Harry Redknapp has signed hundreds of players across nearly 35 years in management. Some have been good and others not so, but there is one who stands out as the all-time worst signing. That man is Marco Boogers, who had a very short, but incredibly memorable, stint at West Ham in the 1990s.
The striker spent his entire career in his native Netherlands except for a few months in east London. Redknapp was West Ham's manager when he watched some videos of Boogers in the Eredivisie before signing him for around £850,000 from Sparta Rotterdam in 1995. Had 'Arry watched Boogers in the flesh, he might have saved his pennies rather than splashing out.
“I could have gone to Napoli or Everton, and Borussia Dortmund wanted me as well,” the player said after arriving at the club. “But suddenly West Ham came in. That was a beautiful club to me, with the famous colours alone.
So I chose West Ham.” Boogers ended up having one of the most memorable debuts in Premier League history, starting with a crunching tackle on Gary Neville. Manchester United star Neville was only 20 years old, in what was set to be his first campaign as a starter, but Boogers, not long off the bench, sent the youngster flying, getting a red card just moments into his second appearance in the English game.
Boogers insisted that he slipped on the wet grass but TV replays suggest otherwise, as he wiped the right-back out at full pelt and sparked a melee with the United squad. It led to back pages with the words 'HORROR TACKLE' and it's unsurprising. Recalling what happened, Redknapp told talkSPORT: “I had the flu and I was at home.
I had a call from the boys that worked for me at West Ham. “They said ‘Harry, we’ve just seen someone come in here with a video of a striker playing in Holland’. “We didn’t have a lot of money to spend at the time and he looked more than useful.
“I had a look at the video and said ‘yeah, he does look useful’. It was unbelievable the goals he was scoring in these clips. “We ended up signing him for £750,000.
He came in and played his first game at Old Trafford and he booted Gary Neville. That was the only good thing he did in his time at the club. “Other than that there was nothing good.
He lumped Gary and got sent off, he’d only been on the field five minutes. “Came off the bench as a sub and booted Gary. “Apparently he went off and lived in a mobile caravan and towed it around.
He disappeared and never saw him again. I’m still looking for him! “He’s still under contract at West Ham and that was 30 years ago.” It became folklore at West Ham but there was no truth behind it, all stemming from miscommunication.
Bill Prosser, the club's PA announcer has cleared up the matter since, saying: "West Ham's Clubcall reporter phoned me and said he was trying to find Boogers for an interview but could not reach him. "He asked if I had booked any flights for him. I told him I hadn't, but added: 'If he has gone back to Holland, he's probably gone by car again'.
"The reporter misheard me and stated on Clubcall that I had said 'If he's gone back to Holland, he's probably gone to his caravan'." Boogers would return to West Ham, though with little success after two more cameos from the bench in heavy defeats to Aston Villa and Blackburn. A knee injury and his son's birth saw him be allowed to return to the Netherlands yet again over December and January and by February he had left the club after Redknapp lost his patience and signed Iain Dowie as a replacement.
“It seems that every player who can tie his own bootlaces is worth £1million. I’ve got one who can’t even do that,” he said as he tried to get rid of the striker. “He’s coming back on Tuesday but I wouldn’t put money on him still being here Wednesday.
"He doesn’t like the way we train and he doesn’t like being tackled in training. Now I can only hope to sell him back to a club in Holland." Redknapp would eventually get his wish, loaning him to Dutch side Groningen before he moved to RKC Waalwijk on a permanent basis in the summer.
Boogers would play out his career fairly quietly in the Dutch lower leagues before becoming a technical director at FC Dordecht, but Redknapp's disappointment would not subside. “He booted @GNev2 on his debut and got sent off. Then he went off in a campervan!” “I’m still looking for him after 30 years!” 🚐 Harry Redknapp shares the crazy story of his worst ever signing - Marco Boogers.
🤣 pic.twitter.com/9u3ET8PVPx.
