Who will be the first Championship player sent off after a Bailey dive?
He's in the north-east at last, and chairman Ron Martin can count the pennies.
Our favourite ex-Shrimper Nicky Bailey has left League One Charlton and got a personal promotion to Championship Middlesbrough for a fee of £1.4m after passing a medical.
Just when his old mate Macca has gone to the Addicks as well, now their was a partnership.
Bailey hit 13 goals for the south Londoners last season but cheered the Blues faithful up by missing the penalty which saw Charlton knocked out of the League One play-offs by Swindon Town at the semi-final stage.
This was after he had 'rolled around like a dog' to get Southend midfielder Jean-Francois Christophe sent off in a league game last February.
But now the money!
Bailey moved to the Valley after they coughed up an initial £350,000 in August 2008.
A further £150,000 was paid to the Shrimpers as part of a series of add-ons, while the Shrimpers should receive £225,000 of his transfer to Gordon Strachan's side.
Nice one, as long as it doesn't fall into one of Ron's black holes! (Not that we'll get it next week of course.)
Boro boss Strachan said: "We're delighted to sign Nicky. He scores goals and all kinds of goals. He can play left midfield or centre midfield and he's self-motivated. There's also a devil inside him when he plays and sometimes you need that."
There's a devil all right Gordon, and you may find it's your own side that gets punished for it one day.
Anyway, the ginger one himself told www.mfc.co.uk: "There was never any other club that I thought about going to. When I found out they'd put in their offer I was delighted and it's taken a little while but I'm finally here."
As he only thought about going to Southend and Charlton, Bailey is just one lucky guy.
The Bailey Files
| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Nicky Francis Bailey | ||
| Date of birth | 10 June 1984 (1984-06-10) | ||
| Place of birth | Hammersmith, London, England | ||
| Height | 5 ft 10 in (1.78 m) | ||
| Playing position | Midfielder | ||
| Club information | |||
| Current club | Middlesbrough | ||
| Youth career | |||
| Fulham | |||
| 2000-2001 | Sutton United | ||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps† | (Gls)† |
| 2001-2004 | Sutton United | 85 | (27) |
| 2004-2007 | Barnet | 125 | (17) |
| 2007-2008 | Southend United | 44 | (9) |
| 2008-2010 | Charlton Athletic | 86 | (25) |
| 2010- | Middlesbrough | 0 | (0) |
| National team‡ | |||
| 2005 | England C | 4 | (0) |
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 15:53, 8 July 2010 (UTC). † Appearances (Goals). | |||
(Player information supplied by Wikipedia, for the full article go here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicky_Bailey)