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Have you ever played with or against someone who's made it?


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Played against Chris Marsden in a sunday league friendly match. After his retirement from professional football, he moved to Cyprus and was part of an amateur side. Even though he must have been near 40, he was still great to watch up close.

 

Also had a 5 a side kickabout with Craig Hignett during his stint in Cyprus with Apollon. He was shit  :aww:

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I played against Thomas Ince a few years ago. He played for West Kirby Wasps, me Liscard Panthers. I was left back, him right mid, and I had him in my back pocket all game. We beat them on penalties in the final of some tournament, he missed the decisive peno aswell. Paul Ince was meant to hand out the trophies at the end, and because they lost, he just got off. Was a right t***. He's now worth 8m.

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Played against a few guys who made a handful of appearances for lower league sides and decent non-league, but probably the best was Greg Heald. He captained England schoolboys and went to Norwich, but injury kept him back and he went to Barnet - captained them in the Third/Fourth IIRC. When I was in the fifth form at school he was Upper Sixth, and we were CB partners for the school team.

 

Two weird ones I remember were Ian Fusedale (a mate's Dad, played briefly for Spurs in the 60s) and some guy whose name escapes me who went to PSG. He had the quickest feet I have ever seen, fucking lethal, hated playing against him.

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Went to school with Angelo Balenta who plays for QPR and has been loaned out to a lot of lower league teams. First played a one on one against him when I was 7. He destroyed me. Played a lot of times with and against him in year 5. He was always the best player and I always knew he'd make it as a pro footballer.

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Oh aye - and saw Lee Clark play against my school year (25 years ago) when I think he was playing for Walker HS? Ran the show for the first half (no-one could get near him)-  they were 2-1 up. His manager than took him off at HT as he was supposed to be playing for Newcastle reserves later that night and wor lot came back to win 5-2. Show how much of an influence he had. I used to go to Bedlingon HS, btw - had a canny team that year. I was never good enough to play, but I used to train with them, etc.

 

My grandad was Clark's headteacher at Walkergate Primary.

Mr Smith?

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Went to school with Mark Cullen who made a couple of PL appearances for Hull, think he scored against Liverpool towards the end of the season when they were already down. Went out on loan a few places lower down after that, now he's at Luton. Never really played with him because he was a year or two younger, but that's all I've really got.

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I played against Shaun Murray when he played for Westerhope Juniors. He scored a boatload in both games. Also played against a Cramlington Juniors side which smashed us home and away which had a certain A Shearer in it . I think Tommy Widdrington played for Crammy as well

Same as this, for half a season I played a year above for Montagu u14(and was struggling tbf), played W'hope up at the 'tute and Murray took the p**s. As for Crammy, Tommy Widdrington was a year down and played in the same side as a different Paul Gascoigne who looked outstanding at that age. They also had Simon Bird up front, who was hopeless - but he was about 6"5' at 13. Also played against Lee Clark a good few times - who was playing a year up at Wallsend and still looked a cut above.

 

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I played with and against a Colin Hardman, who was in the year above me at Junior School. I think he eventually got taken on as an apprentice at Man City, but ended up at Stockport County, and then the non-league at Stafford Rangers, Barnet and Wealdstone.

 

I can remember one informal game in the park, where in order to even the sides out, Colin's team had about 7 players and the opposition had 11. We still won, because all you had to do was give him the ball and he'd just go through the entire opposition and score, from anywhere on the pitch.

 

I also remember that even at the age of 11, he could score from outside the penalty area with a really powerful shot.

 

So Colin Hardman's career became a measure for me of just how talented someone had to be to even get to the lower slopes of the professional game.

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Mikael Almebäck (Club Brügge) in training, played in Sunday League-style cups against Albin Ekdal (Cagliari) and Philip Haglund (IFK Göteborg).

 

About the three only players who's made it from Stockholm in the past century.

 

Couple of my mates have played at decent level. Best story is when one mate faced Niklas Bendtner in Denmark at 15. He was strolling around, scored a goal, wearing pink shoes, hair in a pony tail, spat at someone and went off.

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Played football with David Templeton from Rangers at school. Also played in a charity match last month with Nacho Novo, Russell Lapaty, Charlie Miller and Bob Malcolm. Shellsuit Boab from River City also played.

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He didn't quite make it, but I played in the same team as a lad called Mark Angel, who got as far as Sunderland reserves but never broke into the first team and then ended up leaving and going down eventually into non-league.

 

He was, by a long way the best player in our team.

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Lived in the same street and played football as a kid with David Southern who played for Newcastle Blue Star, Gateshead and was prolific at non-league level.

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He didn't quite make it, but I played in the same team as a lad called Mark Angel, who got as far as Sunderland reserves but never broke into the first team and then ended up leaving and going down eventually into non-league.

 

He was, by a long way the best player in our team.

Played with his big brother, Will, cracking defender. Think he'd have made it if not for a nasty multiple leg break around the time lads were getting scouted. Incidentally, around that time, loads of lads from the area ended up on trial at Northampton - their manager at the time? Graham Carr.

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Andy Carroll, Mark Noble, Tom Huddlestone, Aaron Lennon, Frazer Forster, Lee Cattermole, David Edgar, Paul Huntington, Chris Basham, Kris Thackray, Danny Graham, Victor Anichebe

 

A fair few more from lower leagues and probably some i can't remember off the top of my head.

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