Bought & Sold - Sansom And Supermac

Last updated : 10 August 2011 By Footy Mad - Editor

WE BOUGHT HIM FROM ARSENAL ...

KENNY SANSOM

Until overtaken by Ashley Cole in February 2011, he held the record for the number of caps for an England full back, having appeared 86 times for his country between 1979 and 1988.

Sansom made his first team debut for Crystal Palace at the age of just 16. In 1977 he captained the Palace juniors team to FA Youth Cup success while also skippering the England team at the same level, collecting Palace's "Player of the Year" award in his first season.

In the summer of 1979, Sansom made his debut for the full England team, in a goalless draw against Wales.

Arsenal put in a bid of £1million for Sansom in the summer of 1980, with striker Clive Allen going in exchange - Allen had only joined Arsenal weeks earlier, and had yet to play a competitive match for the club.

Palace accepted the bid and Sansom left for Highbury and made his Arsenal debut against West Bromwich Albion on August 16, 1980 and was an ever present for that season and the next, and a near-constant figure at left back for Arsenal for eight years in total.

He was voted Arsenal's Player of the Year in 1981.

Sansom finally won some domestic silverware in 1987, captaining Arsenal to a League Cup final victory over Liverpool at Wembley.

The following season, Sansom's relationship with his Arsenal manager George Graham soured and he was replaced as captain by fledgling defender Tony Adams, who was just 21.

Sansom left Arsenal in December 1988, having not played a first team game at all for the first four months of 1988-89; Graham had signed Lee Dixon and had reshuffled the side, with Dixon playing at right-back and Nigel Winterburn on the left, replacing Sansom.

Sansom had played 394 matches in total for Arsenal, scoring six goals. He is Arsenal's second-most capped player of all time, with 77 caps while at the club (Patrick Vieira holds the record with 79).

He joined Newcastle United but we never saw his true ability and he only played 20 games for the Magpies. Some argued he was passed his best when he signed, but others argued he never took to life on Tyneside.

He was sold to QPR.

MM

WE SOLD HIM TO ARSENAL ...

SUPERMAC!

Malcolm Ian Macdonald was born 7 January 1950 and became a Newcastle legend.

Born in Fulham, London, Macdonald started out as a full back before switching to centre forward. After signing from Tonbridge Angels Bobby Robson paid £1,000 to sign him Fulham in 1968 just after their relegation from the Football League First Division.

A year later he moved to Luton Town. At Luton he scored 49 times in 88 matches, which caught the eye of Newcastle United manager Joe Harvey, who signed him for £180,000 in the summer of 1971.

At Newcastle he quickly became a favourite of the fans, scoring a hat-trick on his home debut against Liverpool, and was the club's top scorer for five seasons in a row.

While at Newcastle, he made his debut for England (against Wales). On 16 April 1975, in a game for England against Cyprus he scored all five goals in a 5–0 victory, a record that still stands today (spawning a newspaper headline "SuperMac 5, Cyprus 0". In total he played 14 times for his country, scoring six times (the only other game he scored in being a 2–0 win over then World Champions West Germany).

Macdonald left Newcastle for Arsenal in 1976, for the unusual fee of £333,333.33, and played two full seasons (being the club's top scorer in both), but suffered a knee injury in a League Cup match against Rotherham at the start of the 1978–79 season, from which he was unable to completely recover.

After having spent a couple of months in Sweden with Djurgårdens IF he announced his retirement from playing at the premature age of 29 in August 1979.

He never won a major honour but was on the losing side in two FA Cup finals and a League Cup final, two for Newcastle and one for Arsenal.