DirtyHarry said:
What about Tony Henry ? Always remember a mid week match at Maine Road against Leicester City, winning 2-0 with 10 minutes or so to go, Barry Venison came on and scored a couple I think for Leicester, was 3-2 to them and virtually the last kick of the match Tony Henry popped up from close range and absolutely blasted it in, I swear if there was no netting it would have ended up in the grounds of Withington hospital, great memory.
Remember the game quite well - stuck in the memory because I'd been going to City for five years by that point, had probably been to about 75% of the home games in that period, and that (a rearranged game because of our Cup run) was the first time I'd been in a crowd of less than 30,000 at Maine Road for a league game. Just looked it up on MCFC Stats and it attracted 26,144. Leicester were down at the foot of the table and we'd undergone that amazing transformation when John Bond arrived so we were expected to win easily. All seemed to be going to plan at 2-0 (both scored by Kevin Reeves according to MCFC Stats, though I don't remember that), then suddenly we were 3-2 down.
Henry was really a squad player in the days when clubs didn't have that many - he made 68 league starts in the five years between his debut and City letting him go. Not the greatest we've ever had, but decent enough, and I don't recall him ever letting us down, though. And he had a couple of decent moments, too: got on as a sub at Wembley in the first game in the 1981 Cup final, and scored in a derby win against the Rags. The goal against Leicester was the last of his 12 (six in the league) for the club.
Was sold by Bond in the summer of 1981, along with Steve Mackenzie and Dave Bennett, as we looked to raise the money to set off some of the outlay on the summer signings of Trevor Francis, Kevin Bond and Martin O'Neill. Never played in the top division again, so maybe Bond was right.
Anyway, though he was originally a Geordie, he stayed in the north west, playing for Bolton and then Oldham, so he may have settled near Manchester, in which case he would be quite easy for Lakey to track down, you'd think.
PS - Sorry to be such an anorak, but I don't think Venison played for Leicester. The game you're thinking of involving him is at home to Sunderland the next season, when he came of the bench to turn round a game which we'd been winning comfortably but lost 3-2 in the end.
