GLeicehstertbeforse rmovewd outdid ‘waste of money’ Lineker
FOR one sunny afternoon, Mark Bright did not look like the new Gary Lineker – he looked better than him.
Lineker didn’t score the sort of goals that Bright did on a noisy and emotional day in Leicester.
The Football League’s fixture computer was at its most mischievous when it sent Everton to Leicester on the opening day of the 1985-86 season.
During the summer, Lineker had swapped the blue of his hometown club for the blue of champions Everton.
To Foxes fans, Lineker was one of their own.
He had sobbed all the way home from Wembley after they had lost the 1969 FA Cup Final and, asked to name his ‘favourite other team’ by a football magazine, he answered: “Leicester Reserves.”
That wasn’t enough to keep him at Filbert Street after Everton made their move for him.
Lineker came to their attention after netting 24 goals in the 1984-85 season, making him the top flight’s joint leading scorer alongside Kerry Dixon, and he decided that, after 95 goals in 194 games for Leicester, it was time to move on.
Lineker soon began thinking he had made a mistake. With the clubs unable to agree a fee, the final figure was decided by a tribunal in London.
Lineker recalled: “I went down with Everton boss Howard Kendall and it was like a court case.
“Leicester boss Gordon
Milne said, ‘We are losing a great player, he’s going to play for England for years and years. He’s worth £1.8million’.
“Howard gets up and says, ‘We are taking a punt on this kid. We don’t think he’ll get much of a game in his first season. He’s very raw, he’s very green’.
“I’m standing there thinking, ‘What have I done here? I’m not going to get a game’.
“They decided on £800,000, which was £300,000 more than Everton wanted to pay.
“I thought, ‘Not only have they got a player they are not that keen on, they have had to pay over the odds’.
“We walked out of the tribunal and Howard put his arm around me and said, ‘Don’t believe any of that. You’re going to be my man. I needed to get the price down’.”
The job of filling Lineker’s boots on the opening day of the season went to 23-year-old Bright, a £33,333 capture from Port Vale.
Lineker’s every touch was jeered by the fans he had once stood alongside – whenever he got a touch, that is.
Russell Osman, bought with the money from Lineker’s sale, kept him quiet, while, at the other end, Leicester had found a new hero.
Bright won the match with a pair of goal-of-theseason contenders.
“All I got was, ‘What a waste of money’ chants from the home crowd,” recalled Lineker.