Malcolm McDonald

[Andy S]

Fulham More or less gave this guy away in the 70's. for 20,000 to Alec Stocks Luton. If We had kept him could we have bounced back to the top flight. We converted him into a forward (He had been a full Back) He was successful wherever he played. He came back as a marketing officer I believe & then  Manager after his career was over. Are there any other players who have had much success after leaving for peanuts

[St Eve]

Roney Marsh, Bobby Robson

[Apprentice to the Maestro]

Too many. You can add Mullery, Allan Clarke, Paul Parker and Louis Saha, for example.

[St Eve]

But they didn't really leave for peanuts

[Bradstow]

But they didn't really leave for peanuts

2.5m for Mullery and 4m for Clarke in today's money values - I call that peanuts! Today I would guess 15m and 25m respectively!

[cmg]

 
Still baffles me after all these years.

At the start of the 1968-9 we were in desperate need of a number of things, the foremost of which was a goalscorer. We had just been relegated, our outstanding striker, Allan Clarke had departed, Steve Earle had a long-term injury, our star names were ageing and/or injury prone. We then went on a run of six games without scoring. Some sort of miracle was needed.

Malcolm Macdonald (18 years old, born in Finlay Street) had been signed form Tonbridge in the summer as a full-back. He played in three pre-season friendlies at left-back, but somebody must have seen something in him because he started the season as the Combination (reserves) team centre-forward. And he scored goals. 5 in his first 5 matches.

With Frank Large already proving something of a bust and nobody else able to score, the 18 year old Macdonald was tried in the first team. He had a goal disallowed (bad offside decision) in his first full match and then broke the barren run with the winner against Crystal Palace. Macdonald stayed in the side and kept on scoring. Fulham continued to struggle but Macdonald scored a goal in each of the next four matches. A miracle (in a small way of business) seemed to have turned up. And then a funny thing happened. Nothing.

After scoring his fifth of the season against Norwich he had one more match, dropped to the bench and then went back into the reserves. Nobody came forward to score the goals. Earle came back from injury but didn't score. Large continued not to score. The grotesquely unfit Byrne didn't score. A motley cast of knackered ex-internationals were cobbled together and they didn't score, either. At the end of the season, when it was all over and we were already packed away to the third tier, a grotesquely unfit Brian Dear waddled onto the scene and managed to take the leading scorer tag away from Macdonald, who made just two more appearances.

Macdonald continued to score in the reserves. He got 17 from 20 appearances despite being used as left-back on at least one occasion.
At the end of the season Fulham drastically trimmed their staff and Alec Stock picked up Macdonald for £17,500 (may have been £22,000, whatever, it was, as has been said, peanuts.) Dear old Alec must have been still laughing when he took over as manager for a little tilt at glory four years later.

Malcolm, of course, went on to score and score and score. 49 for Luton. 95 for Newcastle, 42 for Arsenal, 6 for England. He became 'Supermac' and then returned to us and was a pretty good manager. His departure as manager was under rather odd cicicumstances but nothing like as odd as his departure as a player. I've always thought there was some 'story' behind it - but I remain as baffled now as I was then.

[St Eve]

Well at the time the rumour was that he didn't get on with Haynes and that is why he was sold

[St Eve]

But they didn't really leave for peanuts
[/quote
2.5m for Mullery and 4m for Clarke in today's money values - I call that peanuts! Today I would guess 15m and 25m respectively!

in those days it wasn't. Clarke sold for 115k - a record then

[cmg]

We picked up Ray Houghton on a free from West Ham and he had three brilliant seasons for us, which makes him one of our best ever signings.
However, we then sold him for something like £150,000 to Oxford (who were then in the top div.) he won a League Cup there and then moved to Liverpool for not far short of £1m. He won two League titles (Prem) and two FA cups there.
He then moved on to Aston Villa for nigh on £1m with whom he again won a League Cup.
He also earned 70-odd caps for the best ever Irish side (despite his broad Glasgow accent).

So, like Allan Clarke, one of our best buys and one of our worst sells.


Clarke went for a supposed £150,000, which was pretty much par for the course then. Unfortunately £50,000 of that was accounted for by Mr Large.

[St Eve]

Yes Mr Large was not a great success

[TonyGilroy]

The Clarke fee was a record at the time admittedly including £50K for Frank Large. Large was well thought of. He failed badly but that was a surprise.

The Mullery fee was high at the time and Marsh was considered a talented waster and replaced by the much more professional Clarke.

The club's treatment of MacDonald was considered scandalous by the fans. We knew how good he was and we gave him away.

Later sales were dictated by our position and finances.

[gang]

Mullerys' fee was in the region of £75,000,not £2.5 million, the first million pound player came years later, Nottingham Forest paying Birmingham £1,000,000 for Trevour Francis; that makes Mullery an even bigger bargain.

[TonyGilroy]

But he wasn't a bargain by the standards of the time. He wasn't yet a full international.

The record transfer fee at the time was £110,000 for Dennis Law apparently.

[A Humble Man]

In our wilderness years quite often bad decisions were made for short term gain.  We had a series of Chairmen who took more out of the Club than they put in and we were stuck in a rut that it took MAFs money, love and commitment to get us out of.

Those on this mb who are constantly moaning vigorously about minor problems should remember where we came from and how supporting Fulham was always hope with out any expectation for all those years.

[MasterHaynes]

But they didn't really leave for peanuts

2.5m for Mullery and 4m for Clarke in today's money values - I call that peanuts! Today I would guess 15m and 25m respectively!

Clarke's 150k was a record fee for a player at the time

[LBNo11]

...the Haynes story is the main reason according to Malcolm Macdonald's autobiography 'Super Mac'.

The scenario: Bobby Robson had been sacked and Trinder had appointed Johnny Haynes as care -taker manager, Alan Humphreys, one of the coaches at the time was telling players one by one to go up to the office at Craven Cottage where he was met by Johnny Haynes. According to Malcolm's account of the meeting ..."one of his first acts was to tell me I wasn't playing the following day. But I'm your highest goalscorer! I'm the only goalscorer! I protested. In response to that  Haynes sadi coldly, "As far as I am concerned you can't play and you'll never make a career for yourself in the game. And while at this club you won't play here again". Basically after that Macdonald was relegated to the reserves.

I had heard similar things before the book came out, we will never know as we only have one side of the matter, but if true that is the reason we lost our home grown, Fulham supporting, potential prolific goalscorer. Fulhamish..?

[Ged]

Fulham v Blackburn Rovers 1968

[In the Enclosure]

we couldn't score for about 5 matches and Mcdonald was drafted in as a youngster (18?) against Crystal Palace at home.
He scored and we won 1-0 The Hammersmith End loved him however rumour has it
that when the team got back into the dressing room he looked at Johnny Haynes
and said ' Thats the way you do it' Bloody shame because there was an obvious falling out somewhere.

Luckily once we got Alec Stock as manager he built us a team by pilfering players like he did with Mcdonald from us.

[Holders]

He was also probably our unluckiest manager.

[Andy S]

Then we paid 100,000 for Joe Gilroy and he was not the player we had been told he was. John Dempsey was sold to that lot up the road and we got Barry Lloyd in exchange and although he was hard working he was small in stature and was easily knocked off the ball. But we still had Steve Earle and Les Barret, as well as Fred Callaghan at the back and for that matter Bobby Robson.
The propaganda from the programme was awful We had the first Mascot in Freddie Fulham who was telling us that it was all going to be allright if we got behind the boys. But we blindly without a wimper fell two leagues in two seasons