International imports may be old hat in the Premiership but it seems there is still room for a foreign invasion in the Third Division

International imports may be old hat in the Premiership but, it seems, there is still room for a foreign invasion in the Third Division.. First Division

Peter Reid
Sunderland manager Promotion candidates Every club is in it, it’s a very strong league this year. Our first three matches are against Leicester, Norwich and Wolves and they’re just three of the obvious names. Also, watch Birmingham, they’ll do well, and Barnsley, Danny Wilson has done a great job there. McKie is now almost fluent and, just three weeks into his career at the club, he has become so useful as a translator that he spends most of his time with the first-team squad and last week went on the team’s tour to Scotland.The other is Hodges himself. “The play of Wigan is more European than in most of England,” Martinez said – and with the trio scoring six goals between them in three friendlies, the club has already had a happy return.There are two other unlikely beneficiaries from the transfer. One is Tony McKie, a 16-year-old YTS player at Wigan who picked up the odd Spanish expression on holiday in summers past and liked the language so much that he hired a tutor.

Whelan has also paid for their hotel, a language teacher, a house in to which they will soon move and a housekeeper “Mr Whelan is incredible, fantastic,” Martinez said. “You don’t get people like him in Spain.”The deal, so far, has worked a treat The amigos have been pleasantly surprised. All were young, unmarried and available on free transfers because they had not made a specified number of appearances for their clubs’ first teams.”We had heard of Everton, Manchester United, Liverpool,” Martinez said. “But it was difficult because Wigan were Third Division.” Whelan, however, told them of his plans to have Wigan in the First Division in two years and the deal was done.

Whelan had recently taken over as chairman at Wigan, and Hodges suggested the transfer to him. Whelan, however, said it would be unfair to take just the one Spaniard, so Hodges looked around for two more. Martinez was at Third Division FC Balaguer with Diaz, though the real find was Seba, an Under-21 international at Real Zaragoza. “I’m usually involved in free transfers and bargains from non-League, yet at the end of June, there I was on a plane to Barcelona on a scouting mission.”The Spanish acquisition, however, had been set in motion by little Izzy himself. The other two, the midfielder Roberto Martinez and the forward Jesus Seba, were rested from the Atherton game and looked on from the stand, where they handled the attentions of their new fans in their best pidgin English “What do you think of your new team?” asked one Much thought followed before Seba pointed to Wigan’s No10.