Charlton Athletic never saw the best of £2m striker - Derby County were stung even worse though | OneFootball

When Charlton paid £2 million for Luke Varney in 2007 they got their fingers burnt, but they didn't as much as the club who bought him from them

When Charlton Athletic paid Crewe Alexandra £2 million for Luke Varney in 2007, there were high hopes that the former non-league man would be a success - but two clubs in a row failed to get the best out of the energetic attacker.

The summer of 2007 was a difficult time for the Addicks.

Long-serving manager Alan Curbishley had left the club a year earlier, and the Addicks had burned through Iain Dowie and Les Reed as managers before appointing Alan Pardew on Christmas Eve 2006, with the team in 19th place in the Premier League.

Pardew, however, had been unable to turn the team's fortunes around, and they were relegated in the same position they were in upon his appointment.

With a rebuild needed, Pardew decided that two new strikers were needed for life back in the second tier. Chris Iwelumo arrived on a free transfer from Colchester United after an 18-goal haul in the Championship in the previous campaign, and Charlton's attention was drawn to a young striker who'd been attracting attention from Premier League clubs throughout the 2006-07 season.

As soon as it ended, the Addicks pounced, signing Varney from Crewe Alexandra for £2 million after an impressive year in League One.

Luke Varney had attracted Premier League interest before going to Charlton Athletic - big things were expected

Luke Varney started his playing career with his local non-league club Quorn FC before transferring to Crewe in 2003.

Varney had a 2006-07 season to remember, scoring 25 goals in all competitions for the Railwaymen and ending it in the League One Team of the Season. A move to a bigger club had been touted for much of the season, with Premier League outfit Portsmouth linked a few months into that campaign, but come the end of it, it was Charlton that were prepared to pay an amount that Crewe could agree to.

The forward scored his first Addicks goal in September in his third game for them, against the team he supported as a boy, Leicester City, but the south London outfit's bid for a quick return to the Premier League never really got going.

With very little consistency on the pitch, they ended the season in 11th place in the Championship table, six points short of a play-off place and 15 short of one of the two automatic promotion berths. Varney ended the season with just eight goals from 39 appearances, which would've been an underwhelming tally, but he wouldn't be at the club for much longer.

Derby County took a punt on Luke Varney and were stung heavily

By the autumn of 2008, things were going from bad to worse for Charlton. Varney was still a regular starter for them but the goals weren't flowing, with just two in his first 16 league games of the season. A 5-2 home defeat against Sheffield United on November 22 brought about the end for Alan Pardew, who left the club by mutual consent.

Five days later, Varney was on his way too, heading to a Championship rival in Derby County back in a time where loan deals between transfer windows were allowed.

He scored on his home debut for them against Crystal Palace, and in January 2009 his transfer to Pride Park was made permanent for a fee of just over £1 million, where the Rams were hoping to get the Crewe version of Varney.

But injuries, illness and a lack of form would end up affecting Varney drastically - the aforementioned goal against Palace turned out to be his only one for Derby that season, and in March, he was sent on loan to Sheffield Wednesday for a month's loan, returning to Pride Park for the last few games of the season.

Unwanted at Derby by Nigel Clough, Varney returned to Hillsborough on loan at the start of the following season, but while his own form picked up, Wednesday's didn't, and they were relegated to League One on the final day of the season. Despite this though, the striker would gain himself a Premier League move somehow for 2010-11 with top flight newcomers Blackpool.

The Seasiders had just been promoted to the Premier League, and Varney signed for them on a season-long loan deal with a view to a permanent contract, but Blackpool were relegated at the end of the season and Varney moved on to Portsmouth instead, with Derby at least clawing back 75 per cent of the fee they paid by bringing in a £750,000 fee for his services - so it wasn't all bad.

Varney's League career would last another decade, taking in Leeds United, Ipswich Town, Blackburn Rovers and Cheltenham Town, before making his final EFL appearance with a five-minute cameo for Burton Albion against Gillingham in January 2021.

But while he'd end up scoring 93 League goals, he'd never win promotion, a League title, a cup or the play-offs with any club. Indeed, the 25 goals he scored in all competitions he scored for Crewe in 2005-06 was one of only two times he hit double-figures in all competitions throughout his entire career, with the other coming 13 years later for Cheltenham Town.

Perhaps the key, in the case of Luke Varney, was bad timing. With Charlton, he was arriving at a club that was about to embark on a period of mismanagement which would last for many years. The same could be said Derby and there he was arriving at a club that had just experienced a record-breakingly bad relegation. Neither have played Premier League football since the relegation they experienced shortly before Varney arrived at their clubs.

But between those two, Charlton got the better out of the player. Luke Varney chalked up 57 League appearances for them, but he could only manage 12 at Derby. It wasn't much of a return for the millions spent on him by the two clubs, but the Rams were stung far worse on the pitch.