Radostin Kishishev

Always liked him worked his socks off for the team and you can't fault that!

More than I can say for some, that have worn the shirt since.

wmcf123 said:

Six-a-bag-of-nuts said:

kentaddick said:

That midfield 3 of smertin, kish and Murphy when they were on fire that season will probably be the best I'll ever see of a Charlton midfield.

It looked like Curbs had hit the mother-lode; what with Benty sticking them away and Rommedahl in the mix.
And then the oppo started crowding Murphy out.

Then Murphy lost interest / it became too much like hard work for him

I seem to remember he got the hump because he didn't get an England recall. Smertin then got recalled by Chelsea and was promptly sold back to Russia.

I am in Sofia right now, and got the full scoop on the dodgy stuff that happened before we finally signed Kish. It involves Arry Redknapp and a Bulgarian MI6 agent.Understandably Kevin didnt use it but I will post it all up when I get back.

I'm hoping we can get Kishi to speak up for the protests the way Sasa Ilic has done.

"the big-hearted Bulgarian had been on the receiving end of more vitriol from the stands than any other player"

Oh mate, not even close.

ForeverAddickted said:

Was here today... Hope he knocked that Palace fan out!!

?????

I didn't do the interview so can't really remember what's in it at the moment - I will listen back to it when I get to the studio.

Kishigate, the full story

By coincidence I've been in Sofia for a long weekend, and got the full story on Thursday night, but understandably it was a bit near the knuckle for a journo. But I am 100% sure of my sources, so here goes:

I have a great Bulgarian friend, Vasco , who emigrated to Toronto after the fall of Communism, and is a mad football fan. He came over to Euro 96, and I went with him to the Bulgaria games in Newcastle. Kishi was a young player in that squad who caught my eye. I was initially greatly surprised that the Bulgarian players looked up to Vasco ( well, with the exception of Stoichkov) because he was educated, fluent in English, and lived in the West. He also fancied the idea of becoming an agent. I said that Charlton would love to have Kishi, who was playing left back for the national team, and called Richard Murray about it, but at that time, Charlton didn't have 300k to splash.

Fast forward to 2000, Charlton in the FAPL, and Bob Whitehand was in charge of sourcing foreign players, and they had heard Kishi might be available. However the owner of Kishis club, (Litex Lovech), Grisha Ganchev, was proving to be a tricky customer. Bob hoped Vasco could help. Vasco was happy to do so, hoping this might open up a path to become an agent.

Charlton agreed with Ganchev that Kishi would come for a trial and all being well, sign for £1m. But when they went to meet him off his flight from Sofia, there was no Kishi. Bob called Vasco, who had a buddy who at the time was in the Bulgarian foreign secret service,( whom I met in Sofia on Thursday ) and he broke some rules to get the passenger manifest for the flight. Kishi had indeed been on the plane. So what the hell happened to him?.

Slowly the truth emerged. At West Ham, Harry Redknapp desperately needed a centre back. He had heard about Kishi, and had offered to trump Charlton's £1m bid. Ganchev, being a slippery bugger readily agreed. Redknapp and his goons had spirited Kishi out through a VIP route at Heathrow.

However Redknapp belatedly discovered that Kish
- was not a centre back
- and was carrying an injury

So they dropped him like a hot potato, leaving Kishi in a Swallow Hotel, not knowing what to do, or even who was going to pay his hotel bill.

Bob Whitehand was initially furious of course. But he realised that he still had a chance. Kishi was visibly injured, and as Bob said "no one is going to sign him when he is lame". After we think 2-3 weeks, Charlton managed to agree terms with Ganchev, and Kishi became a Charlton player. Vasco says Charlton remains the club in his heart.

As Kevin wrote, when he returned to Bulgaria, Kishi suffered the tragic loss of his wife to cervical cancer. However as I discovered last week, he remarried, and is now the father of five kids- two with his first wife, two his second wife brought with her, and the fifth they had together. He tried to get into coaching immediately but it did not work out for him; but he told Terry last night that he may still go for full qualifications.For now, runs two restaurants in his home town of Bourgas. This is a gateway city on the Black Sea coast with direct flights from the UK. So any fans who want to check him out, can easily find him, as one of the restaurants is called "Kishi". Go see him.

Vasco and Kishi are both planning to be at Arsenal's game against Ludogorets in midweek, and Vasco has promised to try and sign Kishi up for the protest campaign as Sasa Ilic has done

I loved him as a player and was devastated when he left. Great read, PragueAddick, thanks.

Thanks for the added info @PragueAddick I was almost as star struck as @LouisMend and wanted to ask him so much more, but a combination of time, (RS was due to come into the studio for the post match stuff) and not being sure just how open he would be to his personal life so didn't want to upset him, meant that I had to keep it short.
It was also a spur of the moment kind of interview so I didn't know if he was a guest of the SMT at the club, so I thought it best not to put him on the spot with a direct question about his thoughts on what is happening. I was leaning towards it indirectly with the 'what did you think of today' one when RS appeared at the door.
Hopefully I'll get another chance one day!