Football can be a game of massive regrets, and Lee Clark is a particularly good poster boy for that fact having admitted that his decision to wear an SMB t-shirt while playing for Sunderland was his biggest regret. For their part, Newcastle should have regretted putting him in that position in the first place, as he should never have been sold to Sunderland. It was his removal from the first team in 1996 and the signing of David Batty that cost Newcastle the league (not the signing of Tino Asprilla), and the decision to get rid of him was a ridiculous one. Clark should have stayed in the first team, and Newcastle might well have won the league, but instead after 7 years at the club he was let go. Eight years later, he returned at the age of 33, with unfinished business to settle and in that second period, as player-coach, played 22 times (thanks in part to Nicky Butt's lack of form) before leaving again in 2006.
