Alan Hansen - Player From The Past

[Maestro]

There's some good footage of Jocky in these compiliations on youtube...

http://www.youtube.com/results?searc...+team+eighties

[spud_gun]

Absolutely hear ****ing hear.

One football's biggest mysteries has to be Jocky's lack of international caps. A paltry 26 caps? Ludicrous.

One of the reasons he only got 26 international caps is because the first choice center backs for Scotland at the time were Willie Miller and Alex McLeish.

They played together at club level and they were probably one of the best center back pairings in Europe for the better part of the 1980's.

I don't doubt that Hansen was a better individual player than either McLeish or Miller however he was unable to form a partnership with either player that would have merited the breaking up of the Miller / McLeish one.

Simple as that really.

Edit - i really should have read Davie's post before typing my own. Oh well.

[Davie]

LOL - get yer own material

[spud_gun]

LOL - get yer own material

It's a right pain in the tits when you spend several minutes typing a post only to find that someone has posted exactly the same as you several hours earlier.

I really should read all posts in a thread before i start typing my own reply.

[Redspin]

Indirectly.

Miller and McLeish were together at Aberdeen during their great era and played so well that Jock Stein picked them together as much as possible for Scotland hence Hansen's lack of caps.

Ferguson was put in charge for the 86 World Cup when jock Stein died and didnt take Hansen.

McLeish and Miller were a great combination and played at a time when we fared very well as a nation so that's the principal reason.

As with Souness though, Hansen never played as well for Scotland as he did for us. When he did get a game (eg the 2 all draw with Russia at Spain 82 where he played with Miller) he ****ed up. We were two one up needing a win when he went for a daft ball on the halfway line, knocked over Willie Miller and gave the Russian all the time in the world to score.

He would have won far many more caps were it not for McLeish and Miller. So it IS Ferguson's fault

McLeish and Miller were a pair of journeymen, not fit to lace Hansen's boots - remember the Liverpool - Aberdeen Euro tie (5-0 to us on aggregate)? Ferguson, in later years, said he left Hamsen out of his World Cup sqiad because he seemed to claim he was injured too often. In realty he just kept faith with his club CB pairing, neither of whom covered themselves in glory in the World Cup - Scotland's loss really

[Tom]

Haha, yes. He even made him miss a penalty.

I was unaware that we were after Wright, and Christ knows I wish we had, but despite all that he was still their best player!

At half-time, when we were leading 3-0 (I think), my cousin turned to me and said "Are you going to buy the video? Liverpool 10 - Palace 0"

Turned out to be a fabulous guess.

I was standing on the kop that game, a wednesday, night, greasy pitch (and pie). All credit to the palace fans they never stopped singing throughout.

Geoff Thomas missed a pen as well.