All-Time Best Ever Stourbridge XI

Thinking caps on, gentlemen...

http://www.stourbridgefc.com/news/your-best-all-time-glassboys-x-1057177.html

Forward 3 of Paul Moore, John Williams & Justin Nisbett for me.

Jack wrote:Forward 3 of Paul Moore, John Williams & Justin Nisbett for me.

With Mark Hart in goal?

You've lost me. Before my time!

Thinking caps on, gentlemen...
Ahem!?!?

I saw this on the main site and thought how difficult it is going to be. We had some good players for MFA level but would they have been good enough at this level had they stayed /not got older etc!
So do we pick who is the best at the highest level we as a club have been or who was the best at whichever level we were playing in at that time or just our favs?  

Sorry if this does not make sense but I am proper poorly and my head is all woolly! 

Forgive me, Jane - no offence was intended!!!  

For the avoidance of doubt, by the way, I think Nigel is looking for serious contributions!

^^^^  

Lewis in goal?

Nathan surely has to be up there?

If we're looking for talent, Macca hands down.

For sheer number of goals Bello, but was he a good player?

Rowey from before? His form in the 2 cup runs.

When on form the best Stour player I've seen is Sean Evans for natural talent. He carried us till November.

What is with your Macca obsession? He wouldn't make my team or the subs.

I only know from 2002 onwards so anything I contribute is largely pointless.

stour_boy wrote:What is with your Macca obsession? He wouldn't make my team or the subs.

I only know from 2002 onwards so anything I contribute is largely pointless.

No it's not - it's as valid as anybody else's point of view. If I've understood Nigel correctly he's looking for a different supporter's view for each programme, rather than attempting a "combined XI" based on the majority vote. So a variety of different time-frames would make the series more interesting.

Most older supporters would probably just run through the 73/74 side - because things were so much better when they were young ( ). Personally I'll be leaning towards the early 90s. Johnny-come-latelys (  ) like yourself will obviously go for the MFA and SL Midland promotion teams plus the recent Cup runs.

Variety is the spice of life!

Just beacuse I rate a player does not make it an 'obsession'. The fact that I would have him in my team, and you wouldn't is what this thread/request from Nigel is all about-opinions.  

Jack wrote:Lewis in goal?

Nathan surely has to be up there?

If we're looking for talent, Macca hands down.

For sheer number of goals Bello, but was he a good player?

Rowey from before? His form in the 2 cup runs.

When on form the best Stour player I've seen is Sean Evans for natural talent. He carried us till November.

Non of the above other than Nathan get even close to being in the best Stourbridge 11 of all time.

Unless you have lived long enough to have watched the club for well over a 100 years then it's an almost pointless exercise.

Some of you have only been watching the club for a decade or so,in which time we were at our lowest ebb in a century,the players who sweated for us and helped us rise a bit again deserve credit and thanks but in NO way are they fit to lace the bootlaces of the 1973-74 side.

I was 12 when i started watching Stour in early 74,i can still pretty much name that side off the top of my head even now,that side reached the Welsh Cup final,played in front of over 5700 at Amblecote and only lost 2-0 over two legs to Cardiff who were at what is now classed at Championship level.

Stour beat Wrexham and Swansea ( i think ) both away to reach that final.

They got promoted to what is now the Conference and were at that level for two seasons,that two levels higher than we are now.

We had Chick Bates and Ray Haywood scoring around 112 goals between them as the front pairing,both were signed by Shrewsbury for the sort of money we got for Rowey nearly four decades later!!

Micky Moore in goal,a great keeper who also entertained the fans by swinging on the crossbar and even sitting on it during certain games.

Archie Richards at full back,Geoff Green at centre half,what a player,what a captain,Mush Davies mopping up in midfield,John Chambers bossing it in the middle,winding the opposition up and crashing in a few long range efforts,Paul Pridgeon out wide and also playing for Worcestershire at cricket too!

Paddy McGrath turning the full back so much his blood would twist and delivering for Bates and Haywood.....what a team and what a manager in Alan Grundy.

In my opinion that Stour team in it's pomp would destroy ANY Stour team i've ever watched in the subsequent almost 40 years.

After that we had Steve Cooper at centre forward,another of my favourites,also sold for around £5000 35 years ago to Torquay.

Tony Cunningham was the next forward to leave for league football when Lincoln paid around £10,000 for him around 33 years ago,these fees show just how highly these players were rated at a time when the record fee in the country for players was the £500,000 Albion paid Boro for David Mills and then the £1 million Forest paid for Trevor Francis,we had highly rated players at that time.

Before my time we had Percy Freeman who played for Albion and Lincoln,i've heard many times what a good player he was.

John Barton our full back went to Everton and played for them for years....yes Everton,can you see any of our present players going to Everton?

Apart from the 74 side other players that deserve a mention and may have got on the bench for the 74 side would be,

Chris Jones.....awesome player,the Nathan Bennett of the late 70's and 80's.

Nathan Bennett......Stour's player of the last decade in my opinion.

Brendan Drummond....underated striker was Brendan,a class finisher.

Gary Mathews....his best days were at Willenhall but his goalscoring record over a 15 year period from the late 70's is truly exceptional,he also scored the best goal i've ever witnessed at Amblecote.

Henry Wright.

Evron Wright.....for one season he was phenomenal.

Out of the present squad there's one player who could have lived with the class of 74,he would probably have had Johnny Chambers grabbing him by the throat out of frustration at times but Ben Billingham is technically the best Stour player i've witnessed in many a year.

I'm sure there's others i could have mentioned and that other people will put forward,my main point is that the 74 vintage side was a quality side from one to eleven and played at our best ever level.

Your right DA, thats the difficult thing isnt it, we can only go on players we have seen. So if you werent born then or didnt live here or support them, then you can only go on what you know. So my best 11 may not be anywhere near as 'good' as (and I mean this respectfully) older fans teams but I cant do anything about that cos I was only 1 during the heyday. For me then the Bastables, Nathans et al of this more recent generation will have to do and for even newer fans it will have to be the current lineup!! Which is a little worrying! lol:

Would agree with what DA has said apart from Paul Pridgeon out wide. He played central defence with Geoff Green and had a long throw in.

TRM you dont have to be too old to remember that team of 73/74.

Also there was only one sub in those days.

Another one from the same time as Chris Jones would be Bob MacCauley who was a midfielder with a good left foot.

Seeing as I've only been watching Stour for the past 7 odd years I'll do mine off that.

GK:Lewis, pretty self explanatory. Think Brock was perhaps a better keeper but for the amount of time Lewis was here it's him.
RB:Jonah-For his level, he was very good.
CB:Nathan-Again easy enough. Still superb and been here a long time.
CB:Macca-Best player last season, think he won awards? Excellent captain.
LB:Not a clue.

CM:Leon-Purely for how long he's been at the club and in the spell before Leamo was our best player by a long way.
CM:Sean-this was a tough one as Bas has to be up there, but Sean at his best should be playing a lot higher up. His penalties as well.
LW:Sean Evans-Have no doubt if he hadn't have broke his leg he'd be in the conference. Won games single handedly in his first spell. Influential in 1st cup run & scored against Plymouth
RW: Ben Billingham:Whether he's a winger or not is debatable. On his day, he's our best player.

ST:Bello-Goals, and a lot of them.
ST:Rowey-First player to be sold in my time supporting Stour, Averaged just about a goal every other game with us.

stoursi wrote:Would agree with what DA has said apart from Paul Pridgeon out wide. He played central defence with Geoff Green and had a long throw in.

TRM you dont have to be too old to remember that team of 73/74.
Also there was only one sub in those days.

Another one from the same time as Chris Jones would be Bob MacCauley who was a midfielder with a good left foot.

I meant "older" rather than "old"! Perhaps "long-standing" would have been better!

At 45 I'm too young to remember 1973/74 at all, though I know I would have been at a fair few games.

Still mulling over my selection...

meanwhile back in pedant's corner (don't worry there's only one of me).....are we talking about the best players to have ever played for stourbridge (who may have played much better elsewhere) or those who played best for stourbridge?

One thing that always makes me wonder when these comparisons are made is how come the 90-91 team gets so overlooked. I missed the 74 side and haven't been to many matches in the past couple of years so can't really say much about the current team, but it does seem odd that a title-winning team tends to be ignored.

Well, I'd definitely have Henry Wright in my "Best ever XI".

dave w wrote:One thing that always makes me wonder when these comparisons are made is how come the 90-91 team gets so overlooked. I missed the 74 side and haven't been to many matches in the past couple of years so can't really say much about the current team, but it does seem odd that a title-winning team tends to be ignored.

Agreed, Dave. I've got at least three of them in my team, possibly one more.

[quote="Devil's Advocate"]

Jack wrote:Unless you have lived long enough to have watched the club for well over a 100 years then it's an almost pointless exercise.

Fully agreed, hence why I won't be participating. I simply haven't been going long enough to be able to contribute anything worthwhile (I was barely born when we won the 1991 title).

I'll wait until there's the "Best XI of the Gary Hackett era" in which case I'll have a perfectly valid entry.

1: steve johnson
2: steve ingram
3: john Horne
4: chris jones (r.i.p.)
5: john snapper snape
6: adam bastable
7: morgan brookes
8: richard massey
9: henry wright
10: toby (tellie toby) hall
11: nigel barroww
Dad was tempted to put derek kadua in