Andy Hunt

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Andy Hunt
Personnel
Surname Andrew Hunt
birthday June 9, 1970
place of birth Thurrock ,  England
size 183 cm
position striker
Juniors
Years station
1982-1988 King's Lynn FC
1988-1989 Kettering Town
Men's
Years station Games (goals) 1
1989-1991 Kettering Town 24 0(6)
1991-1992 Newcastle United 43 (11)
1992-1998 West Bromwich Albion 212 (76)
1998-2001 Charlton Athletic 86 (35)
1 Only league games are given.

Andrew "Andy" Hunt (born June 9, 1970 in Thurrock ) is a former English soccer player whose playing career was ended by chronic fatigue syndrome .

Club career

The early years

Hunt began his career as a youth at King's Lynn FC in Norfolk, England . In 1988 he moved to Kettering Town in the Conference National , for which he made his debut in the first team in the 1989/90 season.

After 6 goals in 24 games, he aroused the interest of the then Newcastle United manager Jim Smith , who subsequently signed him for three years. The early 90s are still considered a particularly dark era for Newcastle fans today. The Magpies bobbed around in the lowlands of the English second division and had great difficulty avoiding the annually threatening descent into insignificance. During this time, Hunt became a kind of "glimmer of hope". In the first year under Smith still a supplementary player, he made his breakthrough after changing coach to Osvaldo Ardiles in the 1991/92 season. Due to the offensive weakness of his team, he was practically the sole entertainer in the storm and made people sit up and take notice with 9 goals this season. Since the rest of the team could not convince in any way, they played again for a long time against relegation, which they could only narrowly prevent with rank 20 in the table. As a result, Ardiles had to leave and was replaced by Newcastle legend Kevin Keegan . He changed the game system to a striker, favoring the up-and-coming talent Andy Cole previously brought from Bristol City . Hunt, who had also been injured in preparation for the season, saw the chance of a regular place increasingly dwindling, as Newcastle suddenly played big under Keegen and was already at the top of the table at the beginning of the season.

Successful time at WBA

Thereupon Newcastle awarded him, at the beginning with the idea of ​​giving the player back game practice, for the second half of the third division at West Bromwich Albion. Hunt hit it like a bomb. Under his former Newcastle coach and biggest sponsor Osvaldo Ardiles, he didn't need any start-up time and immediately fought for a regular place. With 9 goals in 10 games, he shot the former middle class in play-offs for Division One, in which he once again surpassed himself. In the final against Port Vale , he then shot 2 of the 3 West Brom. Goals to the 3-0 victory, which secured promotion to Division One. Due to the simultaneous promotion of Newcastle to the Premier League and the accompanying commitment of star striker Peter Beardsley , Hunt was allowed to move permanently to West Bromwich. Half a decade followed in the service of WBA, in which he formed one of the most dangerous storm duos in the league at the side of his congenial strike partner Bob Taylor . Together they scored 125 goals in five years, which kept the Baggies in the league. Hunt and Taylor were absolute fan favorites and remained loyal to the club until the 1998/99 season despite various offers from higher-class clubs. In 1998, WBA ran into financial problems and was forced to sell its star strikers. Hunt moved to the Premier League for Charlton Athletic .

Premier League with Charlton Athletic

With the Londoners, who had only just been promoted back to the Premier League after 10 years in the second division , he was the only notable commitment in the summer transition period alongside old star John Barnes . In contrast to Barnes, who disappointed across the board and only let his career end at Charlton, Hunt was also able to convince a division higher. Despite an extremely defensive style of play, he scored 7 goals in 34 appearances this season, making him the second best scorer in his team. After the Swede Martin Pringle was signed from Benfica Lisbon during the winter break , he found another strike partner with whom he harmonized well. Nevertheless, the team was relegated from the Premier League at the end of the season.

Second class again, there was an explosion in performance. Hunt had his best season to date, becoming the league's top scorer with 24 goals, often prepared by Pringle. In the end, Charlton celebrated the championship title in the First Division and the associated immediate promotion. In a later interview, Hunt named Martin Pringle as his best teammate, despite his strong years alongside Bob Taylor.

The 2000/01 season began for Hunt as the previous one ended. Hunt played superbly, scoring 4 goals in the first 8 games of the season. At the peak of his performance, he was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome (CES), which forced him to end his career immediately.

In 2003 he tried a comeback at Charlton. He had trained with the team for over a month and completed 3 Reserve League appearances. Even so, Charlton manager Alan Curbishley decided not to sign him anymore due to his illness.

“This is a particularly difficult decision for me as Andy has been instrumental in our success over the past few years. Despite his long absence from professional football, he has found his way back to the team. In today's world, however, you need a very high level of fitness in professional football, which it can no longer achieve. But I wish Andy every success in the future with what he decides to do - and he knows he will always be a welcome guest at Charlton. "

Hunt was the crowd favorite at all 3 professional stations. At WBA, he is considered one of the best strikers the club has ever signed.

National team

Since Hunt was not considered in the English national team , he contacted the ÖFB through his agent before the 1998 World Cup . Because of his Austrian grandmother, naturalization would have been possible. Some media took up the topic and let his name haunt Austria for weeks . Since the then team boss Herbert Prohaska had three strikers of international stature in his squad with Ivica Vastić , Mario Haas and Toni Polster , he did not pay much attention to Hunt.

In 2000 his name reappeared in the Austrian media. Hunt, meanwhile Premier League player and reigning top scorer in the First Division , had aroused the interest of the newly appointed team boss Otto Barić , who had an acute striker problem due to some resigned offensive forces. Barić had him observed several times in London and campaigned for naturalization. However, due to the sudden end of Hunt's career in the spring of 2001, any naturalization was shelved prematurely.

Despite his above-average goal scoring over a period of 10 years, Hunt never made an international match for England or Austria during his career .

After the active career

After the end of his career, Hunt emigrated to South America in the Caribbean state of Belize with his wife Simone Angel , a former MTV presenter and singer, and his two sons Lucas and Aiden . There the family runs an agency for adventure travel and a hotel.

successes

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Joke sparked Robbie Elliott Chicken Dance
  2. ↑ Student Iain Bate interviews 'Super Bob'
  3. ^ Charlton bounce back in style
  4. ↑ Interview with Andy Hunt ( Memento of the original from December 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.addickted.net
  5. ^ The gossip column
  6. ^ Charlton let Hunt go
  7. ↑ Hunt denied return chance
  8. ^ Otto Baric having sent scouts to watch Andy
  9. ↑ Belize Jungle Dome - Adventure Tours and Vacations
personal data
SURNAME Hunt, Andy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hunt, Andrew
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH June 9, 1970
PLACE OF BIRTH Thurrock