Reading the Ian Wright post, made me wonder who our biggest signing has been.

Ignoring what they did for us on the pitch, who would your put forward?

Wright came out of nowhere and blew me away, but Gazza and Waddle did the same.

As I say, ignoring what they did, Waddle was my hero- that went very quickly as Burnley manager.

Sean Dyche

Peter Crouch was pretty big.

Joey Barton easily.

Wright lifted the whole place. In all my years of watching Burnley I don’t think a signing has ever stunned me quite so much. And to think I was told by someone in a pub at Bournemouth on the previous Saturday that it was happening. It sounded so far fetched I didn’t take advantage of the exclusive.

Not a big signing but Payts scored the goals that kept us up in 98 & 99 and then the goals that took us up in 2000. Worthy of consideration.

IWW by a mile!! Gaza looked like a pub league player when he arrived.

Paul Stewart was certainly above his normal fighting weight

It was only short-term but Andy Cole made a huge impact, and you could see his class even at that advanced stage of his career.

CnBtruntru wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 01, 2021 1:08 am

Joey Barton easily.

The biggest impact, but was he the most exciting?

ClaretTony wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 01, 2021 1:09 am

Wright lifted the whole place. In all my years of watching Burnley I don’t think a signing has ever stunned me quite so much. And to think I was told by someone in a pub at Bournemouth on the previous Saturday that it was happening. It sounded so far fetched I didn’t take advantage of the exclusive.

Not a big signing but Payts scored the goals that kept us up in 98 & 99 and then the goals that took us up in 2000. Worthy of consideration.

For me it was Wright, probably more the surprise when it happened Tony. I think at that stage if we had signed him at 45years old it still would of been gobsmacking.

Ian Wright, when I read the headline on Teletext I presumed it was a different Ian Wright who was playing in the lower leagues at the time.

I think it was the only time I’d woken up before my Dad so I could tell him the news first thing in the morning.

It was just the signing we needed too

Burnleyareback2 wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 01, 2021 1:27 am

For me it was Wright, probably more the surprise when it happened Tony. I think at that stage if we had signed him at 45years old it still would of been gobsmacking.

It was just almost impossible to take in. He himself admitted recently that he wasn’t fit enough to play but here we were, a club that had struggled really for 20 years signing one of the biggest names in English football.

Wright.

Ian Wright by a mile. As the ever thread. No exaggeration to say I dont think signing Messi would have the same impact / shock factor today as that did then!

Ben Mee, lads like Wright were here 5 mins and whilst they had great impact they aren't a patch on what Ben has contributed both on and off the pitch over a period of time. In my 38 years watching us he has been our most valuable player

Vegas Claret wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 01, 2021 1:49 am

Ben Mee, lads like Wright were here 5 mins and whilst they had great impact they aren't a patch on what Ben has contributed both on and off the pitch over a period of time. In my 38 years watching us he has been our most valuable player

I suppose it depends on what context you consider ‘biggest signing’ as - I’d probably trump Ben Mee with Michael Duff, he only cost us £35,000 and a pre-season friendly or maybe the Waddles masterstroke - swapping Paul Barnes or Payton - key signings and value for money.

Stan and Barry Kilby bringing in Mellon, Branch and Davis in the same week or so - maybe that was the foundations of the the climb back to where we are now?

claptrappers_union wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 01, 2021 2:00 am

I suppose it depends on what context you consider ‘biggest signing’ as - I’d probably trump Ben Mee with Michael Duff, he only cost us £35,000 and a pre-season friendly or maybe the Waddles masterstroke - swapping Paul Barnes or Payton - key signings and value for money.

Stan and Barry Kilby bringing in Mellon, Branch and Davis in the same week or so - maybe that was the foundations of the the climb back to where we are now?

for sure, I considered Duff but the OP mentioned more about what they did off the pitch, maybe I have taken that out of context - but I'm still going for Ben with Duff and Heaton joint second !

Sure we've had higher profile players but in terms of what has been achieved since Mee came to us in the top two divisions I can't pick anybody else

Will happen this summer

For those that lived it Wright was serious WOW factor. We had grown up seeing him as a top striker for Arsenal, an international striker; a few years before we had just got out of the bottom division!!
But gotta push CT's shout earlier in the thread, Andy Payton. That swap for Barnes probably kept us up that season under Twaddle and that ultimately led us to Stan and those years getting established in The Championship. I'm sure there are other important signings years on but Payts being a fan as well just puts extra significance on it.

Vegas Claret wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 01, 2021 1:49 am

Ben Mee, lads like Wright were here 5 mins and whilst they had great impact they aren't a patch on what Ben has contributed both on and off the pitch over a period of time. In my 38 years watching us he has been our most valuable player

I agree, Vegas. Mee must go down as the best ever signing. For me that means it's the biggest.

It's a shame for lower league clubs nowadays, instead of old pros signing they tend to instead go play abroad. USA, China, Middle East, you name it.

I'd put Mike Conroy in the list of biggest/influential. An inspired signing. Think he got 24 league goals in his debut season and shot us to promotion as champions from division 4. Not bad for a player I'd never heard of and if I'm not mistaken. He'd been playing full back for Reading the season before?

Biggest surprise and publicity wise - Uan Wright. Biggest in terms of impact surely Jimmy Mac from Glentoran.

I’m assuming the originator meant the biggest “wow” signing. For many it would have to be Ian Wright. We were in the third division, and here was this national superstar signing for us. No wonder crowds jumped from 12,000 to 20,000 overnight.

Ian Wright without hesitation. The impact and euphoria surrounding his signing gave everyone a massive lift. I can still remember getting the news and thinking it was a wind up, he's not going to sign for little old Burnley, but he did and for that I'm very grateful.

Biggest wow was gascoigne

There’s obviously been better value signings, and ones with a bigger impact (agree about Payts and Barton).. but hard to imagine now what it was like after being in the lower divisions for so long and signing someone like Ian Wright.

As above, we’ve had loads of great value players but none put 10,000 on the gate just by turning up.

Things like this can be a very personal thing.
In 1978 I was a teenager and had only recently been going on Turf Moor. The re-signing of Steve Kindon was massive to an impressionable young lad.
In the grand scheme of things he didn’t change the destiny of the club in the long term, though he did save us from relegation to division 3 effectively.
However, I loved watching him play. Scored some great goals; I heard us described as, “Kick and run and let Kindon chase it Burnley”. It was an effective tactic. My personal highlight was the goal at Turf Moor against Celtic.

Gazza was bigger for me than Ian Wright but also was the biggest disappointment when I saw him play against Sheffield Utd.

I can remember an Arsenal fan at sixth form telling me IWW had signed for us. Like others have said it was just so exciting. We weren’t season ticket holders then so we could only get a ticket in the cricket field end vs Wigan. I think it annoyed my dad that my sister was having fun and joining in with the Wigan chants. It probably helped us blend in though.

Wright, Gazza, Defour even Eric Djemba Djemba ...

Claretforever wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 01, 2021 8:06 am

I’m assuming the originator meant the biggest “wow” signing. For many it would have to be Ian Wright. We were in the third division, and here was this national superstar signing for us. No wonder crowds jumped from 12,000 to 20,000 overnight.

This.

Defour was a big signing for sure as unlike Wright, this was a current Belgian international (one of the best international sides in the world) signing for us at what should have been the peak years of his career. Injuries curtailed him but what a player, best I’ve seen for us in terms of raw ability I’d say.

Paul Gascoigne was amazing too. I remember very vividly that I was at Laser Quest in Huddersfield for a mates birthday (we would have been 15 at the time) and seeing it on a TV there, couldn’t believe it.

Has to be Wright for me though I think.

Diego Costa this month.

Ian Wright....Joey B.....But in Financial Terms when we spent upwards of 9million on Andŕe Gray when in the Championship I knew Burnley as a club were on the Way back to the Top. And so it proved.

John Gayle springs to mind. He was perhaps the biggest with Ian Helliwell not far behind.

Glen Little for me.

As a teen, I got so excited to see him play. Walked and ran like he had the dribbling skills of Tony Adams, but was fantastic on the ball.

The first genuinely exciting player to watch I can remember, and the only reason I kept coming back on Turf.

I remember being very exciting by ade akinbiyi (part 1). Big name and big money at the time - shame about the debut though...

I think the thread should be changed to impact signing.

Stan played a master stroke in pursuading Wright to sign. Fans and players alike looked up to Ian who was a great addition to the squad, at a time when the side was pushing for promotion.

He really was the final piece in the jig saw that made our promotion push successful

The thing about Wright too it’s not like it was ten years after his prime. He’d not long won the double with arsenal and became their all time top scorer. Incredible really.

He was 36

I see a lot of people have just completely ignored the phrase in the OP "Ignoring what they did for us on the pitch"......

Ian Wright was an unbelievable signing at a time when no one thought we’d ever see a player of his quality playing for us, but I’d choose Nick Pope.

It was a bit of a nothing signing at the time but if he hadn’t come in and done unbelievably well when Tom got injured, we’d have struggled so badly.

He’s literally been world class since the day he pulled on the shirt.

I always thought Adrian Heath was a pretty big signing for us.

Great question this.

In terms of ability and pedigree Gazza was a bigger signing than Wright but Wright gets the nod from me as he was ‘first’. The excitement of that signing was something I’d not seen before as a teenage Burnley fan.

When we signed Gazza it was hugely exciting but because of Wright it had been done before so it didn’t have quite the same wow factor.

The day we signed Wright I rang my grandad to tell him and his response was typical of Burnley fans of his era “Well, he gets booked a lot”

Beyond a shadow of doubt it was Ian Wright. He may have only played a cameo role, but his goal against Notts County was one for the memory bank and of enormous importance and only a player of his stature could possibly score it.

claptrappers_union wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 01, 2021 10:58 am

He was 36

Yes, born in 1963. At the time I always thought he was 33 hence the squad number. So did the squad number actually mean anything ?

For me, the best quality player we ever signed was Kevin Reeves. He might have been a John Bond signing but unlike the other deadlegs he brought in Kevin was absolute class, Such a shame he got a hip injury that ended his career prematurely. Who knows what would have happened if he'd stayed fit?

Tommy Hutch was another. But in all my years a claret nothing has matched the buzz around Ian Wright. When we were linked with Gazza I remember thinking yes, quite possible, because we had signed Wright previously.

The Enclosure wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 01, 2021 11:29 am

I always thought Adrian Heath was a pretty big signing for us.

Inchy was a great capture at the time, and he played a big role in our 94 promotion campaign, he also did a decent job as manager a couple of years later, sadly he couldn't quite push us over the line, but given what followed with Waddle his tenure could certainly be classed as successful.

Ian Wright. It was so out of the blue. The only signing that has ever made me physically giddy. My dad rang me at work, I remember sitting on the corner of my desk taking the call..... I remember nothing else from that day other than my grin being commented on by everyone that came in.