Players who never made it but.........

[GlenSTFC]

13 minutes ago, Matt said:

I would certainly put Mo Shariff in this category. He looked an amazing prospect when he broke into Steve Bateman’s team and scored his first goal for us in an FA Trophy game at Boreham Wood at the age of 16. He was signed by QPR but didn’t progress, and ended up back in the non-league game. Last seen at Hemel Hempstead or Kings Langley a few years ago, I believe. 

Although you could argue Mo did ‘make it’ as he signed for a couple of higher decent level clubs. 

[Matt]

15 minutes ago, GlenSTFC said:

Although you could argue Mo did ‘make it’ as he signed for a couple of higher decent level clubs. 

How many games did he play in the Football League? He was hardly a success. I just don’t know what went wrong. 

[GlenSTFC]

2 minutes ago, Matt said:

How many games did he play in the Football League? He was hardly a success. I just don’t know what went wrong. 

I guess ‘made it’ needs defining then... if you sign a 3 year full time contract with QPR wouldn’t most say he’s made it even if it all goes pear shaped?

[GarySTFC]

2 hours ago, Reading Rebel said:

Are you sure Gary?

Pretty certain that when we played Winchester we were at Beaconsfield and Paul Telfer flew in by helicopter.

Perhaps Dylan Kerr did as well.

We signed Telfer when I was secretary and as Nathan rightly said, he was in Winchester at the time. 

[Reading Rebel]

Mo Shariff made it in terms of signing for championship club QPR. He did well for their under 21's but for some reason never progressed to play for their first team.

He played four games for Dagenham in div 2 and one game for Bradford City in div 1 and then disappeared into non league ending up in season 2015/16 at Hemel and Kings Langley.

No further record on his Wiki page so presume he either stopped playing or is only playing local football.

At only 26 I suppose he could still play at a good level If he had the desire to.

 

 

 

[Nathan]

I remember Craig Rocastle who was with us for the 2002/03 season. I believe he went to Chelsea and even appeared on the sub's bench for a premier league game the following year. Does that count as making it?

[Ted Plenty]

Appearing for Chelsea means failure rather than making it.

[Reading Rebel]

51 minutes ago, Nathan said:

I remember Craig Rocastle who was with us for the 2002/03 season. I believe he went to Chelsea and even appeared on the sub's bench for a premier league game the following year. Does that count as making it?

As he made appearances in the Championship, div 1, 2, 3 and the Scottish Premier I'd say that he definitely made it.

 

[3spirit]

9 hours ago, GarySTFC said:

No, it was Dylan Kerr who was rumoured to have been flown down during our time at Wexham Park 

We had a few ex-Reading players around that time. What was the first name of the midfielder we had then, think his surname was Lambert? He was highly rated when he played professionally for QPR and Reading.Think he ended up in Scottish football and then came to us after that, as a pale shadow of his former self.

7 hours ago, Matt said:

I would certainly put Mo Shariff in this category. He looked an amazing prospect when he broke into Steve Bateman’s team and scored his first goal for us in an FA Trophy game at Boreham Wood at the age of 16. He was signed by QPR but didn’t progress, and ended up back in the non-league game. Last seen at Hemel Hempstead or Kings Langley a few years ago, I believe. 

Matt, you're right about Mo Shariff looking an amazing prospect. When he broke into the Slough first team, pardon my French but 'shit off the shovel' comes to mind.He was electric and belied his young years.

Perhaps he sustained an injury, when back in non-league football but it's certainly a shame him not getting anywhere, unless of course he's playing out of the country and we just don't know about it.

[3spirit]

12 minutes ago, Ted Plenty said:

Appearing for Chelsea means failure rather than making it.

Couldn't agree with you more.

A good first post, TP, welcome to the forum !

[Reading Rebel]

48 minutes ago, 3spirit said:

Couldn't agree with you more.

A good first post, TP, welcome to the forum !

I think Ted lets Nathan give us his pearls of wisdom on the forum   ?   

53 minutes ago, 3spirit said:

We had a few ex-Reading players around that time. What was the first name of the midfielder we had then, think his surname was Lambert? He was highly rated when he played professionally for QPR and Reading.Think he ended up in Scottish football and then came to us after that, as a pale shadow of his former self.

Matt, you're right about Mo Shariff looking an amazing prospect. When he broke into the Slough first team, pardon my French but 'shit off the shovel' comes to mind.He was electric and belied his young years.

Perhaps he sustained an injury, when back in non-league football but it's certainly a shame him not getting anywhere, unless of course he's playing out of the country and we just don't know about it.

James Lambert.

One of our expensive flops over the years.

Probably not as expensive a flop as Phil Beale though.

 

Edited June 24, 2019 by Reading Rebel

[3spirit]

7 minutes ago, Reading Rebel said:

I think Ted lets Nathan give us his pearls of wisdom on the forum   ?   

James Lambert.

One of our expensive flops over the years.

 

James Lambert, that's it. A workmate back then,who was a season ticket holder at QPR, came to a couple of Slough games with me and was flabberghasted to see James Lambert turning out for us, as he said he was a 'class act' and couldn't believe he had fallen into the non-league so quick.

I actually didn't mind James Lambert but at the time we didn't get a great return from him, though I would have kept him for a few more games than we did. At the time,didn't think he was one of the worst players we had, we urgently needed to address our defence of Keith McPherson and Steve Stott, both well known players in their own right but were struggling as the centre back partnership.We persisted with them two for too long and our results suffered because of it. Both were on a few bob as well, by all accounts.   

[Radders]

Around the same time we had Dylan Kerr, Keith McPherson and Gilkes senior as well as Chris Allen who was ex forest and we were still crap!!!

[GlenSTFC]

1 minute ago, Radders said:

Around the same time we had Dylan Kerr, Keith McPherson and Gilkes senior as well as Chris Allen who was ex forest and we were still crap!!!

Sneaky suspicion they were more interested in the weekly brown envelopes...

[sdelaney]

As said by Ted in earlier post Phil Beale I believe was the first ex professional to join us centre back from Spurs who just turned up for the money I was very disappointed with him. Took a good 10 years from the 1970s for these ex pros to realise that they had to work hard to play and get into a non league team. Tommy Langley ex Chelsea was superb player for us to see to see him play against ex Slough and Chelsea player Micky Droy in the Kingstonian game at Wexham Park in the battle for promotion points was great. We won the game and you could see the pleasure on Tommy.s face after the game it meant a lot to him to not only win but against his old pal to.

Was disappointed with Mark Hawthorne too. played for a lot of pro clubs but another top player who joined us with injury problems. Swapping Roger Connell for Kieram Summers was a bad move to.

[Banny]

We did not swop Roger Connell for Summers it was Keith Mead. Summers joined us years later from Wimbledon

[michaelSTFC]

6 hours ago, GlenSTFC said:

Sneaky suspicion they were more interested in the weekly brown envelopes...

There were a lot of issues with those players.

Edited June 25, 2019 by michaelSTFC

[sdelaney]

3 hours ago, Banny said:

We did not swop Roger Connell for Summers it was Keith Mead. Summers joined us years later from Wimbledon

I went off track your memory is better than mine.

[Scarborough Rebel]

I think the thread has turned into players who had made it but had come down to non-league at the end of their careers usually with little success for Slough e.g. Kenny Samson. Tommy Langley being a definite exception who even well into his thirties was a class act. Another ex-Chelsea player we had on trial was Clive Walker. We didn't sign him and he went on to become an absolute legend for Woking?

[3spirit]

12 hours ago, Radders said:

Around the same time we had Dylan Kerr, Keith McPherson and Gilkes senior as well as Chris Allen who was ex forest and we were still crap!!!

We had the wrong manager, a better manager would have got more out of them. That was Martyn Deaner's big failing. He would pay out for good players but recruited poorly when it came to managers.