BLACKPOOL striker Ben Burgess will this season give News of the World readers an exclusive insight into life at one of the country's less glamorous clubs. The Seasiders are famous as the club which gave us legendary winger Sir Stanley Matthews but not even their most ardent fan would claim they are still in the big-time. Ben, 26, is about to start his third season at the club, after spells at Blackburn (where he played three games as an 18-year-old for Graeme Souness), Northern Spirit in Sydney, Brentford, Stockport, Oldham and Hull. Newly married to Kate, he lives in Lytham, drives a BMW, loves playing Pro Evo on the PlayStation and is doing a journalism degree at Staffordshire University. Here he reveals the delights of seeing players on trial.
TRIAL OF STRENGTH FOR ALL OF US
YOU meet some funny people at this time of the year because so many clubs have players on trial.
At Blackpool a couple of seasons ago, we had one guy turn up with a Geordie accent listed both Middlesbrough (believably) and Real Betis (interestingly) among his previous clubs.
The boys were all dying to know what star Betis player Joaquin was like but when we asked our mystery guest, he replied: “He is a bit of an egg and is always out drinking and smoking.”
We were all a bit shocked by this - but not as shocked as we were by his footballing skills.
In a simple passing drill, he was struggling to kick the ball; when we doing a crossing and finishing session the 'ex-Betis' winger regularly missed the ball completely, and even fell over!
On the rare occasions he did make contact with the ball, it just bobbled about 10 feet. He even had the cheek to blame the poor playing surface for his performance!
Nominated
Another time, I met a triallist who admitted he didn't really know what he was doing because he preferred rugby!
Then when I played in Australia, an English lad turned up for a week long trial.
He immediately latched on to me as the only other Pom in the team. He confided that he was backpacking around Australia with six of his mates and they had run out of money.
As the best footballer amongst his group he was nominated to come and try and make some cash.
Needless to say his week long trial ended on the first day but I did have a couple of good nights out with him and his mates!
Luckily this season the gaffer has brought in some good players on trial and if anything they have boosted our injury-hit squad for the friendlies.
I know I have said in my previous blogs that results don’t matter in pre-season but it's getting a little worrying now.
We lost again 2-0 but this time to St Mirren. One of our new signings Alex Baptiste was telling me how last season his Mansfield team beat Leicester, Wolves and Sheffield Wednesday in pre season, only to get relegated, so we are all hoping the opposite will work for us.
I picked up a dead leg in the St Mirren game and when our physio Ridian looked at it he took great pride in telling me how bruised and swollen my hamstring was .
He said I looked just like his Nan and then toom a picture of my leg on his phone!
Things didn't get any better on Saturday - we lost 1-0 to Tranmere and had to play the last 20 minutes with 10 men. We'd already used all our subs when Danny Nardiello picked up a strain and had to come off.
That's so funny!
Posted by: Leroy | August 04, 2008 at 12:29 PM | Report this comment