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Yeading FC are a fairly small team with a good local support but
are currently doing well in the Ryman Premier League. Success
has brought them to the “home of football” for the visit of
Newcastle United in the FA Cup, and good luck to them in their
quest to become the second non league club to win an FA Cup
match at Loftus Road in the last 3 years (my apologies to
everyone who had managed to block that horrific moment out of
their minds!).
But good luck is what we have to wish one of our many ex- “ones
for the future”, in the shape of Richard Pacquette. He has
always been that player who you thought, “might” be the next
best thing, but spells at Franchise FC and Brentford, proved
once and for all that if he wanted to play football, he needed
to drop into non league where he had been fairly successful once
before.
At Stevenage Borough where he was on loan from us for a short
time he even managed to score, well, when he wasn’t being shown
red cards. So what did Mr Pacquette choose to do on his debut
for Farnborough then? Yep you guessed it. This time he decided
14 minutes was enough to be running about for and quickly
arranged himself a hot bath! In defence of his misdemeanour, he
said “I went for the ball. It was there to be won. If I don’t go
for tackles, people will say I’m a bottler”. Who would say such
a thing? No, never, not us!
A division down, in the Nationwide Conference North we find one
of Richard’s ex colleagues. Previously at Basingstoke Town,
Oliver Burgess is now lighting up the midfield of Kettering
Town. Ollie seemed to be someone with a future ahead of him at
Loftus Road. In a poor team, he began to stand out, but sadly, a
series of serious injuries signed the death knell to his QPR
career. However, having played well at Basingstoke, he is now
firing on all cylinders for the Poppies. This season he has made
20 appearances and scored 8 times, most recently this week in a
2-1 win over Worksop to lift them into second place.
Another of the same bunch of players who we thought were going
to be the next big thing, is Leroy Griffiths. Leroy has featured
in my column regularly. Mainly down to the fact that the man who
taunted Marcel Desailly is still actually rather good at this
level! He has now scored 17 goals already this season. Grays
lost their first game for weeks at the weekend but remain top of
the Nationwide Conference South by 6 points. This follows the
demise of Chelsea wannabees Hornchurch (as I reported in my last
ex file,) who couldn’t win a goldfish in a hoopla run by Santa
Claus. Interestingly, Leroy is acting as teacher at the moment.
He has taken a young lad under his wing and is looking to bring
him through the ranks as his strike partner – some kid called
Dennis Oli. No doubt he’ll be another one for the future…
But its not much fun looking to your future when things aren’t
quite going right, especially when you mention the world of
management.. The past is where our heroes lie. And currently
Paul Parker would like to be reminded of it. He has had a bad
season at Welling United and the recent defeat to Eastbourne
Borough was the last straw for his chairman who decided that one
win this season was not good enough and sacked the poor fella.
However, in another part of Kent, and sitting second bottom of
the Ryman League Division One with just one win more is Terry
Fenwick, at Ashford Town. Yet he seems quite happy and even has
a fairly humorous column on the clubs website.
And finally, away from such misery, perhaps this story of
management woe could be a lesson learned by a man refusing to
hang up his boots. And why should he? The 37 year old who was
once sold for £2.7million, is probably more likely to be paid
£2.70 these days, but he is still keeping Fleet Town going and
set up two pinpoint crosses for goals in their 3-2 win this
Saturday. Don’t retire Andy Sinton!
I wonder what Richard Pacquette will be doing when he’s 37….
varc@qprnet.com |
