Second centre half

[den]

The final result of the greatest centre half poll was, [number of votes, followed by the percentage figure]:

Mike England........ [ 59 ] [33.33%]

Colin Hendry......... [ 89 ] [50.28%]

Matt Woods...........[ 2 ] [1.13%]

David May............. [ 2 ] [1.13%]

Glenn Keeley......... [ 3 ] [1.69%]

Derek Fazackerley. [ 6 ] [3.39%]

Graham Hawkins... [ 1 ] [0.56%]

Kevin moran.......... [ 5 ] [2.82%]

Stephane Henchoz [ 1 ] [0.56%]

John McNamee....... [ 0 ] [0.00%]

Tony gale............... [ 0 ] [0.00%]

Henning Berg......... [ 9 ] [5.08%]

So Colin Hendry is elected to the best ever team. The team up to now is:

                                     Friedel

      Crompton        Hendry                 ?             Le Saux

The fairest way to proceed is to vote the next Centre Half from the same list. So the poll is now up.

If anyone wants to reiterate the case for their choice of player, it would really help in getting the right choice.

I just get a feeling, this could be interesting.

[bellamy11]

Voted England again. I don't see this being particularly close at all. He probably should have won the first poll, but I doubt he'll have a problem this time.

[tcj_jones]

21 votes ahead of the rest with less than a day gone. I can see where this is going...

Edited October 11, 2004 by tcj_jones

[1864roverite]

Has to be Faz

consistently the best defender we ever had and a steadying rock at the rock.

[MCMC1875]

England.

Faz was always let down by his distribution.

[broadsword]

Let's justvote in teh whole champ winning team, shall we.

Ripley was a better player than Douglas, naturally.

[thenodrog]

Is this not pointless after the result of the initial vote?

[American]

It was pointless ages ago, when people said they wouldn't vote for players they hadn't seen.

[den]

Is this not pointless after the result of the initial vote?

Looking at the voting now, you would think so, wouldn't you. The thing is Theno, if I had nominated the top two centre halves from the original vote, then, so as not to be accused of bias , I would have had to have done the same with the central mids and the strikers.

Then a problem would have arisen if say Shearer won 90% of the vote and the second and third strikers had got, say 5% and 4%. It wouldn't have been fair in that situation to appoint the top two from the first vote, would it?

If the voting trend in this poll [second centre half] continues, we needn't carry on too long. All I'm aiming for is a fair result, while trying to avoid this becoming a real bore and turn off. [if it hasn't already]

[den]

It was pointless ages ago, when people said they wouldn't vote for players they hadn't seen.

Some people said that didn't they . Crompton and now England [possibly] making the team, should prove that most people are willing to look at things from a wider perspective.

Incidentally, I've voted for two players I've never seen - Crompton and Eckersley.

[Alex Rover]

It was pointless ages ago, when people said they wouldn't vote for players they hadn't seen.

I don't believe that was the point we were trying to make. I used it as a justification for voting for Hendry who was I believe, at his Rovers playing peak, one of the best centre halves in the world. However thanks to the other member's enthusiasm, I voted for England as my second choice purely on recommendation over Moran or Fazwho I would have voted for. So I don't think it is pointless.

I know this argument is going to rumble on but it seems a lot of other posters have been swung to the strong points of view of older members. Which is good but it does seem to the detriment of younger poster's views. I mean let's face it Le Saux and Hendry would have worthy of a vote in any era.

[92er]

The problem is not people voting for them, the problem is when they win.

[Al]

Which is good but it does seem to the detriment of younger poster's views. I mean let's face it Le Saux and Hendry would have worthy of a vote in any era.

Le Seaux is not fit to clean Bill Eckersley's boots.

[Scotty]

It was pointless ages ago, when people said they wouldn't vote for players they hadn't seen.

What's really pointless, and bloody annoying, is people making off-hand comments like the one quoted above that attempt to undermine the efforts Den and others have put in to this.

Just because a couple of numpty's say they can't vote for people they haven't seen doesn't mean that everyone thinks the same. I think the votes so far demonstrate that. I, for one, am enjoying seeing the results and I'm looking forward to seeing how the full team turns out. Well done Den and everyone else who's made a positive contribution.

[MCMC1875]

It was pointless ages ago, when people said they wouldn't vote for players they hadn't seen.

I don't believe that was the point we were trying to make. I used it as a justification for voting for Hendry who was I believe, at his Rovers playing peak, one of the best centre halves in the world. However thanks to the other member's enthusiasm, I voted for England as my second choice purely on recommendation over Moran or Fazwho I would have voted for. So I don't think it is pointless.

I know this argument is going to rumble on but it seems a lot of other posters have been swung to the strong points of view of older members. Which is good but it does seem to the detriment of younger poster's views. I mean let's face it Le Saux and Hendry would have worthy of a vote in any era.

Why?

This is exactly the point that is being debated.

[CAPT KAYOS]

Den

Just a thought that might help

With all this bickering would it not be easier say put a list of players for each position and then ask everybody to submit their own starting 11 and subs (x3/x5?) and then players selected this way.

If anybody has any questions eg they have not seen a certain player play - then questions could be asked and people put a case forward in response then it is left to the individual poster to make up their own decision without all this ' x is not fit enough to lace y's boots' at least until the end anyway

Carry on the good work

[bob fleming]

No Capt. The idea, I thought, was to put nominations forward for each postition. People could then wax lyrical about their favourite player, we could then all marvel at stories from yester year, about what a great player Clayton was, about how Douglas could turn people inside out, about Bob Crompton and his legacy, how some of our older players were the best of their generation. So on and so forth.

We could then sit back, approach the vote with a completely open, unbiased mind, take our time before carefully and painstakingly deciding to vote only for the players we've seen play.

[den]

Bob's got it about right. Thanks for the idea Capt, but really, it seems to be going fine from my viewpoint.

The bits I really enjoy are the contributions from people on here who can recall players that I didn't ever see. I find this really interesting, it's one way of saving parts of rovers history, that will otherwise simply be lost forever. I was hoping that somehow the comments and recollections on this thread could be saved forever. With the technology we have now, this is perfectly possible. [nobody's told admin yet]

To compare players from different era's is obviously very difficult, if not impossible. However that stimulates debate and that's where the recollections and memories come into our domain.

It's not just memories of players from yesteryear that are interesting though. To view peoples opinions of players from recent times is also very interesting. Strange how differently we all rate them.

Anyhow, the value of this thread to me, isn't simply whether Le Saux is fit to lace Eckersley's boots and that's interesting in it's own way, it's the stories and memories of the members of this website.

[northernrover]

Lets just get on with choice for Right Wing.

This one is done and dusted. England by a country mile.

My vote goes to Rippers for RW because i haven't seen any of the other supposedly good RW's play

[bellamy11]

Yeah I think it should be kept exactly the same (but without a 2nd vote for the other central positions). I've never seen a Blackburn left back that Le Saux was inferior to, and so it's interesting and educational for me to hear about such players. We then have a more informed platform to vote on despite the age difficulty.

In this case it didn't stop me voting for Le Saux. However, I voted for Mike England both times in this poll despite seeing Hendry as my favourite ever central defender. The system is working, and being negative about it is achieving absolutely zilch.

[Al]

This thread is a credit to you Den. It's probably the most interesting one I've been on for a long time.

It's provoked lots of happy memories for me thinking of the great players of the past.

However I do not think that the nostalgia has biased my opinions, for instance my first choice centre forward will be Alan Shearer and my left midfielder will be Duffer. Simply because I believe they are the best.

Having said that I still believe that Le Saux is not fit to lace Bill Eckersley's boots (the difference is that huge.) but will accept that the vote was fair and must be accepted by us all. (My second choice would have been Le Seaux)

[den]

Thanks for the encouragement guys. It was a gamble starting this topic. It was going to run for quite a few months and could have fallen flat on it's face from day one. What would have happened then?

Thankfully, many of you share my interest in talking rovers - historically and modern day.

[speeeeeeedie]

I agree with you Al, this is a good thread, it gets people talking about the team and may give some insight into past Rovers teams to young fans who have grown up with Premier League football. It also gives people a chance to reminisce of games/players/seasons of yore.

However the bad side is that the team will probably be 1992 onward for the mostpart due to the fan base onth si forum. There's nothing wrong with that per se as they were some of the best Rovers teams we've had, but the Le Saux inclusion does grate me a little. He was a good player but left under very acrimonious circumstances after criticizing the club.

Are we going to vote for the manager?

[den]

Are we going to vote for the manager?

Yup, and the greatest player ever, from the selected team

[Paul]

Admin mode off, personal mode ON:

It's very difficult to decide who to vote for in many of these polls. For me Mike England was our finest centre half but how can I not also vote for OOOOH Colin Hendry.....it's just impossible. Then again Keeley, Faz, Berg even Tony Gale have a real place in Rovers history but weren't such great footballers.

If you've only got one to vote for how are you going to chose between Garner and Shearer? One the finest servant I've seen in blue and white, the other probably the finest player I shall ever see at Ewood. Who sums up Blackburn Rovers in one word - Shearer or Garner?

I don't see a problem with the way den is running this excellent thread but clearly some of the polls will be decided very quickly.

Byeeeeeeeeeeee - back to Admin.