Debut: 2-2 draw vs Southampton, August 15th 1987
League Record: 50 games (+4 as sub), 2 goals
Sold to: Sheffield Wednesday (free transfer), January 1991
Once the topic of two Trivial Pursuit questions: namely being the first black guy to win a full England cap, and also being the only player to go to two World Cups with them and not get a single second on the pitch. The last one was true in the late 1980s, at least. He also got to spend all of Euro '88 twiddling his thumbs on the bench.
Born in Nottingham, he was a key part of Brian Clough’s all-conquering Forest team of the late 70s: by all accounts he was a class act of a player, nicknamed ‘Spider’ for his gangly limbs, which were always handy for reaching those last-ditch tackles. He certainly looked an unlikely footballer when you saw him running around, but like Peter Crouch or Paulo Wanchope, he was actually a lot smoother on the ball than he looked.
A League Championship, two League Cups and two European Cups over the course of three years was a fantastic haul and you can easily understand why Clough and the members of that team approach deity status in the red half of Nottingham. Along with Peter Davenport, he was part of the Forest team robbed of a place in the 1984 UEFA Cup final when semi-final opponents Anderlecht bribed the ref in the second leg: 2-0 up from the first game, Forest were denied at least one stonewall penalty and suffered from a number of dodgy decisions.
That summer, perhaps feeling he needed a new start to push his international prospects – he moved to Arsenal, at the time managed by part-time England coach Don Howe. For the main part, he had played back-up to Phil Neal: however, the Liverpool man was well into this 30s at that point and his mistake against Denmark in conceding a penalty (converted by our previous-but-one entry) had seen England fail to the reach the ’84 European Championships. But it never really happened for Viv, not helped by playing in a very average Arsenal team that only improved in his last season, when George Graham was in charge and saw them lift the League Cup in 1987, a game notable in being the first time Ian Rush scored in a game for Liverpool that they then went on to lose.
Along with McClair, he was one of the first fresh faces Ferguson brought in as he looked to put his own stamp on things. Looking back in 2012, it seems an odd signing as Viv was already 31 at the time – clearly the boss didn’t rate the right-back options he had (John Sivebaek and our next entry) and perhaps the one-time Nottingham Forest legend was the best option around at the time.
Despite a fair first season, big Viv never really enjoyed too much success with us. He wasn’t helped by injuries – especially in 1990 when after playing in the first four games of our FA Cup run, he was injured before the semi-final and wasn’t able to win his place back for the final. That summer, we finally signed one half of the solution to the full back question and Anderson’s days were numbered.
After barely playing in the first five months of 1990/91 season, Ron Atkinson took him over to Sheffield Wednesday. Unfortunately for him, he missed out on their defeat of us in that year’s League Cup final, as he’d played (and scored) for us against Halifax Town in the second round of that competition, so was thus cup-tied. Despite the advancing years, he still captained Wednesday in their most successful period in recent history and was unlucky in 1993 to end up with losers medals in both the FA and League Cup finals – both times to Arsenal. Shortly after, he went to manage Barnsley for a year but subsequently took up a job as Bryan Robson’s assistant at Middlesbrough. He was sacked along with Robbo and I don’t believe has worked in a full-time coaching capacity since.
These days, whenever I’m at a game and am checking the teams on the screens under the stands, he always seems to be on MUTVs pre-match coverage. Doubtless he was a quality player, but the level of that may be best explained by Nottingham Forest fans. Still, I liked him as he always seemed dead chuffed when we scored, and a bit of enthusiasm goes a long way in this game.
No comments:
Post a Comment