Things are a bit quiet at the moment, while we wait for Byron Moore and ClayDo to confirm that they will be leaving and Dario can get on with signing some replacements. With that in mind, I decided to look back into the past a bit...
Shaun Smith was never one of the more talented players in any of the teams he played in. He was quite slow, not actually particularly good at defending and often looked hugely out of his depth in the second tier. His set-pieces could be spectacularly wayward and the same applies to his general distribution. He'd often pick the ball up at left-back and be more likely to land the ball in the television gantry than at the feet of our left-winger. So why do I remember him so fondly? Well, here's why...
He was a virtual ever-present at left-back (and often captain) of some of the best Crewe teams in living memory. He arrived from the mighty Emley in 1991, shortly after The Alex were relegated back to the basement division. He ended up playing over 400 games for the club, including 5 years in the second tier. He also scored some of the most memorable goals in the history of the club, including what is probably the most important. You could always guarantee that Smith would not be a player to play at anything less than full effort. While certain players never lived up to their obvious potential - he, like the Paul Collingwood of lower-league football, made sure that he absolutely made the most of his somewhat limited ability.
His set-pieces could be disastrous, as anyone who saw him hit penalties and free-kicks out of the ground could testify. However, like Laurent Robert, the spectacular success when he got it right made all the terrible dross almost worthwhile. His ridiculous 35-yard free-kick in our first visit to the Britannia Stadium remains one of my greatest moments as a Crewe fan. Another one that springs immediately to mind is a lovely free-kick curled into the top corner against Q.P.R. to rescue a point - a match in which we were 2-0 down with about 10 minutes left. That draw saw us pretty much safe and went some way to confirming Rangers' relegation. And he scored from the half-way line against Brentford. It was miles better than Beckham's similar goal.
I love that Dario insisted that Smithy was our penalty taker for years, even though it was obvious that he wasn't the best player at the club at taking penalties.
I loved watching him really go through a player when tackling. Crewe players are not hard, they do not do this. Smith was hard and Smith did. And the most remarkable thing is that Dario didn't seem to mind. I remember him getting sent-off for elbowing a Rotherham player in the face - a crime which Dario seemed to forgive him for quite quickly. The last-ditch, goal-saving slide tackle became his speciality. His timing, for some reason, was perfect when he had to charge 20 yards across the pitch to get there. It's a shame that he struggled to stop right-wingers from getting past him in the end.
I love that he stood on the ball and fell over when trying to control a simple pass at Goodison Park in the FA Cup fifth round. This was live on BBC and would've been the only time he ever played in a match screened on terrestrial television.
And I've not even mentioned the goal yet.
A little over 14 years ago, on May 25th 1997, Shaun Smith took the field at Wembley against Brentford in the Division Two (3rd tier of English football, now called League 1, confusingly) play-off final. Crewe had not played in the second division since the introduction of a third division. A few years earlier, they could only have dreamed of doing so again. Smith had been the unlikely hero in semi-final - scoring the crucial goal to ensure that it would be Crewe, not Luton, making the trip to Wembley. Surrounded by high-fliers like Murphy, Adebola, Johnson, Whalley and Rivers, it seemed unlikely that he would be repeating his heroics. Brentford though, were sick of the sight of him. Although we finished below them in the league, we had done the double over them - and Smith had scored in both games. He scored a penalty and Gresty Road and his goal from inside his own half came in the league match at Griffin Park. Of course, it was Smith who was in the right place in the 6 yard box to score the only goal at Wembley too. The Alex were in dreamland.
It was fitting that Smith was the scorer. He was a proper lower-league footballer. He seemed to be a thoroughly decent bloke - certainly not the prima donna that many people picture when they think of the modern footballer. He's the sort of old-fashioned footballer who supporters could easily relate to. He seemed like one of us and appreciated how lucky he was to play football for a living for a few years. I'd be surprised if he ever caused any problems for Dario.
Smithy went on to play in the Championship for 5 years. Towards the end of his Alex career, he looked hugely out of depth and his already erratic set-pieces became more and more unreliable. However, in his penultimate season with the club, the year in which Dean Ashton and Rob Hulse emerged as real forces, he pulled out some superb performances. Again he was in the team with other players destined for greater things, but somehow ended up walking away with all the Player of the Year awards. With his typical modesty, he claimed this was down to a sympathy vote as he'd never emerged with personal awards in the past. There may have been a certain element of truth to this, but he did earn the awards with his performances in the second half of the season. Sadly, his performances declined again the following season, and after the Alex were relegated, he was released. He signed a 3-year contract with Jan Mølby's Hull City. Like Mølby, he did not last long at Hull though, and after a couple of loan spells, he had equally unsuccessful spells at Rochdale and York before drifting out of football.
He did, of course, come back with Steve Macauley (more on him later, maybe) for hugely-deserved joint-testimonial matches against Everton and Liverpool.
Shaun Smith. An Alex legend.
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