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The unforgettable Vladimir Petrovic

WTTGT Writer: Dean “Dangerous to the public” Scott

Vladimir Petrovic… Aaahhh a name that brings back memories of an artist and a lover of the football that to this day, he is the only player that brought tears to my eyes when he left. And… I was 17 at the time!

During the early 1980s, Arsenal under Terry Neill were shocking. John Hawley; Ray Hankin; both shocking, yet from nowhere this player signed for us for about £750,000  and was called the pigeon, or little pigeon, something like that. I remember reading about him in a football programme when we played against Red Star Belgrade and he could do stuff with a football that I hadn’t seen for a while from anyone in an Arsenal shirt. He could control it, pass to players in the same shirt, you know, stuff like that.

Our midfield at the time was full of forgetful midfielders with sparing talent but it didn’t matter as we rarely used the midfield part of the pitch. It was lumped from John Kay to John Hawley and a washed up Ray Hankin to do not a thing with… but then out of the darkness came this beautiful footballer called Vladimir Petrovic. He made a debut against Swansea which must be like when people go to operas or the ballet and are moved by what they see. Well Vladimir Petrovic gave me that moment against Swansea. Of course this was never going to last; it was like Iain Dowie going out with Kelly Brook. He was beautiful as a footballer and we were Iain Dowie ugly, and sadly 22 games later the beautiful relationship was over as Iain kept on taking Kelly to KFC every night, and we kept on ignoring his talent and playing lesser footballers.

Vladimir I loved you and I miss you! It was only when Paul Davis entered the first-team did I realise how special it was watching a graceful player again.

Swoon Swoon Swoon…

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2 Responses to The unforgettable Vladimir Petrovic

  1. alex August 9, 2011 at 1:30 pm #

    He was such a class act………also remember him returning to play in Rix's testimonial

  2. [email protected] August 9, 2011 at 3:35 pm #

    Is Graham Rix still on the sex offenders' register? If he got 10 years on the register from 1999, does that mean that all of us magically forget he served a 12 month sentence for decently assaulting a little girl?

    That's right Alex, you remember the testimonial while we remember what erased all other memories of him.

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