James Tilley

Quoted from Poojah

I think it’s a bit hard to judge the lad on his time here, or our decision to let him go, given the prevailing circumstances.

He signed as 20-year old in January 2020, to much Ian Holloway fanfare (I assume he got a decent kickback), a time long before “Runaway” had run away, and anything the reprehensible Bristolian had to say held far more stock than it ought to have done. That set a level of expectation that probably didn’t help the kid, but my memory of his initial time at BP was that he did ‘alright’ without particularly pulling up any trees.

Then Covid hit, and we shouldn’t underestimate the significance of that to a young man in the fledgling years of his career, 250 miles from home. Under contract or not, I can only imagine that spring / summer was a tough and worrying time for young footballers.

Then when football eventually returned, the club had become a complete basket case, he’s playing in empty stadiums and for a chunk of his latter time was playing while the country was under strict lockdown conditions. He’s basically stuck, alone in a hotel room, with none of his friends or family around him, unable to legally travel home, with naff all to do to entertain himself. Those aren’t circumstances that are likely to get the best out of the kid, and ultimately the move to Crawley was an absolute no-brainer at the time.

Christ, when I was 20, I was happy spending my days smoking weed, eating KFC and playing GTA Vice City for the bulk of my waking hours. I doubt a major pandemic would have brought out the professional best in me.

He’s doing well at the minute so good luck to him. A forgettable part of GTFC history but by no means is that entirely attributable to him. Wrong place, wrong time.

Quoted from diehardmariner

Tilley is one of few who Hurst sacked off from the Holloway era that has gone onto do anything better or operate at the same level of us.

He left us in 20-21 to go to Crawley, they finished 12th as we got relegated.  He was a regular.  Following season as we fought back into the league, he was again a regular as they finished 12th once more.  It's only last season that they struggled, no doubt thanks to their farcical owners but again a regular.

The other obvious one (who has actually gone onto do much better) is Terry Taylor.  Another young lad miles from home.

There was something about the culture at the club at that time that wasn't right. Especially with young lads.  Joe Starbuck and Duncan Idehen were quite mysteriously binned off by Hurst and ended up in Championship development squads at Sheff Utd and Bristol City respectively.  Starbuck is without a club at the minute but Idehen has played a few times for Bristol City and had a loan spell at Carlisle last season.  Both were talented whilst here, certainly players you would look to develop yet Hurst opted not to. I seem to recall he dropped some sort of hint which went along the lines of 'they need to get away from the place to develop', perhaps not as to the point as that.  

I don't think we can underestimate just how bad the set-up was under Holloway and culturally that's a difficult thing to change.  For young lads in that environment, it can be a toxic place.