I had this bubbling over the transfer window, but after discovering who we might be after, I didn’t want to tempt fate by dropping a ‘here’s what you could have won’ article in case things went awry again.
Over the years, we’ve heard plenty about players we might have signed, players that were close and players we desperately wanted. Some of it (Michael Bridges) is likely to be nothing but fan chatter, but how many players have we been close to but not signed? Will we ever really know?
We know about managers – a young Martin O’Neill was turned down in favour of Murph in 1987. Bobby Gould was in with a shout back in the late seventies but was thought to be too inexperienced, whilst there was even talk of a certain Barry Fry once applying to come here. More recently, Robbie Fowler was mentioned, but that, I suspect, was more paper talk than anything.
So, which players have we been close to? Who has turned us down, walked away from a deal or left Sincil Bank upset at not being signed? In the end, we’ve got a good list here, including internationals, a European Cup Winner and players that did sign.
There are bound to be many more, some we know about and some we don’t. Add your favourites in the comments.
Enjoy.