Football News: Champ Man Legends Part 3: Mark Kerr

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Mark Kerr Championship Manager 01/02 Edition

Somehow a young Mark Kerr was rated as the best British player of all time in CM 01/02. He was a youngster coming through the ranks with Falkirk at the time, and he was ranked as a better buy than Zinedine Zidane as a player in the game and cost a mere £120,000. With the right training regime he would reach at least 17 out of 20 in 9 of the attributes in the game, creating a player who was, in video game parlance, overpowered.

In real life Kerr is a journeyman midfielder who has moved from team to team without a single transfer fee ever being paid for him. At the age of 17 he made his debut for Falkirk towards the end of the 1998-99 season and went on to become a regular before running down his contract to leave and join Dundee United on a Bosman transfer. That was the only time a fee of kinds was paid for him, when Dundee United had to pay compensation to Falkirk as he was under 23 at the time of the move.

Kerr managed to hold down a place in the team most of the time but his Dundee United career is really only notable for one moment in particular, though he did win a Scotland B cap while there. The 2008 League Cup final against Rangers with United holding onto a 1-0 lead and he lost his mind and played a dreadful backpass straight to a Rangers player, who scored. United ended up losing on penalties after extra time saw no more goals scored.

He left at the end of that season to join Aberdeen on a free, where he was made club captain in his second season, but left at the end of the season to head to Greek football with Asteras Tripolis. Just one season in Greece and he was headed back to Scotland, though it was not until the following January before he signed a 6 month deal with Dunfermline Athletic, who were relegated and so he moved on again, despite their new contract offer.

Trials spells with Hibernian and Carlisle United led nowhere, but a move to St Johnstone nearly happened, only to collapse after he had taken a medical. After that he had short spells with Dundee, Partick Thistle and Queen of the South, as well as a short-lived return to his first club Falkirk before he joined Ayr United in January 2018, where he still plays.

So how did he get so highly rated in the game? Was he really that outstanding as a youngster that they actually believed he would turn into a legendary player? Was it a glitch? Perhaps the scout was a friend or just someone having a laugh to see what they could get away with. We might never know, but one thing is for sure, they could not have got it much more wrong if they tried!

For the previous Champ Man Legends article on Richie Partridge click HERE

Written by Tris Burke August 24 2018 17:28:27