[Football] 25 years ago - Ali Dia Day.

[Swansman]

Yup. He can't have been that comically bad, otherwise we'd have signed him on a 3 year deal

Think there is a reasonable chance he could have done a job in the bottom of the third division back then

 

[Bry Nylon]

Think there is a reasonable chance he could have done a job in the bottom of the third division back then

You are probably right. I think he was playing for Blyth Spartans at the time so the gulf in quality wouldn't have been massive.

 

[Pinkie Brown]

Yup. He can't have been that comically bad, otherwise we'd have signed him on a 3 year deal

Dia probably took one look at the state of us around that era and decided he wasn't that desperate. We had Christer Warren on loan plus a half game cameo from David Adekola. They sufficed.

 

[Guinness Boy]

Well, you say that, but Jurgen Locadia has pulled it off way more successfully than Ali Dia ever did.

Posted this before, but again seems applicable. Watch 'The Kaiser, the greatest footballer never to play'. An awesome true story and has the whiff CKR.

The book is brilliant and it's a great story.

 

[Pinkie Brown]

Posted this before, but again seems applicable. Watch 'The Kaiser, the greatest footballer never to play'. An awesome true story and has the whiff CKR.

Whilst the Dia and Kaiser episodes are better known, there are other lesser known stories of fakes that are equally hilarious. One being Bobby Shillinde who several years back, blagged his way into a Botswana training camp prior to a world cup qualifier. He claimed to have come up through the youth team at AFC Wimbledon and broken into the first team. Which came as a surprise to then AFCW manager Neil Ardley and others at the club who had never heard of him. Bobby had actually been playing in the more modest surrounds of Bedford Town.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2013/mar/20/bobby-shillinde-botswana-afc-wimbledon