I think the Bogarde detractors should read his autobiography "This Black Man Bows for Nobody" - if you want an insight into his post-Ajax career.

As I say he was a very good, solid back with pace to burn and an ability to get forward very quickly. That aside I think as a broad generalization many white people still have a problem with black men who are as uncompromising in their attitudes and beliefs as he was/is.

**

"And I'm afraid Winston Bogarde is Dirk Kuyt to me, a player who got seriously found out once he left the familiar confines of the Ajax set up."

Dirk Kuyt never played for Ajax.

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That aside I think as a broad generalization many white people still have a problem with black men who are as uncompromising in their attitudes and beliefs as he was/is.

So....making the perfect valid and pretty common assertion that Winston Bogarde was a good for nothing as a player is not only wrong in your eyes, it also verges into the realms of racism ????

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"And I'm afraid Winston Bogarde is Dirk Kuyt to me, a player who got seriously found out once he left the familiar confines of the Ajax set up."

Dirk Kuyt never played for Ajax.

I know he didn't, I never said he did but I think it was quite clear what parallels I was drawing between them.

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That aside I think as a broad generalization many white people still have a problem with black men who are as uncompromising in their attitudes and beliefs as he was/is.

We've done this before – it was bollocks then and is now. Do better.

Have we done this before ? If so I'm glad I missed it.

It's hard to think of Bogarde as the uncompromising figure this book seems to suggest. He seemed perfectly supine when it came to sitting on his arse and picking up his wages while not showing a jot of professional pride in wanting to play and try to justify his pay.

I don't know why it should be, but on the basis of Bryan and the Purple Cow, two posters who often say interesting things on the football forum, Ajax fans are among the most blinkered in Europe.

Among many other things, that Overmars/Larsson comparison back there was utterly laughable, suggesting that racism is behind the criticism of Winston Bogarde is nothing short of contemptible, and don't forget the continued insistence that Shota Arveladze was some sort of unparalleled footballing genius.

It's weird.

Who let all the straw men out of the barn. I don't remember comparing Overmars to Larsson. All I said was that Larsson didn't play all the time for Barcelona. But that didn't make him a flop.

As for Shota Arveladze, he is a football genius, but not unparalleled.

This was a thread about Jari Litmanen until somebody decided to say, out of the blue, that all the 1995 generation Ajax players who ever played at Barcelona, bar one, were a "flop". That's a pretty outrageous statement when you consider that Frank de Boer and Patrick Kluivert have over 300 Barcelona appearances between them.

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He seemed perfectly supine when it came to sitting on his arse and picking up his wages while not showing a jot of professional pride in wanting to play and try to justify his pay.

Chelsea gave him a four year contract worth 40 grand a week, nobody forced them to pay him money, they chose to do so. Then they didn't pick him. He still came to training every week and honoured his contract to the letter. Then they tried to see if they could piss him off into leaving by making him train with the youths or the reserves. Yet he still came to every training session and took part in every reserve match. He was an exemplary professional. Chelsea were an organisational shambles, but that's their problem, not Bogarde's.

I didn't say you'd compared Larsson and Overmars as players; I meant that your argument surrounding those two was laughable.

For a start, you completely backtracked from your original assertion that Overmars established himself as a first team player at Barca when shown the stats showing he did no such thing, and instead suggested that if Overmars was considered a flop then Larsson must be too.

Larsson was signed as a 33 year old on a free transfer to augment the starting strikeforce of Eto'o and Ronaldinho. It was never on the cards that he'd be starting 40 games a season for them - that's not what he was signed for. As it was, he had a significant impact, not least when he set up two goals in the European Cup final.

Are you seriously suggesting that Barcelona paid £25 million on a 27 year old player to play a similar bit part role? And are you seriously suggesting he did anything even close in achievement to setting up two goals in the European Cup final?

Like I say, the argument was laughable, and I can only really explain it by reference to your Ajax-tinted spectacles.

Chelsea gave him a four year contract worth 40 grand a week, nobody forced them to pay him money, they chose to do so. Then they didn't pick him. He still came to training every week and honoured his contract to the letter.

If chelsea wanted to get rid of him they should have apid up his contract, but they didn't want to. Leeds had to do this even after they were in administration. but chelsea tried to PR him out of the rest of his money.

If I recall correctly ken bates wasn't very nice about this. on an entirely unrelated matter, Didn't bogarde refer to curious situations whereby implausibly attractive women would try and get him to take cocaine, but he refused because he didn't want The fate that befell Mark Bosnich, and would soon engulf adrian mutu to claim him as well.

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Are you seriously suggesting that Barcelona paid £25 million on a 27 year old player to play a similar bit part role? And are you seriously suggesting he did anything even close in achievement to setting up two goals in the European Cup final?

Like I say, the argument was laughable, and I can only really explain it by reference to your Ajax-tinted spectacles.

I admit that I overestimated the number of appearances that Marc Overmars made for Barcelona. Barcelona paid a lot of money for a player who had had two serious knee injuries, so it was always going to be a gamble, just as Man Utd shelled out all that money on Ruud van Nistelrooy. In Man Utd's case it paid off, in Barcelona's case it didn't with Marc Overmars. But to say he flopped implies that he wasn't up to the task. When he was fit he was a decent enough player for them. Sure, maybe they signed him with the hope that he'd always be fit, but it didn't turn out that way. That's not a flop, that's bad luck. My definition of a flop is Jon Dahl Tomasson at Newcastle. (edit: or better yet, Sergei Rebrov at Spurs).

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Like I say, the argument was laughable, and I can only really explain it by reference to your Ajax-tinted spectacles.

If you read what I'm saying you'll note that I admit that Kluivert and Bogarde weren't top class players.

It's the statement below that I can't agree with, and I don't think it has anything to do with Ajax spectacles. Perhaps you could spend as much time debasing it as you have my overestimation of Marc Overmars' number of league starts at Barcelona.

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Six of them ended up at Barcelona at various times afterwards. All flopped, with the arguable exception of Reiziger.

I mean, come on.

Trying to suggest that the whole Chelsea escapade was the club's fault and not Bogarde's is laughable.

Yes, they were stupid enough to give him a big contract when he had been a lumbering disaster area for half a decade. They still did it with good intentions though, expecting what was after all a senior player to participate, to want to play, to show he had the slightest degree of professional pride to want to get into the first team and play a part.

But he didn't. His performances were half arsed and shambolic, he was dropped and he openly stated in a newspaper article here that he didn't care, he was happy to sit out his contract and do the minimum he had to do.

An absolute disgrace and one of those situations you do feel sorry for the clubs. The only directly comparable example I can think of was Marco Negri at Rangers, at least they got some goals out of him first.

Yeah, we all feel sorry for poor Chelsea.

He only stated in the paper that he was going to sit out his contract after they had tried to get rid of him by using a multitude of dirty tricks and workplace intimidation.

If Chelsea didn't want him then they shouldn't have signed him in the first place. It's 100% their own fault.

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He (Bogarde)was an exemplary professional. Chelsea were an organisational shambles,

This is a contender for one of the most skewed post in the history of OTF by the way. I'm not sure if it is slightly better or slightly worse than 'Winston Boarde is a very good player'.

If you can give me an example of Winston Bogarde acting unprofessionally at Chelsea then I'll retract it.

it's not as ridiculous as your comparison of bogarde to kuyt.

the thing that gave me most hope when liverpool signed kuyt was that the feyenoord fans were clearly disappointed to see him go. you don't become such a hero to supporters without doing something right. when kuyt warmed up on the touchline during liverpool's pre-season friendly at feyenoord the whole place was cheering him. what a bunch of weirdos they are, on reflection.

He (Bogarde)was an exemplary professional. Chelsea were an organisational shambles,


Well he was. He turned up for training every day, and never did anything that could have been remotely considered wrong or a breach of his contract (because Chelsea definitely were checking and would have sacked him if they could)

Chelsea offered him a contract. they tried to convince him to tear it up and leave without paying him off. I can't think of a single footballer that would accept that. When he didn't just tear up his contract he was slaughtered for it.

Chelsea had no interest in playing him and were hoping to ostracise him out of the club. His attitude was "fuck you, I'll turn up to training every day and be available for selection, now fucking pay me what you owe me." Even when leeds were completely fucked they had to honour the full value of their players contracts, even when they moved to other clubs. Why should chelsea have been any different.

But to say he flopped implies that he wasn't up to the task. When he was fit he was a decent enough player for them.

he was poor for arsenal in his final year there. He was a pale shadow of the player he was during his first two seasons. he really was entirely the wrong person to spend £25 million on.

A top-class black defender who doesn't take any shit from (white) bigots? I'd agree with that.

Wait a minute, we are discussing Lilian Thuram here, right?