Sport
Premier League cult hero: Andrei Kanchelskis
In the first of our new Premier League cult hero series, we’ll be looking at former Manchester United, Everton, Manchester City and Southampton winger Andrei Kanchelskis, who played a big part in Sir Alex Ferguson’s early success with United in the mid-90s.
Name: Andrei Kanchelskis
Date of birth: 23rd January 1969
Place of birth: Kirovohrad, Ukraine
Nationality: Russian
Position: Right wing
Clubs: Dynamo Kiev (1988-90), Shakhtar Donetsk (1990-91), Manchester United (1991-95), Everton (1995-97), Fiorentina (1997-98), Rangers (1998-2002), Manchester City (2001, loan), Southampton (2002-03), Al Hilal (2003), Saturn Moscow Oblast (2004-05), Krylia Sovetov (2006)
Honours: Premier League (x2), FA Cup, League Cup, Charity Shield (x2), European Super Cup, Scottish Premier League (x2), Scottish Cup (x3), Scottish League Cup
Who signed him? Desperate for a skilful right winger to take Manchester United into the Premier League era, Sir Alex Ferguson spent £650,000 to bring Andrei Kanchelskis to Old Trafford in 1991.
Four years later he would depart for Goodison Park where Joe Royle paid £5,000,000 for him, making him Everton’s biggest ever signing at the time.
Best moment: There were plenty of highlights during his time Manchester United but one of his most memorable performances came on the 18th November 1995 in his stint with Everton. Andrei Kanchelskis wrote his name into Evertonian folklore by scoring both goals in Everton’s 2-1 win over hated rivals Liverpool at Anfield.
The Russian would go on to score Everton’s only goal in the away leg a few months later as well, which finished 1-1. The two games marked the third and fourth contests in a nine game unbeaten run in the fixture for The Toffees, how they must long for such heady times now.
Worst moment: The departure of Andrei Kanchelskis from Manchester United was, to say the least, acrimonious. In fact if the rumoured events are accurate, it was a story that could quite easily be turned into a film.
The agent of Kanchelskis, Grigori Yesaulenko, had close links with Rune Hauge, another agent who had been involved with the George Graham bung scandal of 1995.
As The Russian was busy making himself a cult hero at United, his agent was setting in motion a series of events that would lead to his departure for Everton. It was a chain of events that began with Yesaulenko presenting Sir Alex Ferguson with a shoebox full of money and would end in tragedy as Shakhthar Donetsk president Aleksandr Bragin, whose club were owed a sell on fee for Kanchelskis, and five of his bodyguards were killed by a bomb exploding at their ground during a game.
The story needs to be read in full to be believed and, although there is no suggestion that Andrei Kanchelskis had any knowledge or role in what transpired, his involvement with such shady characters was probably his career lowlight.
Fun fact: Andrei Kancheskis is the only player to have scored in the Manchester, Merseyside and Glasgow derbies. In November ’94 he netted a hat-trick for Manchester United against Manchester city, as they crushed their city rivals 5-0.
Then, as mentioned, a year later he put Liverpool to the sword at Anfield having joined Everton.
However, Andrei Kanchelskis rated his goal against Celtic for Rangers as his favourite. He said: “The Glasgow Derby was one of the loudest matches I’ve ever played in. It was very intimidating so it was brilliant to score. I remember all of my goals but that one against Celtic was very special.”
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