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Stan Collymore - Striker
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Stan Collymore's transfer had been rumoured for almost a year when it happened. The 1996-97 season had just ended, and Villa's fine team had no problems except one : not enough goals. They simply didn't pack enough strike force. Dwight Yorke got his tally, but noone else really followed his example. Stan Collymore was purchased for 7 million pounds, quite a lot even in 1997. This was a rocking 3 million transfer record for Aston Villa, their previously most expensive player being Sasa Curcic, purchased the summer before for 4 million.
Stan Collymore never settled at Liverpool, who bought him for an astounding 8.5 million from Nottingham F in the summer of 1995, a British transfer record at the time. At Nottingham F, he scored goals by the truckload, but nevertheless, he was not very popular. Rumours had it he wasn't even spoken to by his team mates. He even had "deadly enenmies" there, and "had no love for the team at all". This of course all just gossip. At the same time, he gained much attention off the pitch, one of the occasions being his acquittal from an assault charge after an alleged fight outside a nightclub. In an interview he criticised the club and manager Roy Evans, conclusionally ledading to him making a humiliating apology.
All this evil talk set aside, Stan has always been a goal-scorer. He formed a deadly duo with Robbie Fowler up front. In his first season he scored 14 goals in the prem, and 12 in an injury-plagued second one. In his younger days, he wasn't much different, bagging one after the other. At Wolves, he scored 18 goals in 20 appearances as a trainee. At Palace, he was a bit overshadowed by striking partners Ian Wright and Mark Bright. At the same time, he was rumoured to have feuds going with half the team. As a result, he was transferred to Southend for £150.000. Suddenly, he was back in charge up front. 18 goals in 30 games! Now the big teams began to sit up and take notice. Nottingham Forest pulled the longest straw, signing Collymore for 2.2 million in July 1993. 19 league goals in 28 matches from Stan the Man saw Forest return to the top flight. He soon became "Forest's goalscorer", just like John Fashanu used to be for Wimbledon. Getting promoted to the Prem didn't seem like a problem for Stan, his tally in the next season being 22 league goals in 36 matches. This great amount of net saw Forest finish 3rd in the league and enter European footie. Amazingly, Stan was more unpopular with his team-mates than ever before. A move to Liverpool in July 95 didn't seem to aid his popularity much, but the 96-97 season was a little bit different, Stan escaping the headlines a bit more than usual, probably a sign of Colly maturing and getting used to top football.
Stan was an Aston Villa supporter when he was younger, and this may be why he has settled so remarkably quickly at Aston Villa. In his very debut, a friendly against Los Angeles Galaxy, he scored the Villa's only goal. During the summer, there was no end to his prais of both the club and Brian Little, and given the very short time he's been with Aston Villa, he has performed very very well so far. In short, he looks worth the £7 million bob that Brian Little spent.
His first half of the 1997-98 season was a true nightmare. After scoring against Tottenham in the third game of the season, he didn't manage a goal until December 6, a three month period. Soon, the less gifted fans in the crowd started screaming for his head, astonishingly including former Villa ace Andy Gray. Collymore soon shut everybody up with two stunning goals against Tottenham, the latter a 25 yeard free kick that curled beautifully into the top corner, the crowd's applause nearly lifting the roof off Villa Park. Since then, Colly has become more confident and has started to work more on the pitch. What quite a few fans missed was that he made a lot of assists, and by the end of January, he was topping the points chart for the third month in a row (meaning he has the most goals+assists for the club this season). Given that the boy is still fairly new to the club, the criticism isn't all that justified, in this webmaster's view.
Outside the pitch, Colly has had his share of trouble, having been arrested on Christmas Eve 1997 for (allegedly) slapping an ex-girlfriend in a pub. He has also taken the opportunity to get uneven with former teammate Robbie Fowler and the rest of the "Spice Boys", resulting in quick retorts from the Merseysiders in question.
Stan's career at Villa Park kept getting worse. In his final season, he was hardly on the pitch at all and was submitted to treatment for a nervous breakdown later on. He was released by the club at the end of the season and went on to Leicester in an attempt to restart his career.