XI vs Morecambe 2016

Been thinking back recently to the squad we had in our first game back in the football league in 2016, wasn't the best squad we've had by a long shot but better than the dross we have today.

                                Macca

        Andrew     Boyce    Gowling   Davies

Bolarinwa    McAllister    Summerfield    Berrett

                       Jackson    Vernon

Jackson and Davies got the goals that day

Rose is a poor mans Berrett !

jesus

i have no recollection of Boyce or McAllister

Quoted from Boris Johnson

jesus

i have no recollection of Boyce or McAllister

Andrew Boyce and Sean McAllister

Boyce played a few times for us that season but then went to Eastleigh

McAllister was out injured for most of his time here I think, basically 2016's answer to James Hanson  

Quoted from Boris Johnson

jesus

i have no recollection of Boyce or McAllister

Boyce was also with us on loan the season before, McAllister who had had a decent career prior to signing for us played a few games then was resident on the treatment table for the rest of his contract, a poor man’s James Hanson.

Quoted from BlackAndWhiteAndRedAllOver

Been thinking back recently to the squad we had in our first game back in the football league in 2016, wasn't the best squad we've had by a long shot but better than the dross we have today.

                                Macca

        Andrew     Boyce    Gowling   Davies

Bolarinwa    McAllister    Summerfield    Berrett

                       Jackson    Vernon

Jackson and Davies got the goals that day

I think even looking at that team and who had left over the summer it makes you appreciate what a great team we had when we came up. It's almost a completely changed 11 from the Play-off final, it shows you the lengths Fenty didn't go to in retaining some of those players. I would have loved to have seen how far we would have gone if we had kept hold of Toto, Tait, Nolan, Amond, Arnold etc as well as Bogle down the line and another year out of Gregor Robertson.

I think we ended up getting Kayden Jackson a year early before he flourished, looked quite sharp but ironically couldn't hit the target (after this game) seem to remember him being prolific in League One the following year for Accrington. Josh Magennis and Malik Wilks spring to mind as well as they never did it for us either.

To be honest the only 3 i would have from that in this town team would be Danny Andrew, Luke Summerfield and Kayeden Jackson.

Didnt realise the team had been dissected that much after the play off final. Thats shocked me.

Boyce looked quality when we had him on loan and I think most of us thought it was a good, solid signing that summer.  Unfortunately he just didn't make the step up and looked well out of his depth.  It didn't help that his partner on that day, Josh Gowling, was another who didn't make the step up back into the league.  Shame as he was excellent in the Conference.

McAllister was the next level of that holding player that Hurst always liked to bring in.  Scott Brown was an improvement on Scott Kerr and McAllister an improvement on Brown.  Unfortunately whereas Brown had his issues, McAllister just couldn't stay fit.  But you could really tell his quality when he did play.  I think Coventry away was his last game, very early on in Jolley's reign.  He hadn't played for ages but was bossing the midfield until he went off exhausted, at which point Coventry just ran riot.  

I remember BBC Humberside, could have been Burns I think, asking Jolley about McAllister following the next game and Jolley couldn't give an answer as to why he wasn't involved.  Not sure if this was an indication of Jolley's early sulk and strops with the press but at the time I took it that there was something else at play.

Interestingly I've just Googled him to find out what happened since he left, he's now Football Development Co-Ordinator at Shrewsbury but when he signed for Chester he had this to say about his time at Town.

Quoted Text

"I know I'm still capable of playing in the Football League but with the injuries I've had the last time I played regular football was in League One and when I went to Grimsby I got an ankle injury which lasted 15 months through a misdiagnoses.

"It was one injury and I wasn't treated properly and as soon as I got the right treatment I haven't had the problem since.

"It was so frustrating as I knew I could have been out for just two weeks and it ended up being 15 months and I didn't know what the hell was was wrong with me. It was that bad I was thinking about retiring."

https://www.chesterstandard.co.....ooks-rebuild-career/

How many bloody times have we done this?  Just complete and utter shambles.  Never mind the failing in a care of duty to another player (remember Adrian Forbes' broken leg going undiagnosed?) but what about the cost implications? Wouldn't surprise me if Hanson's calf injury is in fact an ingrowing toenail!

That really is an underwhelming team and shows how much the promotion side was dismantled. It's baffling as to why it was deemed necessary to totally purge a promotion side. Most teams who get promoted keep the nucleus of the players and add to it with a bit more quality here and there. Another opportunity to progress missed.

In that piece by Amond where he described the reasons around him leaving, he said he had been told by Hurst that the club wanted to sign more league standard players. So one has to ask, why didn't we? The players we did sign were no better than what we had (with one or two exceptions) and they didn't have that togetherness that promoted sides build up, and gives momentum beyond their abilities. It was a big mistake.

Of course, the biggest loss was yet to happen when Hurst packed his bags and headed for the Shrews. It's been another sh1t show ever since.

I'd give my eye teeth for that 2016 team now mind.

8/11 of those were either retired or playing in none league within 2 years after that, flipping says it all about our recruitment