This week ITS brings you our top ten one hit wonders, we will show you ten players who defied the odds by getting the honour of putting on the England shirt….erm once!

10. Joey Barton (VS. Spain, 2007)

Schteve McClaren is a manager full of good ideas. One of his best was to give Barton an England Cap just after he had lamented his frustration at the whole England squad in his book. Thankfully I can’t see the jail bird putting on the England shirt again.

9. Francis Jeffers (VS. Austrlia 2003)

Another striker with a 100% record, which I’m sure he will be happy with now considering how terrible his career turned out. The Everton ‘prodigy’ was prolific at u21 level, scoring 13 goals in 16 games (which is a record he holds with the great man Alan Shearer by the way). But after a move to Arsenal the striker turned awful overnight.

8. Lee Bowyer (VS. Portugal, 2002)

Mr. bundle-of-joy Bowyer has shown shades of greatness throughout his career. But this quality never materialised into consistency with altercations on and off the pitch hindering his development as a player. As a result Bowyer never stood a chance of gaining international recognition.

7. Anthony Gardner (VS. Sweeden, 2004)

Gardner was no more than a poor mans Ledley King, but under Martin Jol the central defender seemed to show a bit of class for Spurs. His reward, a call up and a substitute debut appearance in the defeat to Sweden.

6. David Nugent (VS. Andorra, 2007)

Well, well, well look out Fabio, David might be the man to partner Rooney in attack. Hang on, lets not get carried away, two well taken goals at the weekend will probably be it for the on loan Burnley man, but you can’t hide from the fact that he has a 100% England record.

5. Lee Hendrie – (VS. Czech Republic, 1998)

At club level Lee remained a promising player while at Villa, as his career slowly faded away. The 32 year old made his debut at the tender age of 21 coming on in the 77th minute for Aston Villa team-mate Paul Merson.

4. Michael Ball (VS. Spain, 2001)

Debuted in Sven’s first match in charge, and now might be joining Sven at Notts county. Quite simply Michael Ball was never a player with the quality to make it at international level, in fact he only scraped it at Premiership level.

3. Seth Johnson (VS. Italy, 2000)

Seth Johnson used to be a player with great promise at Derby, but after a move to Leeds in 2001 his career seemed to disappear without a trace (just like Leeds).

There is a story that when Johnson arrived at Leeds to discuss his contract, his agent wanted to hold out for £13,000 a week. Peter Ridsdale entered the room and said “Right, I’m sorry but I can only offer you thirty thousand a week”. Johnson’s agent uttered some exclamation of disbelief and so Ridsdale said “Alright, thirty-seven thousand then”.

The fact is this average player should never have been capped for England, especially considering he’s now 30 and has been out of a club for two years.

2. Michael Ricketts (VS. Netherlands, 2002)

Michael was Bolton’s first England player to be capped for 40 years. A great achievement? …far from it. Rickets had proved at Bolton that he was a decent striker in the premiership, but he was certainly not international material, it’s like Capello calling up Marlon Harewood now, yeah…crazy. Now Ricketts, 30, is slumming it at Tranmere.

1. Steve Guppy (VS. Belgium, 1999)

Martin O’Neil did a fantastic job at leicester City, turning an average squad of players into a decent Premiership side. Steve Guppy was certainly one of these average players, who was so far from international quality that it was laughable. I mean it’s Steve Guppy for god sake.

Related posts:

1. Top 10 of the week – Championship players.
2. Top 10 of the week – Golden Oldies
3. Top 10 of the Week – England WC outsiders.
4. Top 10 of the Week – Worst Premiership transfers ever
5. Top 10 of the week – EPL strike partners

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