10/02/96 v Middlesbrough (a) 2-1 Premiership

The debut of Tino Asprilla as a 67th minute sub. Within a few minutes he performed some magic and put in a across for Steve Watson to score.

"The first we knew that Tino was playing was when he was sat in the dressing room with his boots on, so the players were as surprised as anyone that he was on the bench. At that time Tino didn't know a word of English so we had to hope when he came on that he would slot in OK. Of course, he won us the game and performed a stunning pieces of skill - not just for the goal - a drag-back through a defender's legs near the touchline was incredible.

"I was grateful that he'd got me off the hook - I was credited with the own goal in the first half that put us behind. Juninho played it into the near post and I thought I would clear it but I was off-balance and it got stuck under my feet. I got a rotten review in the papers for that game but I thought I'd played well. That often happened. If you'd had a bad moment in a match the papers would often ignore the rest of your game, give you 5 out of 10 and then for the rest of the week everyone would tell you what a bad game you'd had. It made me realise how influential the local reporters could be. It also made me wonder how much (or little) they actually knew about football....

"I think this was also the game where, in the morning, we went down to breakfast to be told about Keith Gillespie's gambling problems. We found out he was 60 grand in debt but you wouldn't think it from the way he acted. He was very matter-of-fact about it all. If it had been me I would have been in pieces."

All quotes are taken from John Beresford's interviews for NUFC.com