Am I wrong here, the Indy did a piece on Gillespie on Saturday. Suggested Gilly flourished under Keegan, hit his height with TSM and teh Dutch fella didn't rate him & let him go to Blackburn.

Whilst the Indy is usually better than most, they seem to have the old Jouralist disease of hating Gullit so much they blame him for everything they can. I seem to remember, Gillespie went backwards under TSM & left on a free when TSM didn't play him for months.

-- Anonymous, November 04, 2001

Answers

Your recollections tie in with mine Dave. I seem to recall he suffered quite a bad ankle injury, and never recaptured any sort of form after that.

-- Anonymous, November 04, 2001

I tend to view Gullit with more warmth than most & suspect (had we avoided relegation) we would have progressed more if he had stayed. My thoughts on reading the piece was that it reminded me that sports journos hate Gullit, are tehy racist or was it because he didn't play the game with 'em.

-- Anonymous, November 04, 2001

He certainly didn't leave on a free Dave - we got £2.3 million for him. He played a part in over 40 league and cup games in Dalglish's last full season. He then played in 8 games under Gullit. Never recaptured the sparkle he had when he first came though.

-- Anonymous, November 04, 2001

Agree Dave Gullit was an excellent coach. Just a shame his man managment skills left so much to be desired. Even not liking Rob Lee, Insulting him without a squad number was out of order. Being on the wrong side of Al didn't help his cause.

Memories of Gillespie crossing the ball for Tino to hang like an angel and score against Barcelona were the last time I remember him sparkling for us...down hill after that with both TSM and the Dutchman

-- Anonymous, November 04, 2001

He was a one trick man. Head down and run for the corner flag.

-- Anonymous, November 04, 2001

Agree with Nick, Gullitt was one hell of a footballer,end of story, remember folks stories from the Bridge indicate the influence of Rix on the training ground , if he was that good where is he now?

-- Anonymous, November 04, 2001

I always thought Gillespie never got to the bye-line enough, always seemed to come inside, was not sorry when he left.

-- Anonymous, November 04, 2001

Didn't TSM have a huge fallout with the board over Gillespie. Just before he left? I think Shepherd told the papers that Gillespie's career was over or something like that.

-- Anonymous, November 04, 2001

... actually I think it that tosser Freddie Fletcher who put the cat among the pigeons regarding Dizzy.

-- Anonymous, November 05, 2001

Gillespie should never have left Man Utd: Ferguson would have kept his excesses under control and he'd have gone on to be a wonderful footballer.

-- Anonymous, November 05, 2001

I think Gillespie is great.In my local pub he used to spend countless pounds on the Top of the Pops quiz machine.He was absolutely shite at it and if you went on when he finished you were guarenteed to get the jackpot.There was always a mad scramble to got on when he come off! He was a bit of a miserable git though,where as when Shay lived up here he was great.Very friendly although his mates from Ireland were not overly popular.A skirmish was imminent when they started singing Irish songs and anti-british songs.Luckily they stopped before it got too heated.But it was close.

-- Anonymous, November 05, 2001

he was great for one game... against Barca....after that ye never heard a peep from the bugger...

-- Anonymous, November 05, 2001

You have to wonder what Keegan was thinking of, he agrees to sell ManU our greatest ever goalscorer and Fergie is so desperate that KK has the pick of the young players on his books, the likes of Beckham, Butt, Scholes etc, all still to be established in the ManU team. So Kev goes for...er Gillespie because he scored a great (and never to be repeated) goal against us at Old Trafford.

Sigh.

-- Anonymous, November 06, 2001

If kev had signed beckham instead of gillespie i doubt beckham would have got near to being england captain, or (sigh) reached his present standard. q regarding Beckham, do you think he'll stick around at old trafford now their star seem to be falling?

-- Anonymous, November 06, 2001

I very much doubt KK had "the pick of the OT youngsters", and feel sure Taggart knew precisely what he was doing when he agreed to release Dizzie to facilitate the AC deal.

-- Anonymous, November 06, 2001

Our planning at that time was Ferdinand and Weah to come in so a pacy winger was essential. When the Weah deal broke down and we got Ginola instead you could question that need, but not at the time.

-- Anonymous, November 06, 2001

When we beat Man U reserves 2-0 in the League Cup (Albert's first goal).. it was the Man U number 7 who caught the eye.... I believe that was Gillespie. He was very good

-- Anonymous, November 06, 2001