Billy Sharp was a player many, myself included yearned to see in the white-shirt. However after a year he's on his way back to Sheffield United. Here are some more signings that whetted my appetite but didn't quite live up to their billing.

1- Steve Hodge, signed £900,000 from Nottingham Forest 1991.

Hodge had twice starred at Clough's Forest, prompting big money moves to Aston Villa and Tottenham. He had 24 England caps to his name and was still only 28 when he arrived at ER. He scored on his debut from the bench against Sheffield Wednesday in a dramatic 1-1 draw. The rare commodity of a left-footed midfielder, mixing goals with guile and equally comfortable in central midfield or on the left surely he would be a key figure in our charge to the title? He did get a Championship winners medal but was largely a forgotten figure unable to break into arguably the best midfield quartet of the time in the form of Batty, McAllister, Speed and Strachan. After being loaned to Derby, the self-proclaimed "Man with Maradona's shirt" left for QPR for around £250,000 in 1994.

2- David White, signed in exchange for David Rocastle from Manchester City 1993.

White had so often been the scourge of defences, including ours in the sky-blue of Manchester City. A home-grown Mancunian who's family owned a scrap-metal business, when I first clapped eyes on Whitey in a Leeds shirt towards the back-end of 1993 he looked like he'd been spending more time sat on his backside working a crusher eating bacon butties rather than on the training ground. However I convinced myself that he'd come back fitter and leaner after one of "Sergeant Wilko's " legendary pre-season training boot-camps. However he came back fatter and slower. What seemed an ideal solution to the situation with the tragic Rocastle, who'd failed to live up to his £2m price tag left us with mega-another disappointment on our books and a 1/2 million pound move to Sheffield United beckoned in December 1995. White eventually returned to the recycling business.

3- Tomas Brolin, signed for £4,500,000 from Parma in 1995.

On the night England lost to Sweden in Euro 1992, I was at a "sportsman's evening" where Tommy Docherty was the guest speaker so I staggered off to watch Brolin and his compatriot Martin Dahlin destroy Graham Taylor's men. After a seemingly fruitless search for a big name to compliment the permanent signing of Tony Yeboah; in despatches we were linked with Darko Panchev, Reuben Sosa, Andrei Kanchelski as well as Brolin's then Parma team-mates Faustino Asprilla and Gianfranco Zola, we ended up with the Swede in late 1995. After a sound start, which included a majestic performance in the 3-1 win against Man U and both goals in our 2-0 win over West Ham, Brolin had a massive fall-out with Howard Wilkinson after his performance in our 5-0 FA Cup drubbing at Liverpool. Wilko was enraged the Swede apparently refused to track-back Rumour has it he was asked to help carry the kit into Villa Park as an unused sub and even in those innocent, pre-Twitter days Brolin made the relationship with Wilkinson irreparable by announcing on Swedish TV that he was returning to IFK Norrkoping on loan on April 1st. By the time the summer came round the word was Leeds were willing to take as little as £2m to move the stodgy Swede on. Brolin refused to return to England and an uneasy truce was reached when we agreed to loan him to FC Zurich in late August. A few weeks later, George Graham succeeded Wilkinson and demanded Brolin return, again he refused and after a move to Sampdoria fell through, Brolin himself funded a loan-move back to Parma. The saga rumbled on for another year, Brolin repeatedly missed deadlines to return to Leeds for reasons that included a car-crash involving an Elk and his fathers' 50th birthday. Eventually in October 1997, Leeds agreed a pay-off with the Swede reportedly costing £140,000 and he was next seen sporting a bizarre head-bandage in the colours of Crystal Palace. Since then he has reinvented himself as a Restauranteur, Property Developer and Poker Player.

4- Darren Huckerby, signed for £6m from Coventry City in 1999.

With a glut of spectacular goals and an unrivalled burst of speed down the wing, "Forrest" as the Leeds fans knew him after the Tom Hank's film character never really broke into the Leeds team and at best his role under David O'Leary appeared to be thrown on for the last 10-15 minutes so his pace could destroy the flagging opposition defence. Having been signed from the Sky Blues of Coventry, the Sky Blue of Manchester was his next port of call with Leeds accepting £3.38m for him after barely 12 months at Elland Road. After City he moved on to Norwich where he became a firm favourite as the Canaries passed debt-ridden Leeds on their way to the Premiership. He is now on the Norwich coaching staff having finished his playing career six-years earlier at San Jose Earthquakes.

5- Radostin Kishishev, signed on loan from Leicester City 2007.

The little Bulgarian with the ability to seemingly cover every blade of grass had given us a glimpse of his brilliance at the back end of the 2006/07 season when he very nearly helped keep us up coming on loan from Charlton. Hamstrung by a transfer-ban due to going into administration, we looked on as "Kish" joined Leicester permanently however by the end if the year he was back on-loan at Elland Road. A combination of injury and the departure of Dennis Wise meant there was no happy second-coming and Kishishev eventually left Leicester for Litex Lovech in his home-land. He did spend the 2010/11 season back in England at Brighton before ending his playing days at his hometown club Burgas. He since has managed Vereya.

Photo: Action Images

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