First 10 mins of Stockport-Salford match...

[Guernsey Exile]

Andy Butler.

We must have gone to the same school!

There was a few in that year group that went on to play senior football.

[Colin C No.3]

Mike Elwiss.

We sold him to PNE for £70k then PNE sold him to Crystal Palace for £200k.

At Palace he played with Gerry Francis, Kenny Sansom, Steve Kember & Vince Hilaire. A knee injury cut his playing career short.

[pib]

One of my mates had a school friend who was on the books at Scunthorpe as a youth player.

They released him when he was 20. He occasionally helped out my mate's Sunday team when they were short of players and he said the skill this guy had was unbelievable. And he couldn't make it at fourth tier Scunthorpe.

I think people do underestimate what it takes to become a professional football player.

I would agree with that. I've played against one or two that didn't quite break through and they were unbelievable in relative terms. I won't name names but one in particular stands out who I played against once on the 7-a-side pitches at the Keepmoat.

He was in the Rovers set-up a while ago and didn't quite make it (made the bench a couple of times I think and might have come on as a sub for a few minutes once or twice). He went on to play for quite a few clubs in non-league round here, and to us mere mortals the guy was an unbelievable player. None of us could get near him and we looked like utter mugs at the side of him. He was a million times better than anyone I'd ever played against before in at amateur level. It's a massive eye-opener.