11-05-2016, 11:42
Sometimes the timing can just be unfortunate. He was a schoolboy in Huddersfield and grabbed a hat trick for Barnsley's junior team I think. The next thing they were shoving him on the field in the first team. Young players have to be given a chance, but you have to be very special to play men's football at a high level at 15. Maybe that destroyed him.
I'd be guessing the problem isn't hard work so much as inside his head. He got on the field 20 times at Rochdale, Keith Hill must have known him from Barnsley, so had seen something and couldn't have thought him workshy. Somehow he hasn't been capable of delivering to the level of ability managers think they see. The right man, or the right place might make a star of him. Maybe if he went to Montrose where he might be their best player he'd start to show what he can do. Or maybe not.
I'm sure there very often is an answer, because clubs reject seventeen year olds who have been star players at their level all their lives. They slope off disappointed into non-league and some re-emerge as stars. We assume the rejecting club was wrong because we can see the final outcome. At the time they made the decision the facts were probably wholly different. The Owls rejected Jamie Vardy at 14, but he was 4' 11" and a bit lary. Now he's an England player they got it wrong, but when he was wearing a tag and turning out for Stocksbridge ........ how did their decision look then? He was taller and possibly nastier, that's all.
I'd be guessing the problem isn't hard work so much as inside his head. He got on the field 20 times at Rochdale, Keith Hill must have known him from Barnsley, so had seen something and couldn't have thought him workshy. Somehow he hasn't been capable of delivering to the level of ability managers think they see. The right man, or the right place might make a star of him. Maybe if he went to Montrose where he might be their best player he'd start to show what he can do. Or maybe not.
I'm sure there very often is an answer, because clubs reject seventeen year olds who have been star players at their level all their lives. They slope off disappointed into non-league and some re-emerge as stars. We assume the rejecting club was wrong because we can see the final outcome. At the time they made the decision the facts were probably wholly different. The Owls rejected Jamie Vardy at 14, but he was 4' 11" and a bit lary. Now he's an England player they got it wrong, but when he was wearing a tag and turning out for Stocksbridge ........ how did their decision look then? He was taller and possibly nastier, that's all.