ARCHIVE: The Rise & Fall of Sasa Curcic & The Blind Alley Dribble
The weeks before the signing of Sasa Curcic were clouded in mystery, all the club would tell us was that they were watching a Yugoslavian midfielder. This being typical of the Whites. Everybody else who was in Yugoslavia at the time were looking out for Yugoslavian minefields!
The player I had in mind was called Jugovic, who eventually ended up at Juventus. Then the story broke. It was Sasa Curcic, with his rather large nasal projectile and his thinning hair it was conceivable he could have been the love child of Dusan Nikolic.
Sasa’s first game was Arsenal, at Burnden, a night game which was featured live on Sky and also happened to be the return of Bruce Rioch. The cup tie atmosphere ensured a memorable night for the Whites and a good debut for Curcic. He appeared on TV telling everyone how pleased he was to be playing for Bolton and how we were a good team! Well if you had been holed up in a bunker in the middle of a bloody Balkan civil war, well even Wigan would have looked like Las Vegas. But still we took Sasa to our hearts and heaped on him God-like status.
The months that followed were lit up on numerous occasions with glimpses of Sasa’s brilliance, not only did he become the first Bolton player for many a year to get on the ‘Goal of the Month’ short list but he did it twice, both these goals coming against Chelsea. There was no doubt that Sasa would quite easily run his way through some of the best defences in the league, but unfortunately it didn’t stop there. He usually ran straight into the Burnden ditch with the ball when a simple pass to a better placed team-mate could have meant a better result.
“He played the ‘I love this club and town’ card and we swallowed it, lock, stock and barrel.”
At the time Sasa was seen as the only one who wanted to save us from the drop. So why when he ran on for the Villa at the Reebok just recently, did he receive a welcome only the Filth would expect? He made one fatal mistake, he let us all believe that he believed in our club, he played the ‘I love this club and town’ card and we swallowed it, lock, stock and barrel. Sasa for all his goodwill and his kissing of the badge with pride, at the first chance he shot through off to the Villa to be with his mate Savo. Todd took the rap from the Bolton fans, at the time when we needed someone to blame, when the first people we should have looked at were ourselves for believing that some big-nosed Serbian tosspot could feel the same way we feel about our club.
Sasa’s comments that his big mistake had been leaving Bolton, was typical of the man, he was out of the team at Villa and Bolton were walking away with the First Division. Well as you can see Sasa, it didn’t work we had fell for that once and wouldn’t fall for it again. I don’t think there’s anywhere for Sasa to go now, Villa want big money for him only if it’s to pay what they still owe us on the deal and his inability to pass to his team-mates will surely only give him a bit part in the Villa set-up.
It seems a bit sad really for a man who could have had it all at Bolton, the Reebok could have been his to dribble away in until his hearts content. But he blew it big style. As for the blonde hair Sasa, well on this particular occasion blonde’s definitely don’t have more fun. Altogether now “there’s only one greedy bastard, one greedy bastard, there’s only one greedy bastard!!”
First appeared in White Love Issue 18, October 1998.