159: Andrea Silenzi, Nottingham Forest, 1996 Pro Match Soccer

Football fans are often creative souls and this is most evident in the terrace songs which provide the soundtrack to the beautiful game. Fans of Crystal Palace, Reading and Leyton Orient all helped swell the coffers of KC and the Sunshine Band by fitting wing wizard Jobi McAnuff’s name to one of their biggest hits. Up at Newcastle United there was similar genius on show with the Toon Army mixing a Senegalese defender with a classic TV show theme to create “Sunday, Monday…Habib Beye!” Not content with this a fansite popped up shortly afterwards with the exceptional name ‘Beyewatch’.

Once the singing’s done though there’s always time for a great nickname. After a few too many high profile mistakes back in the 90s, understandably considering the Tomb Raider induced-insomnia he was suffering, Liverpool goalkeeper David James became known as Calamity James. Former Palace and Wigan Athletic defender Fitz Hall picked up the exceptional sobriquet ‘One Size’ simply by having a name that worked so well with it (see also Brian ‘Choccy’ McClair). At Nottingham Forest Stuart ‘Psycho’ Pearce earned his moniker by being mildly terrifying. In 1996 he was to be joined by another footballer better known in his homeland by a nickname than his actual one. Sadly for ‘Psycho’ it wasn’t to be ‘Il Divino Codino’ but his one time Italian forward partner, Andrea ‘Pennellone’ Silenzi.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Italian language ‘Pennellone’ translates roughly as ‘Big Brush’. This would have been arguably more fitting if Silenzi had been a sweeper (sorry) but was more based on his physical appearance than his footballing ability. At 6’ 3” Silenzi was a towering centre forward with a flowing mane worthy of the greatest hair metal bands or Croatia’s 2018 World Cup squad. After a slow start to his career he began banging in the goals for Reggiana and soon found himself at reigning Serie A champions Napoli alongside supremely talented shithouse Diego Maradona. Despite two goals in a 5-1 thrashing of Juventus in the Supercoppa Italia he managed only six league goals across two seasons and found himself shifted on to Torino in 1992. Although goal shy in the league his vital goals in the Coppa Italia final against Roma helped the Turin side to victory and set him up for an impressive 1993/94 campaign where he found the net seventeen times as part of a formidable front three alongside Enzo Francescoli and a youthful Benito Carbone. The 1994/95 season was not quite as successful for Silenzi or Torino but Nottingham Forest manager Frank Clark had seen enough to convince him to splash out £1.8m to make the striker the first Italian to grace the Premier League.

Forest had had an impressive 1994/95 finishing third in the league and earning qualification to the UEFA Cup. Liverpool swooped for star striker Stan Collymore somewhat limiting their title credentials but they finished in a creditable ninth in the Premier League and reached the quarter-finals of both the FA Cup and UEFA Cup in 1995/96. However, Silenzi’s impact in Nottingham was minimal. He played only ten league games and contributed his only two goals for the club against third tier opposition in a League Cup defeat to Bradford City and an FA Cup replay victory over Oxford United. He was outscored and outperformed by the likes of Brian Roy, midfielder Ian Woan, youngster Paul McGregor, fellow new signing Kevin Campbell and the much-maligned Jason Lee. After just two games of the 1996/97 season he was shipped out on loan to mid-table Serie B side Venezia where he contributed four goals in 26 appearances. With Forest in dire straits he allegedly refused to return from his loan spell in March 1997 and a furious Dave Bassett, who had recently binned off Crystal Palace for no apparent reason, tore up his contract. It’s little surprise that Silenzi is regarded as one of the worst high profile transfers, not just in Forest’s but, in English football’s history.

Having been swept aside by Forest the Big Brush briefly returned to Regianna where no goals in eight games convinced Serie B side Ravenna to secure his services for the 1998/99 campaign. A mediocre return of three goals in 23 appearances led to Torino bringing the striker back for the 1999/2000 season but, somewhat unsurprisingly, two goals in eleven appearances did little to help the club in their relegation battle. After one last, typically goalless, hurrah at Ravenna ended in relegation to Serie C1 Silenzi retired from professional football at the end of the 2000/01 season. Ravenna, apparently due to financial mismanagement, were put out of business by the Italian football authorities and are currently on their third attempt at rising from the ashes. Whether it’s fair to blame this all on Andrea Silenzi is up for debate.

Back in the mid-2000s some visiting wags replied to Southampton’s fans chants of “We’ve got Brett Ormerod, we’ve got Brett Ormerod” with “You’ve got Brett Ormerod, you’ve got Brett Ormerod”. Andrea Silenzi didn’t even manage to reach such levels of disdain from the Nottingham Forest faithful during his time at the City Ground and it was not until the arrival of the considerably more successful Gianfranco Zola, Fabrizio Ravanelli and Roberto Di Matteo that the Premier League was won over by Italian talent. Strong and good in the air, Silenzi managed to score nearly a century of goals across all competitions, but he lacked the technical skill Italian football in the 1990s was famed for. Perhaps if he’d made the move a few years earlier the Big Brush would have swept all before him in England but as the Premier League evolved into a continental playground of skill and precision he was cast aside into the dustbin of history.