One player who has chosen to go abroad is Graham Stack...who? He is an English born Irish international footballer, a goalkeeper, who has played 7 times for the ROI U21s.
OK not a legend then, but he has a fascinating story which started with him being part of the Arsenal "Invincibles" of 2003-4 appearing for the Gunners a handful of times in their League Cup assault which ended in the semi-final, losing to Middlesbrough.
Between then and 2009 Stack went on loan and played for Beveren (24 matches) in Belgium where he was attacked on a pitch and he responded by punching one of the assailants. This did not go down very well. He was at Millwall (26) (nothing to do with his punching ability), Reading, Leeds, Wolves, Plymouth, Blackpool finally getting some stability at Hibernian (56 games) and then Barnet for 125 games, winning the Conference Premier in 2015.
In 2016 he set off to India and joined the Kerala Blasters FC who were founded in 2014 and play in the Indian Super League. Sachin Tendulkar is one of the owners of ther club which is located in Kochi, supported by an average gate of 47,000+ crowds. Kochi, known as the "Queen of the Arabian Sea" is located on the south west coast of the Indian peninsular in the state of Kerala. It is a very important port once based on the spice trade but now one of the major growth cities in India.
British players associated with the Blasters club include Wally Downes (once very much part of the Wimbledon Crazy Gang)), Steve Coppell (manager), Terry Phelan, Michael Chopra and Stack is the goalkeeping coach. So he is amongst friends!
No comments:
Post a Comment