Is this rugby's worst ever jersey?

RugbyHeaven | Wednesday, 08 October 2008

 

High art, or high farce? You be the judge as the always colourful Stade Français club in Paris launches its latest rugby jersey on the world.

The trendy Parisian club has come up with a garish new design, launched to coincide with the start of this year's Heineken Cup competition, that is either brilliantly chic, or downright sick, depending on your point of view.

This year's design depicts the face of Parisienne 13th-century heroine Blanche de Castille, the wife of Louis VIII, in a multi-coloured design described by club publicists as "in the fashion of Andy Warhol".

Well, they're certainly getting their 15 minutes of fame, and then some.

The shirts made their debut in the weekend's 34-16 victory over Montauban that took the Ewen McKenzie-coached Stade Français eight points clear of Toulouse at the top of the French Top 14.

As usual, the latest designs under the always colourful ownership of the eccentric Max Guazzini have created plenty of chatter.

Some critics have described it as the worst rugby jersey in the game's history? Others love it.

One thing you have to give the club credit for, though, is consistency. Having started the trend with a fluorescent pink jersey that has become their signature look, they have continued to defy critics and fashionistas alike.

Last season saw a light brown number with turquoise stripes and pink flowers and was described by one critic as "reminiscent of an Hawaiian shirt fashioned from some 1970s caravan curtains".

There was also a pink, green and blue effort with tie-dyed blurred lines that drew unflattering appraisals.

Still, the club gets full marks for originality, and, who knows, maybe their persistence will finally see other rugby clubs join the trend.

Premier League threatened with salary cap as FA vows to get tough

Triesman attacks culture of debt among big clubs
Chairman angers PL over plans to act as regulator

 

Matt Scott The Guardian, Wednesday October 8 2008

 

The Football Association chairman, David Triesman, yesterday threatened to enforce a salary cap on England's leading clubs as part of a wide-ranging and often damning address on the game's finances.

Setting out the FA's plans to become a stricter regulator for football and placing himself on a collision course with the Premier League, Lord Triesman attacked an industry that he said had run up £3bn of debt, speaking of the "very tangible dangers" for the game at a time of much uncertainty in global finance.

"In the current climate it could be that we have to work out [wage] restraints and what they might be," he said during a speech to the Leaders in Football conference at Stamford Bridge. "A sensible form of [wage] restraint would make sense and it is not inconceivable. It's very hard to do anything unless all parties want to do it and everyone needs to want to do it. Preferably without being compelled."

Triesman's proposals will put the FA squarely at odds with the Premier League, particularly his ambitions for the governing body to become the English game's regulator. Senior government figures have this week been explicit that the FA's powers should be extended, and Uefa, the European governing body, is certain to offer support, having itself lobbied the European Commission to become football's statutory regulator.

Triesman set out an ambitious manifesto for reform of the game's regulatory structure. "I think we are too fragmented with too many bodies responsible for too many parts of the sport," he said. "Greater clarity is needed about who is responsible for the fitness and future of the game. A clear sports law could clarify the position. The time has come for a comprehensive sports law apportioning responsibility and accountability."

He also called for a strengthening of the fit-and-proper-persons test for club owners to include considerations of human-rights abuses alongside a prospective buyer's financial history. But most of his speech was given over to the volatility of the credit markets and its impact on English clubs. Triesman was referring to Manchester United when he talked of the "impenetrable instruments" of debt clubs have accrued. He said clubs must "decrease their indebtedness" by refinancing - although market conditions forbid most that luxury - or paying it down.

In response the Premier League's chief executive, Richard Scudamore, compared Triesman's aversion to debt with that of the Uefa president, Michel Platini, who Scudamore claimed "thinks all debt is bad". Scudamore instead believes that borrowings are sustainable if they are in keeping with revenues. Despite the biggest anomaly of Manchester United, whose debts are £666m, he pointed out that the ratio of debt to earnings at Premier League clubs is broadly 1.1:1.

But Scudamore was most strident in responding to Triesman's regulatory ambitions, insisting that the league should not yield to the whims of an organisation that is in some ways its commercial rival. "We are like competitors," he said. "We compete for sponsorship and for television rights and we are in the same space.

"The way it works here is tripartite. The Football League with its long reach, the Premier League with its different focus and different appeal and the FA all working together. If we draw three circles the overlap doesn't need to be huge."

FA ponders appeal

The FA may appeal against the paltry €14,000 fine Fifa handed Croatia last month. David Triesman will discuss it with Fifa's president, Sepp Blatter, after the racist abuse England's Emile Heskey suffered in Zagreb. Lord Triesman said: "We want to make sure that in the international system racist abuse is dealt with effectively."

Should England play Steven Gerrard in central midfield?

Former Liverpool defender Jim Beglin and Wycombe manager Peter Taylor discuss Steven Gerrard's role in the England team

The Guardian, Wednesday October 8 2008

 

Jim Beglin Former Liverpool defender and ITV match summariser

Yes

I think Steven Gerrard would tell you himself that he is at his best and most effective when he plays in central midfield because it makes best use of his intelligence to pick and choose his runs from a position where he can be most dangerous. Of course you can stick him out wide and he is that good a player he will do a job for you. He can be a good provider from the right and moves inside well to make the selection work but for me it does not extract the maximum from his talent.

If you're going to play four across midfield, as Fabio Capello seems to prefer, you can't squash three candidates into the two available central berths . It's a dilemma for the England manager and I appreciate how difficult it is for him to decide. After the Croatia game when Gareth Barry and Frank Lampard combined effectively, I can understand those who want to go with the status quo. But let's not forget that Gerrard and Barry have worked well together as a pairing in the past.

The crux of the issue is the balance of the side and nothing should compromise that. As we saw on numerous occasions, particularly during the 2006 World Cup, you are asking for trouble by accommodating both Lampard and Gerrard in their favoured roles. Capello is going to have to decide to leave one out. I'm glad it's not my decision to choose which one plays.

But if I had to I would go for the Liverpool captain . Gerrard gives you more aggression and is a real battler in the tackle. His specific quality is pretty obvious — he is capable of producing sensational match-winning moments. I think Lampard is a more consistent contributor, maybe better at linking the play and probably gets more involved in a match in terms of passing. I just think Gerrard has the knack and ability to transform games with one huge moment.

Gerrard now has brought more discipline to the way he plays. I know Liverpool set up diff erently — against Everton Xabi Alonso and Gerrard were stationed deeper in midfi eld with Robbie Keane playing off Fernando Torres. In the past Gerrard had a tendency to vacate this position from time to time to go out and seek the ball which left the defence a bit vulnerable. But at Goodison Park I saw a new maturity to his play — he knows the role much better and is shrewder about when to break forward .

I feel perhaps I am being a wee bit unkind to Lampard. I really am torn. I would give the nod to Gerrard but it's a marginal decision. Lampard's general play this season has been absolutely superb — his link-up play, passing, astuteness in timing his runs to take opportunities in the box and finishing have been wonderful. But as good a player as Frank is, my gut instinct is that Gerrard is capable of even bigger things, decisive, game-changing interventions.

In terms of the balance of the team you could squeeze Gerrard in on the right but Theo Walcott has come of age now and deserves a run there. It's a close call but if you stick with Barry, and experience tells us you must, I would pick Gerrard to partner him.

Peter Taylor Wycombe manager and former England caretaker

No

I wouldn't break up the partnership of Gareth Barry and Frank Lampard in England's central midfield for the upcoming games because Fabio Capello has started well with those two and he now wants to start building a team for South Africa 2010 . So, with Steven Gerrard having missed the fi rst two World Cup qualifiers because of injury, it prompts the question: do you leave the Liverpool captain on the bench?

The answer is simple: No. I would never leave Gerrard out and, because I think he can play everywhere in midfield, he would be the one, yet again, who would have to play wide.

Steve McClaren had Gerrard on the right and I think that was the right idea. Gerrard is such a talented player that he can play anywhere: he can play right, he can play left and he can play in the middle. I would have him on the right because of his fantastic crossing but this time, as I wouldn't want to drop Theo Walcott after his hat-trick against Croatia, I would play him on the left. That will give him the opportunity to cut inside and shoot with his right foot.

Playing him wide gives him more freedom. My experience as an international manager is that the opposition will focus on the two middle men and mark them tightly, because it is easier to locate them and pin them down in the middle of the park.

Some people say Gerrard and Lampard should play in central midfield but I don't think you can drop Barry. It is not that Lampard or Gerrard can't defend, because they can, but they are not defensive players. Barry is a defensive player: he thinks like a defensive player and he plays like a defensive player. He shields the ball, starts attacking moves, heads the ball well and reads the game well.

And even though England are playing Kazakhstan and Belarus this time — perhaps not the strongest teams in Europe — you can't underestimate them and think you can play without a defensive midfi elder. It just doesn't work that way any more. You need to show all the teams respect and that means having Barry in the team.

It is not that Lampard and Gerrard can't play together because they can. Any team in the world would love to have them and would probably not contemplate dropping one of them. They are world class and give England so many options. Also, I think that Capello has introduced something that may have been missing before and something that will see them play better together: patience.

I have sometimes felt that they have wanted to play well for England so badly that they have tried too hard. They haven't been patient enough. With Capello, however, I have seen them have more patience in their passing and that can only benefit the team.

There is no way I would drop Lampard and, as I wouldn't play him wide, he has to stay in the middle. Lampard has been getting quite a lot of criticism from England supporters recently and I just can't understand that. It baffles me. He is a tremendous player and the thing with him is that he is desperate to be there and desperate to play well for England, which may not always have been the case with every player. The criticism he has been getting is unfair and silly because he is such a good footballer. End of story.

Who's next to lose their shirt?

Forget the thousands of job losses, rising inflation and soaring energy bills - the real progress of the financial crisis will be measured by English football's folding sponsors, says Barney Ronay

• Barney Ronay
• The Guardian,
• Thursday September 18 2008

At the start of the second world war it was the bananas that went first. With the fire of London it was rats. As the British economy continues its whoopee-cushion-style contraction, the effects of impending meltdown are also being felt in some unexpected places. Last season brought the near collapse of Northern Rock, Newcastle United's shirt sponsors. A week ago West Ham's sponsors XL went bust, prompting the removal of their name from the club strip. At the weekend the Hammers played West Bromwich Albion, also without a logo after failing to find a deal. Even more ominously, post-Lehman Brothers all the talk is of the travails of the insurance giant AIG - which happens to be the shirt sponsors of Manchester United. For big business the writing isn't so much on the wall as on the chests of the nation's footballers.

This is all very much in keeping with football's rampage into the cultural and economic mainstream. For the past decade or so the Premier League has acted as convenient shorthand for the wildest excesses of the UK's consumer-driven economic boom, an acme of vulgar consumption. Now, as the tide continues to turn, football is right back in the vanguard of things, a sandpiper running ahead of the surf. Never mind the inflation basket, the job-seekers' queue or the cost of borrowing. Future economic historians will be able to measure the progress of the credit crunch by English football's folding shirt sponsors.

This isn't the first time football shirts have delivered an oblique commentary on changing economic times. Kit sponsorship was first permitted as recently as 1979, the same year Margaret Thatcher came to power. It would be a further 10 years before clubs were actually allowed to wear their logo-plastered strips on live television. But in those early days kit sponsorship arrived in a rush, a visible symbol of the early Thatcherite emphasis on consumer-led economy, a decade of ad-boom and marketing thrust.

Early football-kit sponsors were often drawn from the middle ranks of domestic commerce: breweries, garden centres, double-glazers, photocopier suppliers, package holiday dealers. The names of those first-generation shirt sponsors read like an elegy for changing times: Talbot at Coventry City; British Caledonian at Ipswich; the mysterious Withey Windows at Norwich; plus assorted small-town accountancy firms and business consultancies. An exception was Liverpool's 1979 strip, with its striking white HITACHI, which is generally considered shirt sponsorship's first iconic design. The stark capitals tested to the full the FA's draconian, if charmingly pre-decimal, restrictions: 16 square inches, with letters no more than two inches high.

There was another side to all this, a meeting of minds with what was happening in the stands. The encroachment of labels and brands wasn't just a football thing, it was a 1980s thing. And so the terraces gave us the casual, the game's most decisive extension into high-street fashion, ultimately via the likes of JD Sports and assorted other leisurewear providers. For the label-obsessive fan, the newly commerce-spattered football ground provided the perfect catwalk to parade his Fred Perry, his Lyle & Scott and his crimplene Sergio Tacchini tracksuit top. With the casual, football provided a youth movement that pre-figured the past 20 years of label-conscious culture and the fetishising of the visible blue-chip clothing brand.

Liverpool fans are widely credited with kick-starting the movement, inspired in part by their team's trips to Italy in the European Cup. As the players paraded their Hitachi kit, soon to be followed by the Crown Paints era, supporters stocked up on priceless limited-edition continental labels, to be flaunted on their return to the domestic terrace. The mature casual look emerged as something close to an ambitious junior executive on a golfing weekend after getting dressed in the dark in a branch of TK Maxx. It's a look that football has bequeathed to the nation's shopping centres, one that arrived hand in hand with kit sponsorship and has matured with the growth of the replica shirt as leisurewear. Perhaps the turning of the tide for the shirt sponsor might even prefigure a similar era of brand austerity on the pinched, crunched and pressed UK high street.

In many ways the disappearing logo is to be celebrated. Not just as a sop to the traditionalist lament about rampant and all-consuming commercialism. There have also been some terrible mistakes along the way, as two distinct and separately focus-grouped design forces, the kit and the commercial logo, have been dramatically conjoined.

Aston Villa's claret and blue was briefly augmented by a migraine-inducing bright purple and lime-green sponsor's logo. At the junk-food end of things the brief partnership of convenience between Pizza Hut and the black-and-white shirts of Fulham spawned the vaguely nauseating incongruity of extreme physical activity and a dinner-plate-sized deep-dish food product. The same with Wolves and their giant Doritos logo. It just didn't sit well.

Arsenal provided a few laughs during their Sega shirt period, a word that would be regularly removed during away trips to play in Spain (sega means "wank" in Spanish). West Ham spent five years displaying the name of kit manufactures Pony, which in the local East London rhyming slang means "crap" (from pony and trap).

There have some quirky additions too. For several seasons Tranmere Rovers were sponsored by Wirral borough council. Presumably it needed the publicity. Clydebank were briefly sponsored by the pop group Wet Wet Wet. For years Atlético Madrid's owners, Columbia Pictures, would change the club's shirt sponsor according to which Hollywood blockbuster was on release. Atletico's Spiderman II period involved a total redesign of the away shirt.

The current trend for the disappearing logo also tells us much about football and its miraculously self-sustaining revenue streams. Until now football has surfed above the credit crunch, its finances mysteriously fizzing with independent life. During the summer transfer window, record amounts - some estimate as much as £500m - were spent by English clubs. For now, at least, it's still all boom at the very top.

Disappearing sponsors notwithstanding, this looks set to continue for a while. Early kit deals may have opened up a vital new source of revenue. But this was in the pre-hyper inflationary days when even the big clubs wrestled annually to balance their relatively meager turnover. Space on Manchester United's shirts is currently leased out for close to £10m a season, but this is hardly make-or-break money. The disappearance of AIG would simply be an inconvenience, or an opportunity for a merchandise-shifting rebrand. These days the kitty is stocked by TV rights deals, billionaire owners and the global merchandising arm.

With this in mind, a new trend among clubs involves abandoning the commercial sponsor altogether in favour of something philanthropic. This season Aston Villa are sponsored by the Acorns children's hospice, a gesture on the part of the club's billionaire owner, Randy Lerner, to emphasise Villa's community ties. Similarly, but on a more global scale, Barcelona are currently wearing the name of Unesco: a freebie perhaps, but also a canny addition to the Catalans' club-of-the-people brand.

For now the disappearing football-shirt logo remains a hieroglyph of troubles elsewhere, an indicator of the economic meltdown on the thermals of which football continues to float in its own superheated fiscal bubble. For how much longer remains to be seen, of course. The shirt logo has had its say in the past. Perhaps, like the marauding rats of the great fire, you ignore it at your peril.

We're all in awe of McCaw

By MARC HINTON in Brisbane - RugbyHeaven | Thursday, 11 September 2008

The decisive game of the 2008 Tri-Nations is still three days away and All Blacks captain Richie McCaw is already in a hot sweat. Turns out, though, his Australian nemesis George Smith is the least of his worries.

McCaw, you see, is being put under the grill. A gaggle of excited journalists has managed what Schalk Burger, Smith and numerous other No 7s of international standing have failed abysmally to do.  We have taken the brilliant All Black outside of his comfort zone. Well outside, it turns out.

McCaw is being showered with praise after back-to-back standout performances have transformed his side's season. What's more, his injury-enforced absence early in the campaign, and the subsequent All Black form crisis that accompanied it, only served to highlight just what a valuable (read invaluable) resource he has become.

And McCaw is positively squirming. He's being asked to quantify his brilliance, to rate his pieces des resistance. He's getting matches, veritable tours des force (OK, enough of the French) thrown at him willy-nilly, and he's being requested to evaluate his greatness. No, this is not Richie's cup of tea at all.

We should blame Graham Henry. He started it. The All Blacks coach came out on Tuesday and said some pretty flattering things about his skipper. Reckoned he'd never had a finer test in the black jersey than that he delivered in Cape Town last month. Described him as a "colossus".

Then a Sydney tabloid unleashed a full page report headlined: "In awe of McCaw." In a piece highlighting his massive influence on the All Blacks it mentioned, offhandedly, that the No 7 had won no less than 57 of his 64 tests, or an unfathomable 89 percent.

Later on Wednesday afternoon former Wallaby and Queensland great Jeff Miller stood in Brisbane's Queen Street Mall and informed anyone within earshot that to beat the All Blacks on Saturday night the Australians have to do one simple thing, and do it well.

The essence of Miller's message was that McCaw must be removed from the equation, whatever it took. "You target him and you basically say if anyone sees Richie McCaw you fly in and take him out... he's unbelievable, his ability to get everywhere, to basically be a serial pest, his influence as captain, the fact he can run so well with the ball, and he can offload as well. Australia really needs to have a focus to somehow nullify him and take him out of the game."

Miller, of course, was not advocating anything illegal or dangerous. But you pretty much got the gist of his message, not to mention that respect that exists for this New Zealand star among the Australian cognoscenti.

You also sense that McCaw would rather be out there combating flying Wallabies than fielding these invitations to reflect on his own greatness. It doesn't do his discomfort any good that not only are his latest two exploits being placed under the microscope - a virtuoso display at Eden Park, followed by something even better in Cape Town - but that his presence in Brisbane is bringing to light a previous personal epic back in 2006 when he single-handedly inspired the All Blacks to a Bledisloe-clinching 13-9 victory.

"I find it quite tough talking about it to be honest," said a sheepish looking McCaw. But still we persisted. Which was better? Brisbane '06 or Cape Town '08? "It's a hard one to answer, to be honest." But being the good bloke he is, McCaw obliges.

"I was happy enough," he says of his latest two efforts. "You can have one or two good performances, but being able be consistently good is what I keep aiming for. You've got to keep your feet on the ground too. If you're looking back thinking that one was good, it doesn't take long to not get it right."

But McCaw conceded some satisfaction at the way he was able to come back so effectively after that spell on the sidelines with an ankle injury.

"I came back into a team that was pretty desperate after a couple of losses, and was happy with how I slotted back in. [But] on Saturday we're going be up against a team that will be just as desperate and we've got to be the same. We'll see how the performances are Saturday -- that's how you judge yourself."

McCaw is asked for his recollections of that Suncorp '06 victory. It wasn't pretty, with just one try on the night to Joe Rokocoko, but it was mighty.

"I remember that one was pretty tight ... previously when I'd been an All Black and it had got tight like that we'd tripped over against the Wallabies over here. So to come out on the right side of that one was hugely satisfying."

And that tete-a-tete with Wallaby wing Mark Gerrard? It seemed to personify McCaw's greatness in a single moment, the flanker getting back to make a try-saving tackle, then in the same instant getting to his feet to win the pressure-relieving turnover.

McCaw smiles. "Every time it gets mentioned Ali Williams says they forgot the fact that I had to clear the ball with a big kick downfield... I guess there are always moments like that you're proud of, but when you get desperate they're the sort of things you've got to do."

The 27-year-old 64-test All Black says he doesn't need to read his writeups to know whether or not he's a had a good test match.

"When you come off the field you know if you've had a pretty good day, if you've had some influence. Some days you might have done nothing spectacular but you know you've contributed all around the park.

"That's what I try rate myself on rather than one spectacular thing that perhaps gets blown out of proportion."

But here's the thing with McCaw: he's so good, for him was is ordinary, to the rest of us is spectacular. Nobody knows that more than Wallabies coach Robbie Deans.

Robbie's right-hand man becomes nemesis

Phil Wilkins | September 5, 2008 | www.smh.com.au

ROBBIE DEANS turned away from New Zealand rugby union as the Super 14's most successful coach, and now Greg Somerville, his right-hand man of a decade of scrums and silverware with the Crusaders, is preparing for some northern exposure.

There have been greater New Zealand Test tight-heads than the 30-year-old warrior from Wairoa, props of pure strength and technique such as Olo Brown and Carl Hayman, but none served his province and country more reliably than Somerville.

Mild of manner, uncomplaining of his front-row fate of banging heads and grating cauliflower ears with rugby's most powerful men, the 115-kilogram prop will leave New Zealand satisfied he became the most valuable player in the Super 14 competition. Others received richer contracts, flashier cars, more perks and lavish publicity, but for durability and dependability, for winter-long hard labour in rugby's darkest pits, none surpassed Somerville.

He was involved in the All Blacks' one-off 101-14 Test rout of Samoa in New Plymouth on Wednesday night, taking his New Zealand record for a prop to 64 Test appearances since his debut in 2000. Somerville emphasised how much focus was on the Wallabies and Brisbane, saying he felt little emotion when wandering off the field to complete his final Test on home soil.

"I suppose it crosses your mind a wee bit but I know there's still a job to do in Aussie so I haven't dwelled on things too much," Somerville told NZPA.

Twice he had World Cup campaigns with all the national agony and ignominy that accompanied the All Blacks' failures of 2003 and 2007. Now, he will be crossing gnarled fingers that he is required for at least the last Test of the Tri Nations series against Australia in Brisbane next Saturday.

A tour of Europe is to follow, but Somerville has yet to finalise his future with head coach Graham Henry and forwards coach Steve Hansen to establish whether the time is opportune for a younger prop to step forward with Auckland's John Afoa for the All Blacks.

Unless the New Zealand Rugby Union changes its policy about offshore players, the Wallabies Test at Suncorp Stadium could well provide Somerville with his swan song for the All Blacks. He is deserving of any reward he receives when he begins his 2½-year contract with the wealthy English club Gloucester.

Kees Meeuws, one of Somerville's predecessors in the Test front row, left New Zealand after the failed World Cup bid in 2003, to join French club Castres. Ultimately, he moved on to be pursued by several well-heeled European clubs, Harlequins reportedly offering $277,000 a year for his signature. Meeuws rejected the offers and signed with another French club, Agen, for $427,000 a year, with house and car, of course.

Top-class props are such a rare commodity that they surpass five-eighths in the financial return sphere. Money specifics have not been revealed in Somerville's move north. Although it is safe to say it promotes him from the salt mine to the gold mine department.

The Joy of Six: inspired football transfers

Rob Smyth | blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport  | August 29, 2008 11:05 AM

As this summer's transfer deadline approaches, look back at six of the most successful deals ever done

1) Diego Maradona (Barcelona to Napoli, £6.9m, 1984)
To associate the inspired transfer exclusively with the bargain is as restrictive as the inclination to associate beauty exclusively with the aesthetic. Just as heart-bursting beauty can be found by watching a bag blowing in the wind, so you can still sniff value even when paying through the nose.

As such, it feels apt that Maradona is the only footballer to break his own world-record transfer fee. Sometimes the most important thing is simply to identify the bleedin' obvious - true greatness, slap down some notes on the table and say, "Let's have some of this, then". That's what Napoli did in 1984. While Milan, Inter and Juventus faffed (Maradona was in a hurry to move as he was completely skint), they did the necessary.

Maradona had nothing to his name when he joined Napoli, but the champagne flowed over the next few years: he heads a select list of players (Alan Shearer is another) whose signing almost single-handedly brought unimaginable joy to a small or underachieving club. Napoli had finished a point off relegation the previous season.

Those corkscrew curls might occasionally have looked in need of some L'Oreal lovin', and there were issues with social dandruff as well, but there is no question that Maradona was in genuine "Because I'm worth it" territory.

2) Lee Dixon and Steve Bould (Stoke to Arsenal, £350,000 and £390,000, 1988)
Arsenal's legendary 1990s back five were so similar that it felt like they had emerged from the same sporting womb, when in fact they were adopted from all over the place to partner the club's natural child, Tony Adams. Even when Bould and Dixon were bought from second-division Stoke, it was at different times: Dixon in January 1988 and Bould in June.

In those days you could find a proper player in the lower divisions: if talent is concentrated strictly in a pyramid these days, back then it was more like Marge Simpson's hair, only squashed a bit at the top. A staggering number of players not only made the leap to the top, but looked comfortable straight away. Dixon and Bould were good enough to play 63 of 76 league games in Arsenal's championship victory in their first season. Imagine a team winning the title this year with Cardiff's Kevin McNaughton and Roger Johnson in their defence. Presactly.

But George Graham had obviously seen something - possibly two right hands going in the air and appealing for offside 50 times a game - and it was a remarkable achievement to compile such a formidable defensive unit from such disparate parts. There have been more famous and exciting double signings in English football (Ardiles/Villa and Mühren/Thijssen, mainly), but none as remorselessly effective. In signing them, Graham ensured bread would be on the table not for today or tomorrow, but for an entire decade.

3) Peter Shilton (Stoke City to Nottingham Forest, £250,000, 1977)
Peter Taylor made so many wonderful signings during his time in the Midlands: Ade Akinbiyi, Trevor Benjamin, Juni ... Let's try that one again.

Peter Taylor made so many wonderful signings during his time in the Midlands: Dave Mackay, Roy McFarland, Kenny Burns, Larry Lloyd, Frank Clark. But his best might have been the one so obvious that even Brian Clough, a notoriously modest judge of a player, knew it was a good deal. The key with signing Shilton, 27 and with nearly 400 league games already under his jockstrap, was not the player but the fee: a goalkeeper-record £250,000 for somebody whose role was so disparaged at the time it was a bit like paying £50,000 for a cleaner.

But Clough and Taylor knew the importance of bricks and mortar. They knew that Shilton was this close to being perfect. Seriously, if you are under 35, you have no idea of how magnificent this man was. This was the signing that Taylor, a goalkeeper himself, had waited his whole life to make, like a kid who had saved up his pocket money for years. In his autobiography he wrote: "I had been obsessed with him since he was 19 and already a fixture in Leicester City's first team."

Serendipity also came into it. Shilton's Stoke City, who were relegated the previous season as Forest were promoted, had their first game of the season away to Mansfield. The full horror of what lay ahead hit Shilton right between the eyes, and after a dose of the I'm-a-celebrity-get-me-out-of-heres he was off to Forest. In his first season they won the league; in the next two they were champions of Europe.

4) Sol Campbell (Tottenham to Arsenal, Bosman, 2001)
This article could have dealt solely with Arsène Wenger's signings and still omitted some gems; in English football, only Peter Taylor has had a keener eye for a player in the last 50 years. Yet for all the obscenely accomplished unknowns he has unearthed, Wenger's best signing, like Taylor's, might have been somebody we all knew intimately: Sol Campbell.

The deal wasn't quite the banker that it looks in hindsight. It's important to remember that Campbell was 26 and still a little erratic. And of course it took courage to strip Tottenham of their finest, however obvious the schadenfreudian trip. Yet Wenger saw in him the monster who would totally dominate the next few years at club and international level: astonishingly, in Campbell's first three seasons at Arsenal, they only lost one away game in the league when he was on the pitch (at Everton in 2002-03).

It's difficult enough replacing one great player - Kenny Dalglish famously managed it at Liverpool - but Campbell almost single-handedly replaced a great back four. Never mind Lauren, Keown and Cole: when Campbell was on one, as he frequently was in that period, Wenger could have played Lauren Laverne, Martin Amis and Ashley from Coronation Street and still kept a clean sheet. Without him, Wenger would have not won a league title for more than a decade.

5) Mickey Evans (Plymouth to Southampton, £750,000, 1997)
There is a flawed but potent discourse in football about strikers whose mid-season signing has cost their new side the title: Rodney Marsh, Tony Cascarino and Faustino Asprilla are the principal examples. At the other end of the table, there are loads of examples of forwards whose mid-season purchase has saved their new side from relegation. Kevin Campbell's nine goals in eight games at Everton in 1998-99 stand out, as does Christophe Dugarry's holiday romance at Birmingham in 2002-03, when he even made a silk purse out of Geoff Horsfield.

In the 1996-97 season, there were instances at three different clubs, starting with John Hartson and Paul Kitson at West Ham, and Darren Huckerby at Coventry. The other was the unknown striker Mickey Evans, picked up from Plymouth by Graeme Souness in March to help Southampton in their annual relegation dogfight. He did that and more: at the start of April, with Southampton bottom and five points away from safety, he scored four goals in as many games, including two in a massive win at Nottingham Forest. Evans became the most unlikely winner of the Premier League Player of the Month award (the silver medal goes to Alex Manninger). Those were the only league goals he scored for Southampton - Souness departed in the summer, and new manager Dave Jones didn't fancy him - but his place in history was secure.

6) Dwight Yorke (Aston Villa to Manchester United, £12.6m, 1998)
We all know Eric Cantona was Sir Alex Ferguson's greatest signing, but at £1.2m it wasn't that much of a risk. Signing Cantona's eventual replacement, Dwight Yorke, was a different matter; it took stones of granite. Partly because Ferguson was loosening the purse strings for the first time in nine years, and possibly the last if he got it wrong; partly because most observers, neutral and partisan, thought Yorke, scorer of a modest 73 goals in 232 league games for Villa, was hideously overpriced; but mainly because Ferguson had absolutely no support for the purchase within his own club.

Yorke had barely scored a goal against United (just one, a penalty) but the loose-limbed mischief of his performances against them had wowed Ferguson. Yet Ferguson's assistant, Brian Kidd, wanted John Hartson - no, you don't need to adjust your screen - and thought Yorke didn't have the "remarkable range of exceptional abilities", particularly dribbling, that so interested Ferguson. Staggeringly, most of the directors took Kidd's side, to the extent that Ferguson asked the board if they wanted to "call it a day". Having called their bluff, he got his man - and in his first season Yorke delivered 29 goals, more than 20 assists, the partnership from heaven with Andy Cole, the treble and a knighthood.