate circumstance in that he was competing with Marquis, who has one of the best scoring records we’ve ever had up front as well running his blood to water every game, whilst Cole was only ever on a short term deal with us - not sure he gave a shit about us or us about him.

With regards to Devante Cole, as poor as he was for us he had one of the best songs.

Remind me, mate. I've forgotten it.

Hay, haaay baby
Oooh ah
I wanna know oh oh oh oh oh
Devante Cole

[DonnyBazR0ver]

Chris Jones would be the player you were thinking of, he was a replacement for Peter Kitchen

That name sent a shiver down my spine. I'd managed to forget him until now. Mickey French wasn't that much better.