Ex Players

[AthleticoSpizz]

Ooooo get you with your stats

[Snowflake Royal]

Ooooo get you with your stats

Facts are hard, aren't they

[AthleticoSpizz]

……and at 19:45 on Tuesday will count for nothing.

[Snowflake Royal]

More than superstitution

[AthleticoSpizz]

Yes Ian lighten-up

[Mid Sussex Royal]

Yakou Meite is taking some awful on line stick from a number of Cardiff fans, so much so that he is no longer clapping them at the end of the game.

Move just hasn't worked out for him....he proved for us over a fairly long period he could score in a struggling championship side.

Sad to see - shame we can't get him back on loan.

[Snowflake Royal]

Yes Ian lighten-up

I'm light, it's you getting huffy Spizz me old mucker.

[AthleticoSpizz]

Nah mate, just being hypothetical…..but Ian does Ian until Ian is Ian

And be it fact or fiction, it won’t mean diddly squat on the day….but then, ‘we’ (even you) know that.

[skipper]

Yakou Meite is taking some awful on line stick from a number of Cardiff fans, so much so that he is no longer clapping them at the end of the game.

Move just hasn't worked out for him....he proved for us over a fairly long period he could score in a struggling championship side.

Sad to see - shame we can't get him back on loan.

Ah man that sucks. He was an absolute beast. But before he left us, he had an injury and he wasnt the same player after?

He's do well with the physical side of League 1. He'd be banging them in for fun i'd imagine.

[JedMaxwell]

Yakou Meite is taking some awful on line stick from a number of Cardiff fans, so much so that he is no longer clapping them at the end of the game.

Move just hasn't worked out for him....he proved for us over a fairly long period he could score in a struggling championship side.

Sad to see - shame we can't get him back on loan.

Ah man that sucks. He was an absolute beast. But before he left us, he had an injury and he wasnt the same player after?

He's do well with the physical side of League 1. He'd be banging them in for fun i'd imagine.

Yeah he had a really bad knee injury I think and it took the edge off him a bit.

It's hard to see him getting so much stick as well as he's such a likeable personality and always puts in 100%. Can't say it surprises me from Cardiff fans though.

[stealthpapes]

You can see it clearly in his stats for us.

Quiet first season and we even loaned him out for a bit, but then three seasons in a row (18-19, 19-20, 20-21) where he's playing most games and putting 10+ goals away. Ligament injury in 2021 and he's just not the same player, much more injury prone and much less impact.

[Hound]

Yeah real shame for Yakou. He certainly did seem to lose something but maybe confidence is also part of the issue. It’s not gone well for him there but you could never ever doubt his commitment and work rate

Also seemed a genuinely great guy, and obviously massively popular here

Maybe worth a cheeky ask about a loan, doubt we’d be allowed it or afford it but never know

[Brogue]

out of contract in the summer...

[Snowflake Royal]

WCBAP, not to mention ownership and transfer restrictions, but I would 100% give him a call and say there's a contract waiting for him here on an affordable L1 wage any time he wants it.

[Hound]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/ar ... gevp033xmo

Good for him. He was always a capable RB

[Mid Sussex Royal]

Looks like Dom Ballard heading back out on loan, this time to Cambridge.

[Snowflake Royal]

Yay, exactly the sort of loan Cambridge should go for but almost never do.

[Snowflake Royal]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cvgevp033xmo

Good for him. He was always a capable RB

Pleased for him.

[RG30]

Two-dozen clubs. Ten divisions. Three countries. Happy, harrowing, hideous and hilarious experiences. Few have a more worldly view of English football than Leroy Lita.

Born in Zaire, the 40-year-old forward now plays for Barwell in the seventh tier. The Leicestershire side are the 24th club of a career that includes memorable success with Reading, stints in Greece and Thailand, and playing for seven non-League teams since 2022.

Naturally, Lita is brimming with tales and teachings. From preaching the power of travelling, to finding poo in his boots, to baring all in front of Cilla Black, these are ten of the best.

Lita joined Chelsea aged 12. He was living in Kent at the time, which meant he travelled to training by minibus with other academy boys from the county.

Lita treasured those journeys. “We didn’t have phones, so we actually spoke and found out a bit about each other,” he says. “Some of those people are my friends today.”

He would urge young players to foster the camaraderie that developed naturally before technology became all-consuming.

“The phone’s a massive problem [for young people now]. I know we need it, but it’s still good to talk to people and get to know them,” he adds.

“That’s what I love about football. I’ve met people from all walks of life, with different upbringings and experiences. That’s beautiful, and football’s probably one of the only sports that gives you that.”

Lita had an illuminating time with Chelsea, learning from close contact with the likes of Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Gianfranco Zola, Eidur Gudjohnsen and Dennis Wise. However, he was released aged 16.

Using a new and revolutionary tool — the internet — he called several clubs asking for a trial and eventually signed for Bristol City after scoring five goals in a friendly.

“I just kept asking the question and putting myself in places,” Lita says. “You have to put yourself in that place because you never know who’s watching.”

Cleaning senior team-mates’ boots was a time-honoured ritual when Lita was a scholar. Failure to comply would have disastrous, disgusting consequences.

One Friday afternoon, a teenage Lita had the audacity to leave for a weekend in London before the first team had finished training. That meant Danny Coles, the Bristol City defender, encountered dirty boots on Monday morning. Lita was (literally) in the shit.

“I’ve come back in on Monday, I’ve gone to get my boots, and there’s poo in them,” he says. “It was Danny, because I didn’t clean his boots.

“I was in the first team about six months after that, but he didn’t tell me for years. It was after we’d both been at different clubs that he told me. It wasn’t nice. I threw those boots away. Didn’t touch them again.

“That kind of banter, you’d probably get sacked for it now, but it happened all the time back then — and worse.”

Lita got on very well with Danny Graham, his team-mate at Swansea City, but the pair were not shy of an extreme prank. Lita, a black belt in taekwondo, once “two-footed” Graham’s TV, sparking a cycle where one would smash the other’s screen before the other responded in kind. Graham had a penchant for the elaborate, as well as for mischief-making.

“He had my keys for about two weeks,” Lita says. “I just couldn’t be bothered to look for them. And then I hear the door, and he just came in and sat down. I’m like, ‘You’ve got my keys?’ He goes, ‘Yeah, I’ve had them for about two weeks.’

“I go to sleep and he stays in the front room. The next day, I woke up and every single item was put upside down neatly. That was our silly banter.”

Lita achieved plenty in four seasons with Reading. He was part of Steve Coppell’s legendary side that set the Championship points record (106) in 2005-06, and his performances led to nine caps and six goals for England Under-21. Yet perhaps his greatest feat was going from a nobody in the eyes of his chairman, Sir John Madejski, to an intimate encounter withCilla Black, the singer, presenter and close friend of Madejski.

“My first experience [at Reading] was walking in with the chairman and Cilla Black,” Lita says. “He walked past me like he didn’t know who I was, and he had just paid £1million out of his own pocket for me. It wasn’t out of the club budget. He didn’t even know what I looked like and my agent had to tell him.

“I was just shocked that he was with Cilla Black. I used to watch Blind Date and Surprise Surprise, and was like, ‘That’s her, isn’t it?!’

“She used to always come to our games and come into the changing room. I remember playing Arsenal away, getting changed, I was naked. She was just there with a big smile.”

Lita has high praise for many of his famous former managers. Coppell (at Reading) was “untouchable” when it came to man-management, though Gareth Southgate (Middlesbrough) was strong in this facet too, having played under Coppell himself.

Brendan Rodgers (Swansea) demanded intense training, while Tony Mowbray (Middlesbrough) gave Lita attacking freedom.

But he did not click with Michael Laudrup. He says the Denmark legend struggled to acclimatise after succeeding Rodgers at Swansea.

“If it rained, he would run inside. And Swansea is the rainiest place in Britain. We won the League Cup, so fans always remember him for that, but within the changing room, he wasn’t popular.”

Laudrup, who once dazzled in the midfields of Barcelona and Real Madrid, insisted on getting Swansea’s squad in on a Sunday. This was a familiar procedure in Spain, but rare in England (and Wales).

“The club was becoming like a Spanish club,” Lita says. “Nothing wrong with that, people do things their own way, but you can’t just come to a different country and do your own thing. You have to take in their culture and embrace it. He didn’t do that.”

Lita did not enjoy his time at AO Chania, the Crete-based club, between 2015 and 2016. Yet despite difficulties in Greece, he loves to travel.

His nomadic tendencies may have been instilled when he was forced to flee Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo) with his family aged five.

Lita fondly remembers his early years in central Africa, be it his mum inexplicably buying a pet turtle, or him not knowing what a jumper was — let alone needing one. However, the civil strife under Mobutu Sese Seko’s dictatorship left an indelible mark.

“I remember coming out of our gate and some guy came down with a gun and shot one of the kids that we all played with,” Lita says. “I obviously ran back inside. You don’t forget things like that.”

The family had to leave. Lita initially went to Belgium — where using a lift left him in awe — before moving to England.

He lived in south London and Kent during his childhood, before football took him to all manner of places. Lita particularly enjoyed his time playing for Sisaket in Thailand in 2017, and believes players must throw themselves into the local customs.

“Thailand was really good,” he says. “The people were really nice and looked after you. Respect is a big thing there.

“I learned the language a little bit. You have to. When you go somewhere else, you have to embrace their culture. If they see you trying, they’ll help you as much as they can.

“I say to players now, ‘When you go abroad, make sure you learn the language. Don’t go around speaking English. Just try.’ ”

Lita has only the most trivial qualms about Thailand, such as the torrential rain, rice for breakfast and three-week international breaks. Those hiatuses did, though, allow him to embark on fascinating trips to Cambodia, Hong Kong and Vietnam.

“I like seeing different places, different things, different people,” he says. “If you’ve got an opportunity to travel, you should do it.”

Lita staunchly denies reports that he injured a leg in 2007 by stretching in bed. The injury, he insists, was suffered in a game and then worsened over the following days.

“My words were, ‘I got up this morning and it feels worse.’ ” Lita says. “It got twisted. It wasn’t from stretching in bed.”

He also has a more recent accusation to address. In November, an anonymous Facebook user claimed their grandma’s cat was being disturbed every Tuesday night by Lita knocking on the front door and running away, and that there was video evidence with Lita in full Barwell kit.

“I can reply to this officially,” he says, wryly. “It says I’m ringing on his doorbell and that he’s got visual evidence. If someone was doing that, what’s the first thing we do nowadays? We put the video out.

“I’ve had hundreds of messages about this. If this happened, why didn’t you just put the video out?

“It’s an anonymous account, and people believe it. ‘I’m like, ‘Really?’ People would fall for that?’
“It never happened. I don’t even train in my Barwell kit.”

How do you celebrate scoring a late winner for the away team at the Den, the notoriously hostile ground of Millwall? If you are Lita, you run towards the home fans and take your shirt off, as he did in Middlesbrough’s 3-2 win there in 2011.

“They were being horrible and it was the only way I could get them back,” he explains.

Such antagonism feels risky considering Millwall supporters’ reputation, but Lita’s south London roots came in handy after the win.

“I went to get on the coach and a few of them were giving it,” he recalls. “They didn’t realise we were in south London now, so there were about four of them and nine or ten of my mates. I said, ‘Look behind you.’ My boys were all standing there. They walked off all quiet and we went about our business.”

Lita is far from finished in football. He has been coaching for the past five years and regards management as his route to staying in the sport that has given him countless memories, stories and friends.

“My life is football,” he says. “I don’t really have an interest in anything else.”

He is rather content turning out for Barwell and not quite ready to hang up his boots, though. After a complex career, Lita has alighted on a simple precept: cherish what you love.

“There’s no feeling like playing a football match,” he says. “If I score now, it feels the same as scoring in the Premier League. As long as I still feel that and I’m able, I’ll just play.

“You’re a long time retired and when it’s done there’s no coming back. I’m going to enjoy it as long as I can.”

https://www.thetimes.com/sport/football/article/i-stepped-naked-out-of-shower-to-see-cilla-black-a-journeymans-tale-f7phb5g20

[AthleticoSpizz]

^scored on Saturday