Jeff Hughes
Jeff did very well for Keith, but only excelled in his second season at the club under John Schofield. Schoey liked a 4-4-2 which played to Hughes strengths, whereas under Keith he was often deployed at left back.
Keith signed Hughes knowing there was a quality player there, but he left the Imps before we truly got a chance to see it. Under the Big Man, Hughes was lightweight and could have been blown away by a gust of wind. By that time though, Keith’s sides only had to turn up to get a place in the play offs. In his first season, Hughes counted Marvin Robinson, Gary Birch, Colin Cryan and Nat Brown as team mates. I still wonder how we actually got to the play off semi finals at all!
Under Schoey he flourished, but our end of season form was woeful and the side that should have gone up automatically lost heavily to Bristol Rovers in a two-legged play off. By that time, Hughes had become the player we now remember, pacey and direct with a keen eye for goal too. there was no surprise when he left.
Hughes would almost certainly play the same role for us as I identified Peter Gain playing on the first picture. He could play out wide on the wing, or as part of a three-man attacking midfield in a 4-2-3-1. I wouldn’t be as pleased to see him on the left of a 4-3-3, but he could do at a push. In my eyes, Jeff Hughes was a poor man’s Peter Gain, but the level the two played at would serve to prove me wrong.
Hi Gary,
A good read as always, but what I wanted to day was not that, but that anyone who gives you even a word of grief for being ‘commercial’ or whatever rubbish it is they come out with, they want their little minds checking. I bet they’re the same as the rest of us – regularly checking your website hoping for a new article. They’re probably doing it on the bog at work, getting paid even as they read. Meanwhile they expect you to be entertaining them for nothing because ‘you enjoy it’ (or whatever nut-job argument it is they come up with). On behalf of the silent majority – thank you for everything and don’t let the b*ggers get you down!
How about an “If only they had signed” article? I remember wishing we could afford John Cornforth. OConnor, Ellison etc etc
I second what Dan wrote. No time to write, need to get off the bog.