The Bad: Steve Torpey
When I say the bad, there is no indication that Steve Torpey was a bad player. Quite the opposite – he was a player of some renown for a long time. Unfortunately, that time was not at Sincil Bank, and his Swansea record illustrates the player we might have liked to sign rather better than the one we actually got. Between 1993 and 1997 he scored 44 goals in 162 league appearances for the Swans, before spells with Bristol City and Scunthorpe United further established his credentials as an experienced Football League striker.
By the summer of 2007, however, we were buying into what he had been. After five successive failed play-off campaigns, we needed additions capable of helping us take the next step, but Torpey came to symbolise the moment things started going backwards. He failed to score in 14 appearances across all competitions and, more frustratingly, rarely looked likely to do so.
For me, this was a failure of recruitment as much as anything else. At a point when we needed to strengthen with purpose, we took the cheap option and hoped an ageing striker could still deliver, with John Schofield ultimately paying for the wider decline with his job. Torpey had enjoyed a respectable career, including those productive Swansea years, but that counted for very little once he pulled on our shirt.
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