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The Ex-Villa Player thread - Keeping tabs on old Villans


Moneill

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Stephen Cooke

I have just found this article by Mat Kendrick at Birmingham Mail. It's quite a long, but interesting insight into the workings of youth football, training with the first team as a youngster and the struggle to make it at first team level.  A bit of a sad tale of what might have been, but for a change of manager at the time and a really bad injury that pretty much ended his career with an insurance payout.

I also did find the following paragrath of the article interesting:-

"It's not just on senior international duty, it transpires, that heads get turned. Many of Cooke's Lilleshall peers were with big clubs like Chelsea and Liverpool and it was at the FA's behest that Cooke should join them, advising him to swap little Walsall for mighty Manchester United.

Who was Cooke, and his Old Trafford loving old man to argue?

A move to Manchester United beckoned - and Beckham-ed - and all of a sudden a lad with more than a sliver of self doubt was signing a contract in Sir Alex Ferguson's office."

 

Now personally, I am not sure why the FA are advising youngster to leave his club (Walsall) to join Man Utd, they should be starying out of that kind of thing and be neutral. I know they are not, but this confirms it for me the bias.

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38 minutes ago, NeilS said:

Stephen Cooke

I have just found this article by Mat Kendrick at Birmingham Mail. It's quite a long, but interesting insight into the workings of youth football, training with the first team as a youngster and the struggle to make it at first team level.  A bit of a sad tale of what might have been, but for a change of manager at the time and a really bad injury that pretty much ended his career with an insurance payout.

I also did find the following paragrath of the article interesting:-

"It's not just on senior international duty, it transpires, that heads get turned. Many of Cooke's Lilleshall peers were with big clubs like Chelsea and Liverpool and it was at the FA's behest that Cooke should join them, advising him to swap little Walsall for mighty Manchester United.

Who was Cooke, and his Old Trafford loving old man to argue?

A move to Manchester United beckoned - and Beckham-ed - and all of a sudden a lad with more than a sliver of self doubt was signing a contract in Sir Alex Ferguson's office."

 

Now personally, I am not sure why the FA are advising youngster to leave his club (Walsall) to join Man Utd, they should be starying out of that kind of thing and be neutral. I know they are not, but this confirms it for me the bias.

Why would they want players to develop while playing 1st team football when can have a high profile at Man United Reserves

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On 25/09/2022 at 14:00, slovenian said:

Ørjan Nyland... still without a club... but still playing for Norway

He’s got a club now. Looks like Nyland will be playing CL football. That’s something I never thought I’d say .

 

 

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Brad Burton played for Alvechurch today as they beat Worksop Town 3-2 to reach the first round of the FA Cup for the first time in 49 years. Former triallist Paul Williams was also on the bench, I think Ethan Patterson is also with them but wasn't in the squad today.

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  • 2 weeks later...
3 minutes ago, Jimzk5 said:

Really good program called premier League stories on now, featuring Joey gudjohnson, talks about coaching he's own children in Iceland

Isn't his son highly rated, think he was born when he was at Villa

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9 minutes ago, Zatman said:

Isn't his son highly rated, think he was born when he was at Villa

Isak, plays for FC Copenhagen

Joey is currently assistant manager of the Iceland national team

 

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Went to Betis for 7m I remember when we signed him which was big money back them. A 7m signing for nothing, scored from about 100 yards on his debut and was gutted we didn't sign him.

Then joined Wolves and Burnley and had a very bang average career.

Strange. That 7m must have been Tshibola kind of deal.

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1 hour ago, rodders0223 said:

Went to Betis for 7m I remember when we signed him which was big money back them. A 7m signing for nothing, scored from about 100 yards on his debut and was gutted we didn't sign him.

Then joined Wolves and Burnley and had a very bang average career.

Strange. That 7m must have been Tshibola kind of deal.

His Wikipedia said it was a 500k deal 

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