I still think the ultimate is Ali Dia! Seriously how can we look past this guy, lied to get a chance of Premiership football for half an hour. Who here would not have done the same? At the time we may have thought lieing cheating bastard but now we can look back on it with the affection it deserves. He is the ultimate Cult Hero! We would all love to have played for Saints and this guy did, he lived the dream. What a great film that would make.
Then you may as well discount all of the answers as a fan favourite is surely a player liked by a fan? If you say it has to be a minimum number of fans to be a fan favourite, then most of the names mentioned can be discounted, I mean Telfer, Marsden, Oakley, Kenna, Fernandes, Monkou, Shipperley, Jaidi, Dowie, Maddison, Banger, Harding, Viafara, Jesus, Surman, Davis etc were surely liked by the majority of people? So who exactly does that leave?
Oh and I've just looked back through entire thread and the only players you seem to endorse are Steven Davis and Antonio, both surely were/are fan favourites and in Davis's case a great player. As you rightly point out, the parameters are in the title!
I agree, most of those can. It leaves the odd ones out that people take a particular liking to for no apparent reason, literally the entire point of the thread. It's not meant to have common, regular answers because that means they're fan favourites.
TBF the OP's question is open to interpretation, I took it to mean players that were in a team that had more popular players than them in it, the type of player that never had a replica shirt with his name on. The OP himself says it could be a cult hero (surely popular with fans).
I used to like Trevor Hebberd. He started life as an average midfielder but then switched to left back where I remember him being superb. He went to Oxford and was man of the match in their League Cup win. He would even have played in Europe for Derby if it wasn't for the Euro ban back then. I also liked Eric Martin but mostly because of his hair (he probably should have played for Scotland though). The more I think about this, I could go on forever, Ivan Golac, John McGrath, Jim Steele, Nick Holmes, Malcolm Waldron etc etc. Current out of favour favourite is Jack Cork and would have been Jason Puncheon.
I liked Trevor Hebberd too; local (ish) lad to me, being as he was from Bighton, Hampshire nr Alresford. I do believe though he switched to a sweeper and was excellent in that role, rather than left back (I may be wrong).
It's a debatable point, but Davis is not universally liked, and many see him behind a lot of other midfielders in selection, and Antonio was thought of as a bit of a clogger by many. If I've only pointed out two players it's probably because its not easy to define those odd players who are fine through one's own eyes, but others tend not to rate them. And I do/did actually like the two players I've chosen.
Well I remember a lot of people seemed to like Antonio, myself included. Ok you could tell he probably didn't have what it takes to go too far on our journey but it's all relative to the league you are in at the time. In league 1 he was a good exciting player to have. It's obviously a very hard question to answer as the moment a handful starts backing the same player, they surely no longer count
It was a while ago! In my mind he was one of the first overlapping fullbacks. But I'm not going to argue about it (there's a first!).
Ricardo Fuller - looked lazy and rubbish, went on loan, came back and bagged some goals and looked like a prospect for the next season.... and we let him go Andrew Davies - a defender we took on loan who gave his all (I am sure I remember him diving in to head the ball and getting kicked in the face); went back to Stoke (?), was ruined by them and I can't recall where he is now
