Has anyone on here played professionally?

[Jimbob]

My Dad was at City in the 1960's, unfortunately never quite made the first team but was playing for the reserves, A team and B team, my Uncle had a similiar story but he was at United a few years earlier.

 

[give it to gordon]

only at the local semi pro level at 16, I was offer a two week trail at Southampton in the 70's by a coach who worked at Southampton and went on to run the academy at Liverpool under Daglish and brought Fowler etc through. But back in the 70's I was a very shy, unconfident, skinny 16 year old, so packed in football, in fact I hated football after that and didn't play again until in my mid 20's in the local works league.

 

[peoffrey]

met a few like that over the years,all the talent in the world but could really take it or leave it & never took it that seriously,each to their own i suppose...

I read Craig Bellamy’s autobiography and he’d played as a lad with someone who scored goals for fun throughout his youth career but never took it seriously. He gave up at 16.

 

[BlueTG]

A lad from my first work was offered a contract at Walsall as an 18 year old but turned it down because he liked drinking, smoking and chasing the girls too much. What a wanker.

Why? Because he didn’t do what you would have wanted?

 

[Nebuchadnezzar]

My old fella was offered trials for Spurs but sacked it off for the pub. Seems to be a recurring theme. I could be a flat cap wearing Chas and Dave loving wanker in a parallel universe. In fact aside from the flat cap, i'm already there. If you were a flat cap without being a farmer I can only advise you to get in the fucking sea.

 

[Gazza]

I believe that Lee Bradbury posts on here - so that's still a no then.

 

[AliBobbyJ]

A friend of mine who played in the same junior side as me is probably the best natural talent I’ve ever shared a pitch with. It was obvious from a very young age that he was streets ahead of everyone. He was the best player in our league, and then for Stockport schoolboys, then his county, and then England u-15s. A long story short, despite his prodigious talent he didn’t make it as a pro and just ended up playing non-league for a while. Always makes me think just how fucking good even the very shittest players in the league must be though, relatively speaking. We scoff at some players, but football is an industry where you don’t simply fluke your way to the top. 99.9% of those in academies don’t make it, so anyone who goes on to play either professionally or even semi-professionally must be fucking brilliant.

Exactly what Nick Hornby describes in Fever Pitch, talking about a lad called Gus Caesar who was brilliant for Arsenal at every level rising up through school, youth teams, to the reserves, but then failed utterly in the first team - only the top 1% of the top 1% that make it all the way.

 

[Sky Blue Thinking]

Had trials for Sheffield Wednesday and Ipswich that's as far as I got. After my second trial with Ipswich and didnt make it I started to lose interest and ended up drinking the head of myself every weekend :)

Think a lot of capable players took that route. More than ever now lifestyle is a big factor in making it, that's not a criticism. Trials at Ipswich and Weds you must have been decent.

 

[Sky Blue Thinking]

When i was about 5 a lad next door was having trials at City, he'd have been about 14 at the time. I was convinced he was going to play for us, he never did.

 

[peoffrey]

Why? Because he didn’t do what you would have wanted?

He can do all that after he retired. Playing football is the dream of many a man. I bet you’d have done it.