Clearly David had a number of issues whilst at the club, a court case with his wife I recall, him and his brothers support for a so called one punch killer and so on. it's all on Google. What we need to remember is these lads are in their twenties for the most part, and we all did things at that age that we either regret, or would approach differently now. I don't think David was especially susceptible to such things, probably more that by Trinity standards he was fairly high profile.

There is a certain amount of mystery around the tracker incident, I've heard more than one account, but in the grand scheme of things I don't think it made a massive difference to what David achieved at the club.

Slightly off topic and FWIW, and as a bit of fun, this is how I rate 'legends'. I think there are three kinds of legends, and this applies to most clubs.

True legends - Players like Neil Fox, Rocky Turner, David Topliss. Players whose abilities and achievements cannot be argued with. Not just by Trinity fans, but fans of the game.

Club legends - These are players that mean far more to Trinity fans than the wider game. Nigel Bell, JD and loads of others fall into this category. In terms of honours and trophies they have few, and only Trinity fans really remember them. To the wider game they are but footnotes, but to us they were heroes.

The nearly boys - Fifita is one of these, so is Tom Johnstone. These are players who had they been in a better Trinity set up that may well have won Trophies, they would undoubtedly be the star men, and would most definitely have become true legends. Through no fault of their own, and in both of the above cases, an incredible loyalty to the club, they never got the chance.

I'd like to know who you think you could have bought with the same money - which I assume you don't actually know but we can guess - that would have "won us some tight games"

Are you putting the 3 categories in that order? I agree with your split, especially the club legends who really are only lauded by us, but I'd put the nearly men above them. To me they are like club legends who could have been even better with a better team around them.

What I am saying is the money might have been spent on a couple of players which gives the whole team more options and strength in depth , maybe half decent forward and possibly the half back we have always moaned about. Someone in the Snead mould not necessarily him but as an example who often pop's up with the goods when needed as we know.

Then "maybe" two things....
The players weren't available and we didn't have the money....

You must think Fifita was on a big walk if you think we could buy 'a Snead' and a half decent forward.
I imagine Snead to be on similar to Fifita. If not more.

Tend to agree with most of the post and thats exactly how I view "legends" , but for me Fifita is bumped into that club legend category, I just can't not put him in that group, although not to the extent of JD, he's still in there.

If we would have continued our mid season revival once he came in and ultimately stayed up, I wonder if he would have made more people's list.

I belive Fifita was our highest ever paid player according to our previous chairman, which when you take into considerations the lucrative deals offered to the likes of Tupou and what we must have paid Johnstone at one point, I imagine even for us it was a relatively "big whack". What that is compared to the like of Sneyd, I guess we will never know!

I think you over estimate what our most expensive player is paid.......but as you say, it's his business.

And I think you underestimate it, when you have clubs like Warrington offering a marquee player salary and he's turning them down to stay with us, yes it's out of loyalty but at the same time I assume there's no more than 50/60/70k difference in salary, otherwise it becomes a very silly decision.

But that was kind of the point I was making, it's difficult to put into context what is considered a big whack for us against what players like Sneyd might be getting.

BS. We had decent options as well as Fifita in 2017 and 2018 where we did quite well in the league.

When Big Dave signed is second contract it was for 3 year at about 125, thousand ,a season so do not think you could buy two or 3 good forwards for that kind of money . Answer this ,if he was as bad as you make out ,how come big clubs were trying to signed him .He came out of retirement and still looked head and shoulders above the forward we had on the park ,and fitted than any player on the park .IF you want to talk about not worth the money ,let's talk about Gaskell ,Hood and a lot more who were given over the top contracts that as cost the club it's S L place .Funny how after Big Dave ,Miller Arona,and T J left we are in the Championship