In a time when we seem to value pace and athleticism ahead of ability at times, it’s nice to think back to footballers who didn’t rely on speed, strength or the odd trick here and there. It’s nice to remember a player who had a bit of craft on the ball and could always be relied on to find a team mate, however difficult the pass might look. Scott Sellars was one such player.
Sellars was well established as a player when he signed for Newcastle. He’d made close to 300 appearances for Leeds and Blackburn when he joined us for £600,000 in 1993, making him available for the final 13 games of the season as we pushed for promotion to the Premiership.
In a way Sellars, a left sided midfielder, was a typical Kevin Keegan signing. KK could see that this was a player who could undoubtedly land the ball on a sixpence, but also that he was perhaps a little under appreciated too. Those famous man management skills might just work wonders. With a wand of a left foot, Sellars struck a sweet dead ball, something we would find out in the most glorious of circumstances not long after he signed.
Sellars only scored 8 goals for Newcastle in 75 appearances across just over 2 seasons. However, one of them would go down in the folklore of the club. Not only did this goal pretty much tie up promotion, but it was the winner in the derby of 1993.
The conditions made the goal all the more beautiful. It was ‘hoying it doon’ that day and conditions made it difficult to keep your feet on a heavily waterlogged pitch. Newcastle had won a free kick just to the left of centre outside the D of the box. Sellars, Rob Lee, Paul Bracewell and Barry Venison were in discussion about what would happen before Venners moved away. Rob Lee made the dummy run over the ball and Bracewell – who’d been shielding the ball – moved before Sellars strode forward and curled a beauty over the right hand side of the wall and in at the far post, completely wrong-footing the mackem keeper, Tony Norman. I was there that day, soaked to the skin like everybody else, but the joy was unfounded on the terraces. What a goal!
Sellars would go on to help settle Keegan’s young side as they went into the Premier League. His experience was a help, but his quality was invaluable as we not only settled in, but climbed the table and challenged the best that the league had to offer. Newly promoted Newcastle would finish 3rd that season with Scott making 35 appearances in all, scoring 4 goals and contributing a fantastic 11 assists for the likes of Andy Cole and Peter Beardsley.
Injury would hamper Scott’s progress in the following season and he only made 19 appearances, scoring just the one goal. And it was a terrible cartilage injury that would help signal the end for him, coupled with the signing of David Ginola in July 1995. By December of that year Sellars was on his way to Bolton Wanderers for a fee of £750,000.
Scott established himself as one of Bolton’s stars, making 106 appearances over 4 seasons and contributing 15 goals and numerous assists. After Bolton he joined Huddersfield for a couple of years before winding down his playing career at Danish club AGF Aarhus and then Mansfield Town.
After retiring from playing, Scott carved out a successful career in coaching with the likes of Chesterfield and Manchester City before moving on to become the Head of Academy coaching and then Technical Director at Wolves. Nowadays he can be found as the Sporting Director at Al-Jazira in the UAE.
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