The Roland Harris Column

Saturday 22 September, 2001

Bring Mills back

You show me a striker who is good in the air, can do a bit on the ground and has an eye for goal and I'll point you towards the bank to try get a loan of a couple of million.

These guys are at a premium. Alan Shearer is your prime example. Everyone knows he is past it, but even past it he is still touted about at £10m whenever Villa call by. Basically if your going to do well, you need a guy like that.

Ashley Ward is vaguely but not really. He can do the job, but you never see him relish it in the same way that they say Bobby Campbell did, that I know Sean McCarthey did and that I saw Lee Mills do.

Millsy seemed to love being the battering ram during City's promotion campaign. He liked nothing more than getting his head in where it hurt and making sure the Bantams came away with the ball. History seems to want to record Robbie Blake as the striker that fired City up, but he did not end the season with a quarter century of goals. Lee Mills did.

So Lee Mills had his problems. Firstly he had fessed up to drinking, not the first footballer to do that and Tony Adams went onto lead England afterwards. Secondly he fell out with Paul Jewell. Well that hardly puts him on an exclusive list does it. Every player and his dog seemed to not see eye to eye with City's promotion manager. Thirdly Millsy had trouble with a bunch of boo-boy who sit near me in the Ciba Stand.

Now I must choose my words carefully hear. Frankly they are a bunch of fly by night tossers who would not know a good footballer if they saw one and never will see one because they keep their heads up their arses. Mils never deserved the criticism he got from the Ciba stand section and I cheered and applauded him the time he gave them a two fingered salute.

Most of the comments leveled at Mills were being fired as Ashley Ward a season later. Basically the problem was not Mills, it was the squad and the Premiership and all that jazz.

So after two games where City showed they were crying out for proper cover and competition up front the news comes that Lee Mills is on the transfer list at Portsmouth. The are sick of the £1.35m striker and want rid.

I would bite their hands off.

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