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In the summer of 1992 there were two highly-rated strikers who were much
coveted by the managers of London rivals Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur.
In order to ensure that neither club missed out, the two respective
club chairmen struck a deal whereby Chelsea agreed not to bid for
Nottingham Forest's Teddy Sheringham if Spurs agreed to leave the way
open for the Blues to capture Norwich City's Robert Fleck. With
hindsight, and despite the fact that Sheringham's antics over a number
of seasons have made him a much-loathed figure amongst the Chelsea
faithful, even the most ardent Blues fan would have to admit that
Tottenham for once got the better of the Stamford Bridge club when that
deal was concluded. Ian Porterfield paid a club record £2.1m to take
Fleck to SW6 in the hope that he would supply the goals to rocket
Chelsea into the title reckoning, but the truth was that the little Scot
had never been a prolific goalscorer, a fact that was never better
illustrated than on his Chelsea debut, when he missed a host of chances
in a 1-1 draw with Oldham.
A tidy, intelligent player, he formed a
useful early partnership with another new recruit, Mick Harford, in the
early weeks of the season, but despite opening his Chelsea account with a
close-range strike in a 3-1 win at Aston Villa, he struggled terribly
to find his touch and composure in front of goal, and found the net only
once more - the winning goal at Everton - in the league that season.
His only other goal of the campaign was a penalty against Walsall in the
League Cup. Porterfield's patience with Fleck ran out early in the New
Year and it wasn't until David Webb replaced Porterfield for a brief
spell at the end of the campaign that the little Scot returned. However,
it was a brief renaissance of four games before he found himself behind
John Spencer, Neil Shipperley and, for half an hour at least, Steve
Livingstone in the pecking order.
The arrival of new manager Glenn
Hoddle in time for the following season did nothing to alter Robert's
fortunes. Given early opportunities to shine, Fleck continued to exhibit
all the characteristics of a player whose confidence had evaporated so
fully that it had become clear that he faced an uphill task simply to
resurrect his career. Dropped after two starts, it wasn't until the
final matches of the season, as Hoddle rested players with the
forthcoming FA Cup Final in mind, that Robert was given any further
consecutive appearances in the starting line-up. Four successive games
yielded one goal, in a draw at Manchester City, but Fleck was not
included in the squad for the Wembley defeat at the hands of Manchester
United. Robert remained a Chelsea player for a further 16 months but
never again featured in the first-team.
A loan spell at Bristol City
preceded a similar term back at Norwich who then, in September 1995,
paid the Blues £650,000 to make the move permanent. Sadly, though, the
Chelsea experience proved catastrophic to the career of a striker who
had represented his country in the 1990 World Cup, and little more than
three years after leaving Stamford Bridge he was plying his trade with
little known Norfolk club Gorleston. (Kelvin Barker)
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