So Farewell: The ‘Dismal’ Cha Du Ri

When players leave the club you usually look back on their time with a mixture of fondness, regret, humour and bemusement.

For Cha it’s a heady cocktail of bemusement, incredulity with a dismal cherry cherry on top.

He was signed in June 2010 after a season ending injury to competent German Andreas Hinkel. It turned out to be a hard act to follow though maybe passable level of ability on a consistent basis would have helped.

Cha arrived with nearly 60 international caps and years of bottom end Bundesliga experience. It was quickly established that like Lee Naylor he had all the excitement of wide eyed fat kid in a sweet shop and a work-rate David Cameron wishes on the jobless in Britain. Like Naylor the description erratic is apt.

First impression was of a player with a imposing build and a turn of pace more in-keeping with a sprinter. He seemed to possess all the surface qualifications that a footballer – and a damn good one at that – should have. Problem was that he was as comfortable on a football pitch as an elephant on a bike.

He seemed to be struck by the failings that embraced the first generation of Asian players that burst on the European scene unlike his countryman team-mate (who will soon by blessed with a So Farewell blog) Ki, who is more European and skillful and didn’t treat the ball like Superman trying to get Kryptonite as far away from him as possible.

Off course he seemed a likeable happy bloke but I need my footballers to be more than guys I would like to go on a night out with as I knew he would end up with his pants on his head at one point.

He will be remembered for his goal against St Johnstone but more for his own goal against Rennes, getting mistakenly booked for Scott Brown and a sending off against R*ngers 1872, which while being harsh highlighted his tendency to caught hopelessly out of position. Plus we always have this video.

His parting shot on the Scottish game was not in keeping with his persona. It was a bit low for a player that struggled to shine in a league he called dismal and has made a career playing for mostly mediocre teams or a player that a limited Mark Wilson who matched his work-rate was deemed as a better option for most of his time at Celtic.

I do wish him well but he won’t be remembered fondly.

His stats are played 43 games, W35 D8 L3. An impressive win rate of 0.81%. He scored two goals (St Johnstone and Motherwell) was booked 3 times and sent off once.