TSB Guide to Mark de Vries and Wayne Andrews - The Square Ball 18/8/22

CENTRE-FORWARD SOS

Written by: Rob Conlon

Mention the name Mark de Vries at Elland Road and before you have had the chance to take another breath someone else will have brought up Wayne Andrews. De Vries and Andrews come as a pair in the imaginations of Leeds fans, a comedy double act performing League One emergency loan slapstick. Read any list of worst or weirdest Leeds signings, and there will be Mark de Vries, closely followed by Wayne Andrews.

I’m wondering if that’s really fair? Leeds signed plenty of strange loanees in the Football League, and most of them were rubbish, or at least equally fleeting. Craig Hignett joined on a one-month loan after relegation from the Premier League essentially to make up the numbers in training, but nobody mentions his name because he had the good grace to never make a competitive appearance. De Vries and Andrews were signed in equally desperate circumstances, but had the misfortune of joining at a time when Leeds was at its historical low — fighting back from a fifteen point deduction in League One — and when Leeds needed them to play.

Leeds wiped out those fifteen points by winning their first seven matches of the season, each game featuring a goal from either Jermaine Beckford or Tresor Kandol. In their eighth league fixture, Leeds finally dropped points when conceding a last minute equaliser in a 1-1 draw at Gillingham, and also lost the two players they needed most. Kandol was sent off in the first half for two bookings, both for dissent, the second for applauding referee Danny McDermid after winning a foul. Manager Dennis Wise was sent off at half-time for swearing at McDermid, and said afterwards he intended to report McDermid for swearing back at him. After the break Beckford collected two yellow cards of his own, the first for chipping Gillingham’s goalkeeper after being called offside. McDermid and the rest of the match officials were rushed off the pitch by security as they passed the away end, the fourth official using his board to cover his head from the spare change raining down.

“Leeds are high-octane, play on the edge and their bench is noisier than the crowd,” said Iffy Onuora, Gillingham’s joint caretaker manager. “I laughed when [Wise’s assistant] Gus [Poyet] jumped ten feet in the air to protest about something then sat down and winked at me. It’s a bit of kidology. They had great careers, are well known and like to try and play on it.”

With an away game at Oldham just three days later, Leeds’ four senior strikers were all unavailable. Beckford and Kandol were suspended, Leon Constantine and Tore Andre Flo injured. A day before the trip to Oldham, the signings of Andrews and De Vries on one-month loans were announced.

Andrews joined from Coventry City. He had been at Coventry for only a year, but moving to Leeds was already his third loan away. Three years earlier, Iain Dowie had taken Andrews from third tier Colchester to Premier League Crystal Palace, but he scored just once for Palace, by which point they were back in the Championship. Dowie was Andrews’ biggest advocate. He had come through Watford’s academy before dropping into non-league, playing under Dowie’s brother Bob at Chesham. Bob recommended Andrews to Iain, who was working as assistant manager at Oldham. Andrews fired Oldham into the play-offs after being signed, only to be sent off in the second leg of their semi-final defeat to QPR.

De Vries had been on the transfer list at Leicester City all summer, but still began the season in their starting eleven under manager Martin ‘Mad Dog’ Allen. Like Andrews, he was on his third loan away from his parent club. He had been taken to Leicester by his old Hearts manager Craig Levein alongside former Leeds full-back Alan Maybury. De Vries became a hero at Hearts after scoring four goals against rivals Hibs on his first start for the club. He was consumed with pre-match nerves to such an extent he spent the previous night getting so drunk he only remembered “crawling on my knees through the kitchen to get to the bedroom. I dunno how I got into bed but I somehow managed it. Then I walk out onto the park the next day and score four goals.”

They had shared a pitch for all of nineteen minutes, playing against each other when both came off the bench in Crystal Palace’s 2-0 win over Leicester the previous season, but a day after joining Leeds, Andrews and De Vries were starting up front together at Oldham. The game is remembered for another pub quiz answer, as midfielder Ian Westlake volleyed a last-second winner for his only league goal at Leeds. The third line in the BBC’s four-paragraph report reads: ‘The visitors had earlier seen good chances for Mark De Vries and Wayne Andrews go astray as Oldham clung on.’

Is that really enough for two players to be consigned among two of the worst signings Leeds have ever made? Stephen O’Halloran, a full-back from Aston Villa, joined on a one-month loan the following season and ruptured his ACL in the warm-up for his debut, which seems a far more fitting snapshot of what being in League One felt like.

Andrews played just once more for Leeds, starting a 1-0 win over Darlington in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy and being replaced by academy striker Tomi ‘brother of Shola’ Ameobi. Maybe he and De Vries would be remembered differently if the latter had scored from Andrews’ cross rather than hit the bar. While that was as good as it got for Andrews, De Vries was given more opportunities, making eight appearances in total. His original loan was cut short by a broken toe, but Leeds re-signed De Vries the following month, accompanied by this headline on the official website: ‘BIG MAN’S BACK.’

De Vries had already earned a more favourable cult status by scoring on his second league appearance against Yeovil. Beckford and Kandol were back from suspension and put straight into the team at De Vries and Andrews’ expense. With Tore Andre Flo fit again, Andrews didn’t even make the bench. Yeovil were the better side at Elland Road, prompting Wise to replace midfielders David Prutton and Seb Carole with De Vries and Flo to form a four-man frontline. With a minute to go, Jonathan Douglas crossed from the left, and De Vries’ header at the back post looped in for a late winner. Of Leeds’ nineteen league goals, it was their eighth scored later than the 87th minute, and created an exclusive club of Leeds fans able to say, ‘I was there when Mark De Vries scored.’

Maybe De Vries deserves better than to be remembered as a frightening flashback at Leeds. Or maybe his fate was cemented by a line in the story announcing his return on loan, saying he would be eligible for Leeds’ FA Cup campaign if they got past Hereford in the first round, having rejoined too late to be registered for that tie. Leeds lost 1-0 to Hereford in a replay at Elland Road. Neither De Vries nor Andrews played, but we remember getting knocked out of the FA Cup first round to Hereford as the type of thing that happened when De Vries and Andrews played for Leeds.

Were they as bad as we remember?

I want to say no. It feels unfair that two players parachuted in as emergency cover to essentially fill the gaps for one fixture have reserved such a unique history in fan folklore.

But I can’t say with any certainty. There isn’t much match footage available from their appearances for Leeds, but De Vries’ quotes to the official website after his highpoint against Yeovil don’t fill me with confidence:

“The gaffer got me on to see what happens and I had some luck. It saved me a bit because my first few touches looked bad.”

There is a five-minute YouTube video of the highlights from their debut together at Oldham. The fact that the ‘highlights’ start with a minute of throw-ins and head tennis doesn’t bode well. There is no evidence of the chance missed by De Vries that is mentioned in the BBC’s match report, but there is the moment Andrews gets beyond Oldham’s defence and is one on one with the goalkeeper, ready to score against his former club, holding off a defender as the ball bounces in front of him. You can guess the rest.

Do they still come as a pair?

Only in our imaginations. De Vries returned to Scotland with Dundee United in 2008 before ending his career with spells in the Dutch lower leagues. In a TV interview after the last game of Cambuur’s 2011/12 season, De Vries burst into tears because he knew he wasn’t going to play again. He has been assistant manager at four clubs, most recently Budapest Honved in 2018.

In a profile published by Vice, De Vries spoke about why those boozy nights are a thing of the past:

“You know what it is, I’ve had that time. And I know myself, when I have one beer, the second follows and then the third. Around 2am I don’t know if I’m living from the front or the back. And then a shawarma has to go in afterwards.”

But if he does want a drink, he only has to walk into a pub in Edinburgh:

Less than two years after leaving Leeds, Andrews played his last game as a professional footballer following a short spell with Luton. He now plays Veterans’ Football, while his son Ryan recently signed his first pro deal with Watford. In a video for Watford’s official YouTube channel, Ryan says of watching his dad: “It’s alright. The quality is not there.”