Sam Osborne

[jackal2]

Sam Osborne showed in his infrequent appearances last season that he is a good player with a fair degree of skill, an eye for a goal and a willingness to work back when required. In my opinion he offered more in many games than we were getting from Enzio. We should not have let him go, and I fear he will prove to be another of a number of young ex-players who in due course prove their worth and our mistake.

It goes without saying that when some players drift into part-time football they never do make it back to a higher level. Sometimes this is because their talented really is limited, but sometimes it's because the rigours of combining a "real" job with a part-time football career restrict the time and coaching they have available to fully develop that talent and realise their true potential.

You also get those who are offered opportunities to go back into full-time football but don't want the risk, because they have developed careers or businesses outside the game which they feel offer more security than a short-term professional contract, especially if they have been scarred by past experience. I remember we had to work very hard to persuade Paul Harding to sign for us, because he already had a successful building business and a decent part-time salary at Barnet. In the end he chased the dream and made a decent professional football career for himself in his late twenties and early thirties, but when we first approached him his response wasn't automatic.