There is something quite absurd about the transfer system in football.
Think about this: you are sat around, watching a clock run down on Sky Sports, refreshing your X (formerly known as Twitter ©), hoping that a millionaire journeyman reserve defender will be sat proudly grinning, from ear to ear, while holding aloft a scarf or a shirt. What kind of society welcomes this? Well, it seems football fans do.
The transfer window: it's a blessing. And a curse. More of a curse at times.
Time to revisit some of the best from Albion (and others) days gone by, as recorded by my days at the Birmingham Mail. I’ve gone for those that have taken place since the transfer window was introduced in summer 2002. I've probably missed some belters. If so, please do let me know.
January 2003: There was something extremely off-the-cuff about Albion’s first-ever winter transfer window in January 2003 as a Premier League club. For starters, the managing director Brendon Batson had ventured off on holiday (you can read more about his time at WBA in 2002/03, here) while a series of agents tried to dump their players at Albion’s front door. Among them were tired-old-pros Roberto Rios and Salva Ballesta. Neither signed. But Albion did manage to bring in Ifeanyi Udeze, a Nigerian defender from PAOK – a better footballer than he was perceived. His first press conference gave a sign of things to come when the poor lad tremored and sweated his way through questions, prompting the veteran journalist Ray Matts to interrupt and ask whether he needed a doctor. It was as good as it got for poor Ife.
By the way, it was during January 2002 and summer 2003, that I got roped into completely different territory. In the former, Birmingham City signed Arkadiusz Bąk – a midfielder who struggled to settle. My journalistic role should have been to report this transfer for the Birmingham Mail. Instead I got thrust into complex negotiations as a translator for the non-English-speaking Bąk, Blues boss Steve Bruce, the player's agents and club's administrative staff. We discussed salaries, bonuses, logistics... and then, finally, we cracked open a drink.
To this day I have no idea why they thought calling in a local reporter would be a good idea for such discussions, but there you are. It was one hell of an insight if nothing else.
Later that year Birmingham signed another Pole – this time the national team captain Piotr Świerczewski, no less – who came with completely different expectations of life in England. I went to interview him at the hotel next to the NEC; his home until Blues could sort him out with a more fixed abode. I was somewhat surprised to find his first questions were about Birmingham’s night-life and its pleasures. I made my excuses and left. And so did he not long afterwards.
Summer 2004: As I walked through passport control at Copenhagen’s Kastrup Airport to cover WBA on tour, Gary Megson checked out, destination England. The Albion boss had enough of the posturing around transfers and decided to scramble the targets himself. In came Kanu – the club’s first-ever £20,000-a-week footballer – along with Jon Greening and Ferencvaros midfielder Zoltan Gera. The Hungary captain’s pursuit had been an interesting one. Albion hadn’t scouted him as such. Director and head of ITV Sport Jeff Farmer had been informed of Gera by his mate David Pleat, who was then working as a pundit/commentator for the network. Gera had come onto Pleat’s radar when he was manager of Spurs. It was Pleat who suggested to Farmer that Gera might be worth looking at and that he might be available for a cut-price fee. Gera came on an initial trial, he impressed…and he signed. As he put the finishing touches to his move – having wowed Megson turning training sessions – he broke down in tears, realising he was actually going to be playing in the Premier League. He was a Premier League Footballer. Yes, that’s what it meant to him. I've since heard that Bryan Robson's first training ground observations were not about Kanu - who, by the way, was some player - but how good Gera was. It was the Hungary international who opened his eyes to the team's potential.
That same summer Albion signed Martin Albrechtsen for £2.7m – a few weeks before they finally signed Rob Earnshaw for £3m. For some time Albrechtsen was the record signing – his acquisition also came just as Albion were about to cancel the registration of previous-record holder Lee Hughes (£2.5m) for other reasons. A cynical ploy to adjust the record transfer milestone? You bet it was.
And then there was Cosmin Contra - remember him, a loan signing from Atletico Madrid? Gary Megson arrived to training and was confused to find that his usually matched-up training teams were not quite right. He had an extra player. Yes, it turns out somebody, somewhere, had brought in Cosmin Contra, without Megson actually being aware. You can imagine how that went down...
January 2006: It’s not often we enjoy a free meal in life, yet Ugo Ehiogu was the guest of a gratis early-morning feast courtesy of Bryan Robson during the final throes of the winter window during this particular Premier League campaign. Ehiogu was having breakfast with his new ‘team-mates’, while Robson and chief scout Bobby Hope were next door discussing with Middlesbrough the feasibility of adding Ehiogu’s Riverside team-mate Jimmy Floyd-Hasselbaink. While all of this was going on, Jeremy Peace called in one of his fellow directors and issued the following brief: “Inform Bryan this won’t be happening.” And with that the hapless director called Bobby Hope, who was then told to inform Bryan. The Ehiogu deal was off. The Hasselbaink deal was off. Bryan would have to make do with what he had, despite green-lighting the exits of Rob Earnshaw and Geoff Horsfield. Needless to say, it didn’t go down well.
Summer 2006: By this point Bryan Robson was pissed off. Seriously pissed off. But he managed to pull off a couple of notable signings, among a few others. The first was Pascal Zuberbuhler – a goalkeeper who had kept a series of clean-sheets for a defensively-savvy Switzerland side in that summer’s World Cup. And yet that wasn’t the full story. During this pursuit, an associate of Jeremy Peace contacted the Albion owner to ask whether he was aware that the club were signing a dud? Peace pursued his own due diligence, realised his mate had a point, and called off the transfer. Robson stood firm and staked his reputation on the deal. This led to the bizarre situation where the deal was signed off, not by Peace, but by director Joe Brandrick, who promptly drove a coach-and-horses through the club’s communications’ protocols by calling media, asking them to turn up at The Hawthorns for that day’s big story. We all duly lapped it up, while the club’s head of media wept with despair. The rest of us wept for entirely different reasons. Peace's contact had been spot on.
The second was Kevin Phillips – this one was quite simple. Robson interviewed the Villa striker and promptly instructed staff to not let him out of the training ground, knowing Sunderland (then under Roy Keane’s watch) were keen to recruit their former hero. Albion secured their man. The rest you know. It was to be Robson’s best bit of business. And pretty much his final hurrah.
(By the way, check out my old colleague Colin Tattum's transfer insight column here...)
Join us for part 2...
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