235: John Oster, Everton, Merlin’s Premier League 98 Official Sticker Collection

Today Rich Allinson takes a look at the career of a man who ticks so many boxes for us here at A Sticker’s Worth 500 Words it’s almost silly. Played for Grimsby Town? Yep. Played for Reading? Yep. Played for Crystal Palace? Yep. A little bit Welsh? Yep. Excellent 90s hair? Yep. I promise you we haven’t made this man up. Over to Rich.

With the eventual outcome being relegation, you would think that the 1996/97 season for Grimsby Town would be one to forget. However, it is strangely a time that I look back on with a lot of fondness.

 

Buoyed by England’s glorious failure at Euro ‘96, pretty much every fan of every club went into the season thinking that this year would be ‘the one’ and singing their own iteration of Three Lions. We had just secured a club record signing of Tommy Widdrington from Southampton (presumably paid for largely by the money I spent on calling the club hotline on transfer deadline day) and Lotto had made us a snazzy Juventus rip off kit - things were looking up. However, Grimsby Town being Grimsby Town managed to absolutely stomp all over this optimism on day one of the season. Even now I can remember wondering why Brian Laws had picked himself at right back and I still have vivid recollections of Steve Bull absolutely destroying him as we lost 3-1 to Wolverhampton Wanderers.

 

Anyway, this abysmal capitulation and many similar performances saw a lot of changes both in the dugout and on the pitch. Now personally, I bloody loathe the “he’s one of our own” terrace song that seems to have infected Football League clubs across the country, it is unimaginative drivel that belongs in the same bin as the bizarre rhetorical question of “we’re all <insert name here> aren’t we?” However, seeing a talent emerge through the youth system to actually hold down a place in the first team is a momentous thing. It is almost like “hey, we’re not that shit after all, look, we developed this guy!” In 1996 the next in line off the ‘one of our own’ conveyor belt was the Welshman from Boston - John ‘the Baby Faced Apprentice’ Oster.

As I say, the 1996/97 season was actually quite memorable for a lot of weird reasons. Losing 4-2 to Sheffield United was a lot of fun, even now I remember that the atmosphere at Blundell Park was one of the best I have experienced. We got absolutely ripped to pieces by Manchester City at Maine Road but we had a right good sing song of “we’re going down, we’re going down, Grimsby’s going down” whilst locked in the ground after the game. And we drew 1-1 away at Wolves. This was mainly memorable for some Black Country Bellend calling 606 afterwards for the sole reason of saying “Grimsby are a very poor side.” This was met with an indignant “if we’re that bloody bad how come you couldn’t beat us? Idiot...” by my dearest father followed shortly by silence from the car stereo. The main highlight of the season though was John Oster.

 

When he broke into the team as a 17 year old it was just pure excitement. He played on the wing, had a few tricks up his sleeve, was a little bit Welsh and had a floppy fringe. He was Ryan Giggs! All joking apart though, Oster was a spark in what would have been a pretty miserable season on the pitch for Town. People that are aware of his post Everton career will probably wonder what I am on about here, but he was an incredibly naturally gifted player. I did a post on Ritchie Humphreys setting out how he tore Grimsby apart during a 7-1 FA Cup demolition by Sheffield Wednesday, however, it was Oster’s solitary reply for the Mariners that showed the true raw skill that day when he lobbed the Wednesday keeper from the edge of the box.

 

It was natural after all the hype that Oster would move on and Town fans never really expected him to stay, after all we are a club that needs to cash in on our best players to survive. However, personally I think he moved on too quickly and that was his downfall. A promotion and cup-winning season in Division 2 under the legendary Alan Buckley followed for Town and Oster would have benefited massively from this experience in my opinion. However, the Premier League came calling and, understandably, off he went.

 

Post Grimsby, his career became nomadic. He gave it a good go at Everton but after a couple of seasons he was moved on to Sunderland. Whilst in the North East, Oster bizarrely shot one of his team mates in the eye with an air rifle which resulted in an out of court settlement. According to Oster this was an accident and not some kind of Joey Bartonesque act of dickheadery: ”The air rifle was just a freak incident. We were larking about in my flat on a Sunday morning and I thought the safety catch was on when I pointed it at him. It went off and it hit him in the eye. It was strange to say the least, because it didn't fire straight at the best of times.”

 

Oster returned to the Mariners on loan from Sunderland in the 2002/03 season where he was once again exceptional. He scored five goals in ten games and I have particularly fond memories of his display against Norwich City where he was just brilliant. However, his subsequent move to Leeds United didn’t work out so well. Not long after joining Leeds on loan from Sunderland, Oster received a police caution for assaulting someone outside a nightclub. He then had his loan terminated for gross misconduct after an incident at the Leeds United Christmas Party. Being sacked by a club that tolerated Lee Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate’s behaviour... Nice one. Oster’s career then carried on the footballing merry go round taking in the obligatory stop off for a few months at Crystal Palace on his tour as well as lengthy spells at Reading, Doncaster Rovers and Gateshead where he drew his playing days to a close in 2015.

 

Overall, a career of 487 professional games (a fair number of which were in the Premier League) and 13 international caps is good going and it is one to be proud of. That being said, I have always just thought “what if?” with John Oster. He was a very, very talented youngster who with a bit better guidance could have potentially gone on to much better things.

 

Still, at least Grimsby Town didn’t get carried away when selling a local teenage lad to a bigger club. I mean, imagine the embarrassment if we had made a crass gesture like retiring the squad number of someone who had played a handful of games...