Andy Turner

[Donal81]

I bought FourFourTwo today, there's a supplement with it with listings of the best and worst player ever to represent each club in Britain. I saw a name and it rang a bell. Unfortunately, Andy Turner was voted the worst ever player to represent both Portsmouth and Northampton.

Does anyone remember this guy? A great white hope, if I remember correctly. He's currently winging his way around Southern Division 1 with Bromsgrove Rovers.

http://www.thisisbrfc.co.uk/worceste..._REPORTS5.html

This is depressing reading.

[Cowboy]

yeah I remember him, think it was around the same time as Mark Kelly, both touted as the next big thing.

[Carlin]

Played in a trial match for Bohs a couple of seasons back. Didn't do much in it and wasn't asked back.

[Stuttgart88]

Was he at Spurs at one stgae? I have vague memory of him.

[Cowboy]

Was he at Spurs at one stgae? I have vague memory of him.

Yes if memory serves

[NeilMcD]

Yes he played for spurs but never really broke through made a few first team appearances but looked a good prospect but then just drifted and drifted down the divisions

[Bluebeard]

yeah I remember him, think it was around the same time as Mark Kelly, both touted as the next big thing.

He was about 7 years after Mark Kelly (also Portsmouth), about 1997 or so, and seemed the business for about a season, before vanishing.

If memory serves correctly Mark Kelly was our youngest ever cap, playing against Yugoslavia, in 1988 or 1989, and was kicked to bits. He had some kind of horrific leg break in the early 1990s and vanished, to less notice than Sadlier recently. Based on the few games I remember him playing for us, I reckon we would never have heard of Jason McAteer or Mark Kennedy if he'd have kept playing.

[ColinR]

He was about 7 years after Mark Kelly (also Portsmouth), about 1997 or so, and seemed the business for about a season, before vanishing.

If memory serves correctly Mark Kelly was our youngest ever cap, playing against Yugoslavia, in 1988 or 1989, and was kicked to bits. He had some kind of horrific leg break in the early 1990s and vanished, to less notice than Sadlier recently. Based on the few games I remember him playing for us, I reckon we would never have heard of Jason McAteer or Mark Kennedy if he'd have kept playing.

did he not end up with sligo for a season or two??

remember that game against yugoslavia, he had an absolute stormer, which seemed to attract attention from the yogoslavian players

[Roo69]

I bought FourFourTwo today, there's a supplement with it with listings of the best and worst player ever to represent each club in Britain. I saw a name and it rang a bell. Unfortunately, Andy Turner was voted the worst ever player to represent both Portsmouth and Northampton.

Does anyone remember this guy? A great white hope, if I remember correctly. He's currently winging his way around Southern Division 1 with Bromsgrove Rovers.

http://www.thisisbrfc.co.uk/worceste..._REPORTS5.html

This is depressing reading.

Just had a quick look at that link, it says there top scorer is Chris Hanks with 238 from 1983-84 !!!!!!!! that could not be right

[fergalr]

I recall meeting and briefly chatting with Andy Turner one night in the airport - he was travelling on his own back to London after being over for a game.

I guess he was 18-19 at the time and it was pretty obvious that he wasn't particularly enjoying being away from his mates and girlfriend back in London. I got the strong impression that he heart wasn't really with the Irish cause.

Not quite in the Austin Hayes league though!

[Donal81]

I recall meeting and briefly chatting with Andy Turner one night in the airport - he was travelling on his own back to London after being over for a game.

I guess he was 18-19 at the time and it was pretty obvious that he wasn't particularly enjoying being away from his mates and girlfriend back in London. I got the strong impression that he heart wasn't really with the Irish cause.

Not quite in the Austin Hayes league though!

Who was Austin Hayes? Never heard of him!

[Docboy]

I remember Andy Turner scoring a cracker for Spurs at home against Everton at the age of 17, me thinks. High hopes for the lad which he never fulfilled. Shame!

[Cowboy]

He was about 7 years after Mark Kelly (also Portsmouth), about 1997 or so, and seemed the business for about a season, before vanishing.

shows how good my memory is

[monutdfc]

He played about 20 minutes for St Pats in the inter-toto a few seasons ago. Players don't need to be registered for the intertoto so trialists can be payed. He wasn't signed.

[SaucyJack]

didn't his dad or uncle play for St.Pats or Bohs in the past?

[dr_peepee]

He was in an Ireland squas under Charlton at one stage. Terry Venables must have had a liking for him because he signed him a couple of times at his various clubs. He was on the books at Palace at one stage..

[Donal81]

Just found this now. Does anyone know what Sadlier is up to?

Richard Sadlier - How I became the finished article
By Tony Cascarino
The Times
November 03, 2003
After the tears, the anger, the guilt and despair, Richard Sadlier talks about retirement at the age of 24

IT HAS BEEN NEARLY NINE weeks since Richard Sadlier learnt that he would never play professionally again. Two operations were not able to restore sufficient function to his injured hip and an 18-month struggle was over for the gifted Millwall forward. He couldn’t bear to speak to his family and friends, so he sent them a text message informing them that his career was over, aged just 24.

The text read: “Just to let you know that I retired today. Hip is s***e. No progress in 18 months. I can’t be bothered talking about it, so don’t ring back. Speak to you later.”

He did not want anybody’s sympathy. He found it hard to help the club prepare a statement. “I was on the verge of tears,” Sadlier said. “It was driving me mad that people were feeling sorry for me.”

He was embarrassed and surprised by the messages of support and job offers from fans. Three days later, he went to a nightclub with Amanda, his girlfriend, to meet Robbie Ryan, his team-mate, and some friends from Dublin. He was unaware that the Millwall players were there as well. “Everyone, to a man, shook my hand and gave me a hug, a sympathetic look and a little speech,” he said. “After the eighth or ninth time, I told Amanda I was going home as it was doing my head in.”

The limp Sadlier had when he retired has gone. He cannot rotate his hip properly, and will probably require at least one hip replacement, the first at about the age of 40. He can no longer take for granted things such as playing snooker, going to the cinema or making a long car journey. His financial position has changed, too. He was paid for six months of the two-year contract he had left, and must sell his house in Bromley. To help, Millwall, for whom he scored 41 goals in 165 appearances, have arranged a benefit dinner in December and, next year, a testimonial match and possibly a golf day.

Since he retired, Sadlier’s mood has swung from despair to guilt. He spent the first week depressed, crying in his house and going to the pub at night. “I thought I had no reason to get out of bed,” he said. The second week he was angry: “The punchbag in my garage took a kicking.”

It put a strain on his relationship with Amanda. “I wasn’t thinking of anyone but myself,” he said. “I told her to go back to Dublin for a few weeks and give me space. I wanted to fight the world. I could switch my phone off or not answer. But she had no escape from me. She’s back now and it’s grand.”

When I met Sadlier at Millwall, he was positive, thankful that he had played for seven years rather than angry that he was deprived of a further ten. A day earlier, he had run for the first time around the neighbourhood. “Now it’s not all doom and gloom,” he said. “I was feeling sorry for myself, when all I couldn’t do was play football. I am no longer tormenting myself about why it had to happen to me.”

There are days when Sadlier ponders “what if”. But he says that those thoughts are put into perspective when he considers attending the recent funerals of Ray Harford and his own cousin from Limerick, who suffered from cystic fibrosis.

He made his decision to retire after an emotional meeting with Gerry Docherty, the Millwall physiotherapist. He had already made three comebacks. “I couldn’t come out and say the words,” he said. “Eventually I said there was no point in trying again. I was afraid people would try to convince me I was doing the wrong thing, that I had taken it lightly. I really didn’t have the energy to convince them.”

Mark McGhee and Archie Knox, then Millwall’s manager and assistant manager respectively, were informed, and Sadlier drove to Bromley Park with his bulldog, Frank. He felt unable to tell the same story and answer the same questions over and over again, so he sent the text. “Most people said ‘really sorry to hear it’,” he said. “My Dad said ‘well done, congratulations for all you have done’. One of my mates thought someone had my phone and it was a joke. He sent me back something like: ‘Delighted. You were s**t anyway.’ When he read the papers the next day, he left me a voicemail apologising: ‘Listen Richie, I thought it was a joke, I feel like a gobs***e’.”

Sadlier’s unhappy story began in March of last year away to Barnsley. He struck the ball at the same time as a defender had challenged him and felt a sharp pain shooting up his right hip. Although he played for the rest of the game, it turned out that he had torn some cartilage. “By the end, I couldn’t run,” he said.

Three weeks earlier, Sadlier had made his Ireland debut against Russia, winning his only cap. Things were clicking into place. He had scored 15 goals in his previous 24 games, Millwall were on the verge of a place in the play-offs and he had an outside chance of going to the World Cup. “There were loads of reasons to stay fit and keep playing,” he said. “I didn’t want to come off too quickly.”

He played against Preston North End three days later, but had to come off after 21 minutes with the pain spreading into his back and neck. An injection helped get him through two more games, but he was then operated on by Richard Villar, a hip specialist, in Cambridge. The best case, Villar said, would be that Sadlier would be playing again in three months, but there was a 25 per cent chance that he would never play at the same level. “I thought it was 75 per cent I would, so I didn ’t take any notice and didn’t tell the physiotherapist or my parents.”

Four months later, he played 41 minutes on the opening day of the season, but things were still not right. Villar increased the painkilling injections. “I thought that would do it,” he said. “But it didn’t work.”

He went to see Villar in October. “He told me I had two choices,” Sadlier said. “He said: ‘You can retire now as unless we interfere with your hip again, you won’t play again.’ I asked what the other choice was. He said: ‘You can have an operation to take even more cartilage from the hip than before. You will have very bad arthritis and will need a new hip in your early forties’.”

Sadlier didn’t give it a moment’s thought. “I said let’s get it done as quickly as we can,” he said. “I don’t want to retire.” He had the operation in October. Villar told him that the way he would feel in three months’ time would be how he would always feel. There were no other operations, and Sadlier felt little improvement by January. He doubled the dose of painkillers and played four games in March, but failed to finish any of them. “I was back to being as bad as I ever was,” he said.

It became hard to go into training because he would hear players complaining about trivial things when his rehabilitation was going backwards. If he didn’t feel low, he would watch Millwall play. “I would be really critical of every player on the pitch: look at him, not even trying, look at him, not giving a s**t,” he said. “If it was me, I wouldn’t do any of that. Maybe I was just resenting that I was sitting in the stand.”

Sadlier would correct supporters who said that they had heard that he wouldn’t be coming back. But, deep down, he knew they were right. He was in a swimming pool two months ago playing with a ball when he knew for certain. “I got out of the pool and was like a tin man,” he said. “I couldn’t walk. I knew deep down a year ago, but then I got to thinking I was wasting everybody’s time, and all the work I was putting in was becoming too hard for f*** all reward.”

He decided then to retire, but didn’t tell anyone. He wanted one more chance of playing, and came on as a substitute against Crewe Alexandra and Stoke City. A week later, he announced his retirement, determined to get a job away from football — “I thought it would be like teasing myself” — but since then he has commentated for radio, taken up a job with Drury Sports Management, a football agency in Ireland, and is pursuing a three-year degree in Sport Science and Coaching at Roehampton University.

He still thinks about his debut, when some Millwall supporters came on to the pitch and tried to attack the referee, and then surrounded the dugout where Jimmy Nicholl, then the manager, was marooned.

But Sadlier felt lucky to be playing. He was late travelling to the ground after meeting a girl in London the previous night when he should have been tucked up in bed. “The train whistle had gone when two blokes with a load of bags got into my carriage,” he said. “I couldn’t believe my luck. It was Jimmy Nicholl and the physio. The physio walked by and didn’t see me. I thought ‘result, Jimmy could walk by too’. He saw me. I presume I was as white as a ghost. I was struggling like an idiot for an explanation. He looked at me and said: ‘You’re in trouble son, aren’t you?’ I have since found out that they spent the journey laughing at me.”

[Irish_Praha]

Edited

[fergalr]

Who was Austin Hayes? Never heard of him!

Its going way way back to the Gilsey era. This guy played a couple of times for Southampton and then someone discovered he was eligible to play for us. So Gilesey picked him for a home game. Turns out that that it was his very first trip ever to Ireland! Needless to say it was his first and only cap.

[blobbyblob]

I think Sadlier was back in Dublin for a while playing 5 a side during the week with his mates. I heard he may have returned to a small club in the south of England where he helps out with coaching etc

I could stand corrected...