Your clubs most successful trialists...

[BarraMatt]

Radio Cumbria doing a social media post every time he farts certainly doesn't help.

Scoring a few goals in those divisions isn't much to write home about either. There's been plenty of bang average Conference strikers that have signed for bottom half SPL teams and got a regular game.

 

[Big Bird]

Yaser Kasim maybe. Did well and was key to our League 1 play off finalists in 2015.

Left us in his prime at 26 and, if Wikipedia is correct, has only made 23 first team appearances ever since. Bizarre.

 

[Northenblues]

Your loss, brilliant player. The Frank Lampard of the National League. Coaches in our academy now whilst still playing for Hereford. Top man.

We were a league one side at the time

 

[RLC]

Gareth Roberts. Came to us on trial in the summer of 1999 and went on to play over 250 games for us, become a Welsh international and was a key part of our 2000 League Cup final side.

I remember he came on trial with a Spanish lad called Pedro Matias, who is not as well remembered around these parts but did play a few games for Walsall.

 

[Amber Nectar]

For me, the Chief, aka Krystian Pearce.

 

[BigDaveCUFC]

Ok

Could be the jumping off point for a whole other thread on players your club binned off that they really shouldn't have. Nakhi Wells is part of a Carlisle-reject strike force that includes Glenn Murray, Paddy Madden and Grant Holt, all of whom did pretty well for themselves following the disappointment that naturally comes with being released by us. Of course if we released a group of players of that calibre these days they'd be quickly snapped up and ruined further by Port Vale, such is their current habit.

We let go some blooming good strikers, although in fairness with Glenn Murray that was more he was about at a wrong time when in his couple of seasons we amassed our best collection of forwards even beckford played during that time for us and was fobbed off as crap.

karl hawley is probably the best trialist I can remember for us in terms of impressing (think he got 4-5 goals at Kendal in his first game) and also in terms of how he did once signed going on to score lots for us in conference league two and league one.

 

[shoddycollins]

Ok


We let go some blooming good strikers, although in fairness with Glenn Murray that was more he was about at a wrong time when in his couple of seasons we amassed our best collection of forwards even beckford played during that time for us and was fobbed off as crap.

karl hawley is probably the best trialist I can remember for us in terms of impressing (think he got 4-5 goals at Kendal in his first game) and also in terms of how he did once signed going on to score lots for us in conference league two and league one.

You can argue too that Paddy Madden had several chances in a blues shirt to show what he was capable of and never did it. Gary Johnson said himself after he blossomed at Yeovil that it was about playing him in the right system, credit to Johnson for spotting that but even if Greg Abbott had suspected that Madden could work in a different system you can hardly expect him to change the attacking shape of a team that featured Miller, Zoko and an on-form Berrett to try and get the best out of this young lad who had looked out of his depth up to that point.

Wells on the other hand... I feel like everyone but Greg Abbott could see the potential he had, Abbott was certainly decent when it came to spotting players with potential, but not so when it came to getting that potential to show.

 

[Uncle Pastuzo]

Possibly Mark Byrne, who initially joined only on a half-season deal. Someone mentioned Yan Klukowski, we might even have paid a fee but he never cut it in home games at least, always seemed to arrive a split second too late to influence play. He did often look much better away from home.

 

[MadJohn]

Joel Porter as well I think we also had on trial.

We did, as did Sunderland, Barnsley and Wigan. We were the ones who took the chance, and to be honest I wouldn't really look past Joel and Dimi when picking our best trialist, certainly in terms of what they went on to do for us. Other notables would be Jack Baldwin, Evan Horwood, Michael Woods, Paul Smith. Did we give Gordon Watson a trial before taking a punt? I was actually on holiday when he made his debut, and assumed Soccer Saturday had made a mistake when the score update said that he had scored for us against Kidderminster. Steve Howard was a successful trialist, even though most of his best work came after leaving us. (I rated him, and thought we were just starting to see the best of him when he went to Northampton. I was sorry to see him go, and baffled by the Pools fans who thought we got the better of the deal with Chris Freestone!)

Like every other club, there have been a lot more misses than hits. I wonder what ever happened to Dominique Astolfi, Blaise Yomba, and Peter Prosper, or, much more recently, Bakary Bojang, Biko Bradnock-Brennan, Edwin Mensah, Jack Spark........?!

 

[Luke Imp]

In terms of how successful he was at the Club - Neal Eardley. 45 minutes in a pre-season friendly in his second position at LB and was signed up days later. He was brilliant for us, a solid 8/10 every week, never injured.

From a monetary side of things - Jonny Margetts. Scunny had him on trial, released him, he came to us and scored 8 or 9 in pre-season. We signed him on a one year deal, scored 5 in his first 7 games (4 in one game against Southport) and Swann decided he'd made a mistake and we'd sold him by the end of August for nearly six-figures. He was only under contract for four weeks I think.

I think he spent most of his two years there injured.

 

[Bottega Don]

In terms of how successful he was at the Club - Neal Eardley. 45 minutes in a pre-season friendly in his second position at LB and was signed up days later. He was brilliant for us, a solid 8/10 every week, never injured.

From a monetary side of things - Jonny Margetts. Scunny had him on trial, released him, he came to us and scored 8 or 9 in pre-season. We signed him on a one year deal, scored 5 in his first 7 games (4 in one game against Southport) and Swann decided he'd made a mistake and we'd sold him by the end of August for nearly six-figures. He was only under contract for four weeks I think.

I think he spent most of his two years there injured.

Think that story just sums up how poorly we have been ran the last 8 years. Margetts barely played for us, I have no idea who even wanted to sign him.

 

[HutchECFC]

I guess we could say Jordan Storey.. Came to our youth set up as a trialist when Yeovil's shut down.. Played about 20 games for our first team in the second half of the 2017/2018 before being sold to Preston for about £750,000.

 

[Si Robin]

Matty Blair last summer is the only one that comes immediately to mind for me. Originally we were just helping him with keeping fit, but he played a couple of friendlies, was clearly better than what we already had and then was crucial in helping us win the division.

Luke Summerfield was another success, giving us a fantastic midfield 3 of Summerfield, Pack and Penn in 11/12. He's soured by the fact he agreed a deal with Shrewsbury in the week of the playoff final and didn't turn up at all in the game.

 

[Robshep]

In terms of how successful he was at the Club - Neal Eardley. 45 minutes in a pre-season friendly in his second position at LB and was signed up days later. He was brilliant for us, a solid 8/10 every week, never injured.

From a monetary side of things - Jonny Margetts. Scunny had him on trial, released him, he came to us and scored 8 or 9 in pre-season. We signed him on a one year deal, scored 5 in his first 7 games (4 in one game against Southport) and Swann decided he'd made a mistake and we'd sold him by the end of August for nearly six-figures. He was only under contract for four weeks I think.

I think he spent most of his two years there injured.

We had him. Scored 5 in one pre season game and then played two or three league games before vanishing. Trialist H.
James Alibi was never a trialist but should have appeared in court for fraud by calling himself a footballer.

 

[shoddycollins]

We had him. Scored 5 in one pre season game and then played two or three league games before vanishing. Trialist H.
James Alibi was never a trialist but should have appeared in court for fraud by calling himself a footballer.

They probably tried to get him in court but he kept getting off because he had a... ah you know I'm not even gonna finish that, it's such an obvious and crap joke.