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Ossie Ardiles


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Was listening to Sportsound today featuring Alex Smith. He told a cracking story which i hadn`t heard before. Apparently, when Saints were selling Ian Ferguson in 1988 , Terry Venables wanted him at Spurs and offered us money (£600k i believe) plus Ossie Ardiles !! 

Smith says the BOD at the time knocked it back as they didnt want to sign foreigners !!

As i said, i have never heard this story , anyone else ?

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08q3lwg

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Read about the Ardilles story in the 125th anniversary book along with Oleg Blokhin story. 

We also knocked back a young David Platt in the late 80s right before he went to Villa from Crewe.  

Also remember us going for Bebeto, Benito Carbone, Jorge Cadete and Paul Kitson around the time we tried for Ronaldinho. 

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The Ardiles story is old hat. Smith indicating that the BoD didn't want to sign foreigners is nonsense. The deal simply never got off the ground because blue crayon boy made it clear that he would turn down every offer until Rangers came calling. Well and truly tapped by Smith.

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11 hours ago, Callum Gilhooley said:

Was listening to Sportsound today featuring Alex Smith. He told a cracking story which i hadn`t heard before. Apparently, when Saints were selling Ian Ferguson in 1988 , Terry Venables wanted him at Spurs and offered us money (£600k i believe) plus Ossie Ardiles !! 

Smith says the BOD at the time knocked it back as they didnt want to sign foreigners !!

As i said, i have never heard this story , anyone else ?

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08q3lwg

Ardiles was 36 in 1988 and went on to play 20 matches over the following 3 years for different clubs.

We probably dodged a bullet therefore, albeit we did go on to waste an absolute fortune on shite in the years to follow.

The story I know from the time was that one of the directors was a regular at Arthurlie games back then and wanted Smith to sign one of the Arthurlie players instead. But Smith didn't think that there were any decent players in the juniors anymore. So the story always went that St. Mirren knocked back Ardiles because one of the directors wanted us to sign a junior.

Said junior though was James Grady...

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26 minutes ago, mcdowell76 said:

Ardiles was 36 in 1988 and went on to play 20 matches over the following 3 years for different clubs.

We probably dodged a bullet therefore, albeit we did go on to waste an absolute fortune on shite in the years to follow.

The story I know from the time was that one of the directors was a regular at Arthurlie games back then and wanted Smith to sign one of the Arthurlie players instead. But Smith didn't think that there were any decent players in the juniors anymore. So the story always went that St. Mirren knocked back Ardiles because one of the directors wanted us to sign a junior.

Said junior though was James Grady...

Well someone signed Tony McDonald from Arthurlie at the time when John Millar was the player we should had signed

James Grady played for Arthurlie 1994-95?

Nico Clasen was also in the deal with Ardiles

It was a no goer nothing with the board

Ferguson was wanting to go to Oldco and that was the end of it

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11 hours ago, Ethan said:

We offered Crewe 60k for Platt but they knocked us back.

The story i heard about Platt

He got released by Man Utd and Gordon McQueen contacted St Mirren  about him

The story goes Alex Miller liked him going forward but didn't think much of his defensive duties and ended his interest

He then signed for Crewe

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There was an excellent interview with Alex Smith at the weekend about the cup win. Said Lambert was sent home early on the Saturday night as he was only 17 and added he and Ferguson were both teetotal. Doubt that lasted long for the latter once he ended up at Ibrox!

http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/football/15284724.Alex_Smith_on_St_Mirren__39_s_1987_Scottish_Cup_win__his_Hampden_political_broadcast_and_why_he_sent_Paul_Lambert_home_early/

Edited by Stu
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On ‎15‎/‎05‎/‎2017 at 10:00 AM, windae cleaner said:

Well someone signed Tony McDonald from Arthurlie at the time when John Millar was the player we should had signed

James Grady played for Arthurlie 1994-95?

Nico Clasen was also in the deal with Ardiles

It was a no goer nothing with the board

Ferguson was wanting to go to Oldco and that was the end of it

Yeh, doing some research, I think my story is nonsense or mixed up with something else.

Grady didn't sign for Arthurlie until 1990.

It was Davie Hay who signed McDonald in 1991.

I think that Grady & McDonald were a prolific goalscoring partnership in 90/91 with McDonald being the top scorer and Grady being the guy setting them up (as well as scoring).

We obviously ended up with the wrong guy and Grady went on to Clydebank in 1994.

 

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I remember at the time we lost Lambert to Motherwell I read a story we'd been offered cash plus Davie Cooper but went for Jim Gardner instead. Cooper went to the Bankies and played out his career and we all know how it went with Gardner.

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19 hours ago, Stu said:

There was an excellent interview with Alex Smith at the weekend about the cup win. Said Lambert was sent home early on the Saturday night as he was only 17 and added he and Ferguson were both teetotal. Doubt that lasted long for the latter once he ended up at Ibrox!

http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/football/15284724.Alex_Smith_on_St_Mirren__39_s_1987_Scottish_Cup_win__his_Hampden_political_broadcast_and_why_he_sent_Paul_Lambert_home_early/

Um, he might've fooled Uncle Alex but he did a bit of drinking in a bar near Queen Street while he was still with us - forgotten the name of the bar.

Having said that compared to some of the other members of that squad he probably was teetotal. :wacko:

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I remember at the time we lost Lambert to Motherwell I read a story we'd been offered cash plus Davie Cooper but went for Jim Gardner instead. Cooper went to the Bankies and played out his career and we all know how it went with Gardner.

Surely this would never have happened after the incident with Tony Fitzpatrick...

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