Interesting half-time feature here on Swedish coverage of the Denmark - England game: a feature on Allan Simonsen. One of the excuses given for the choice of Simmo was his connection with both countries! Except for the 17 times he played for us the only other appearance I can remember him making in England was when he scored from the penalty spot in a 1-0 against England at Wembley, although there probably were some appearances in varoius European cup competitions.
What a joy, though, it was to see Simmo scoring against Newcastle in front of the old covered end. I guess the choice is not great when you want to show Simmo scoring in English league football.
Can anyone out there seriously recall seeing a better player in a Charlton shirt? As the feature rightly pointed out he wasvoted European footballer of the year ahead of Keegan and Platini.
And did anyone see that Anders Bodelsen film where he got shot whilst playing for Denmark at Parken? In those days the pitch went the other way (it's been turned 90 degrees, not 180!) so for anyone who did and is interested it was in the penalty area furthest away from tonight's cameras that he was shot.
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This. It's still hard to believe we had him, however briefly.
He was worth the entrance money alone some games.
Not saying he was better but his talent was amazing to watch.
Di Canio played for us when we were in the Premiership & I bet he wouldnt have set foot in the ground if we were in The Championship at the time.
In comparrisson nowdays it would be like Scunthorpe or Doncaster signing Lionel Messi or Thiery Henry.
Di Canio played for us when we were in the Premiership & I bet he wouldnt have set foot in the ground if we were in The Championship at the time.
In comparrisson nowdays it would be like Scunthorpe or Doncaster signing Lionel Messi or Thiery Henry.[/quote]
The question was though mate, anyone think of a better player?
Arguably Di Canio performed to high calibre against better players, lets face there was a lot of crap Simmo performed against.
Not taking anything away from his obvious ability.
Whoops! Simmo better than Paolo...
Also Killer tells a story, I believe it was from Simonsens era. They were playing away, the Charlton players were in the bar the evening before the game. At about 9 pm Simonsen went off to his room to bed. He was up about 6.30am and was pleased to see Hales sitting in the bar area (where they also had breakfast), Simmo remarked something along the lines of 'nice to see you up early', Killer replied that he had not gone to bed yet!!
There is also the 'uban legend' that Simonsen came to us because he thought we were something to do with Bobby Charlton!
Well you would know you played in it!! ;o)
The funny thing was that I saw that ITV showed that film during the brief 4-month period that Simmo played for us yet there was absolutely no advance publicity. It must have been in the very early days of 24-hour TV (at weekends). I remember waking up in the middle of the night and switching on the TV and this film came on. I recognised the name of Anders Bodelsen as a writer of good thrillers so I sat and watched but I was very surprised nonetheless when Simmo suddenly got shot towards the end.
Happily he recovered in time for the next game ;-)
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