January transfer rumours!

morty

morty

Moderator
Staff member
Scott

Scott

Active Member
Great move for young Todd to start getting minutes on his belt. Farke rates him as well, so we could potentially have a little gem on our hands, and this time not James Maddison!
 
morty

morty

Moderator
Staff member
Rumours of Harry Toffolo going on a free to Millwall. Always had the feeling he wasn't quite going to make it here, pity really, but glad he has got sorted out with a club. Watched him and Lewis play pre season, and it was obvious who was going to make it. Also Harry is more of a standard left back, as opposed to a wing back, so wasn't going to fit into how Farke wants to play.
 
OldRobert

OldRobert

Well-Known Member
Just come up on SSN Morty:
'Millwall are set to sign Harry Toffolo from Norwich today.
We understand it to be an initial free transfer but some performance-based payments are included in the deal.'
 
Scott

Scott

Active Member
Shame, he was always quite highly rated! Best of luck to Harry at Millwall nonetheless, I'm sure he will do well!
 
G

GJP

Well-Known Member
Young players are always "highly rated". Even the obviously mediocre ones like Toff.
 
Canaryboy

Canaryboy

Well-Known Member
I posted on the Fortuna Sittard forum to talk about their club and Todd Cantwell, because I was smitten with their colours.

And it turns out they have a club legend who was born in Norwich and runs the Marlborough Arms pub and once ran the Belle Vue? They seem to think that he may have helped arrange the move.

I'd never heard of the bloke: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Linford

But there you go... a Fortuna Sittard legend from Norwich!

The world is a weird place isn't it, the bloke pulling you a pint and shouting at you for sitting on the pool table could be a legend in a small town in another country.
 
Canaryboy

Canaryboy

Well-Known Member
GJP said:
Young players are always "highly rated". Even the obviously mediocre ones like Toff.
Click to expand...

I made the point on here in an argument with eatonparkcanary (I think) that actually.... if a player ends up playing regularly in League One or League Two, then they were RIGHT to be labelled as "highly rated", and that we should be proud of the players who make it in the professional ranks, like Francomb in fact who is over half way to a testimonial at AFC Wimbledon.

If Toffolo has a decent career in League One then that's a success for him, and arguably for us. Most players seem to go from us to League Two to non-league obscurity, like Luke Daley and Rossi Jarvis, and even Michael Spillane.

So any player who plays a decade of professional football has been a success, e.g. Paul Hayes who is still playing pro football at 34 and is on over 600 games now, squeezed a few years in the Championship in with Scunthorpe, Preston and Barnsley.... but really our duty to academy players is to try and prepare them for a career as a professional footballer, so its always nice when we succeed in doing that.

Adeyemi and Korey Smith are having good careers too. If a player is "highly rated" and then plays 500 professional games, then whoever rated them highly called it right.
 
G

GJP

Well-Known Member
I totally agree. Making a career out of professional football is a huge result for anyone.

My point was just really about the over use of "highly rated". It doesn't differentiate.
 
Canaryboy

Canaryboy

Well-Known Member
I was surprised that Jamar Loza didn't land a professional club in League 2 or take a chance overseas. Had pace + could finish, bit of a coup for Maidstone. He's probably one who should have gone and tried to land a contract at a Fortuna Sittard or in Norway or something.

British players have always been a bit adverse to travelling overseas, probably because we are lazy at learning languages... although in Holland, Belgium and Scandinavia I don't think an Englishman would have much trouble communicating as they all seem to speak English!
 
N

Number 9

Well-Known Member
Canaryboy said:
I was surprised that Jamar Loza didn't land a professional club in League 2 or take a chance overseas. Had pace + could finish, bit of a coup for Maidstone. He's probably one who should have gone and tried to land a contract at a Fortuna Sittard or in Norway or something.

British players have always been a bit adverse to travelling overseas, probably because we are lazy at learning languages... although in Holland, Belgium and Scandinavia I don't think an Englishman would have much trouble communicating as they all seem to speak English!
Click to expand...


Used to love watching Loza, he was very direct and had a good shot.
 
hogesar

hogesar

Well-Known Member
Loza kind of looked like a typical non league young striker.
 
Fenway Frank

Fenway Frank

Well-Known Member
I wonder how players at that level manage as they must need a day job.
 
Canaryboy

Canaryboy

Well-Known Member
Fenway Frank said:
I wonder how players at that level manage as they must need a day job.
Click to expand...

Non-league is a bit strange... in the national league there will be players earning what a normal person would consider a professional wage (£30k / £40k / £50k) and probably players who are on £200 a game and washing their own kit.... and you get the odd club below that who pay good wages too.

Have seen examples before where non-league players have rejected professional league contracts because they'd have to take a pay cut.

Plus some sides have X number of professionals and X number of semi-pro's in the same squad... a bit weird how it works. But there were a couple of League 2 sides a few years back paying their players an average of £300 or £400 a week, and there will be national league sides paying twice that.

Think I read that Stefan Moore (older brother of Luke Moore) was earning £1500 a week in non-league :eek:

There was an analysis of wages in each league a couple of years ago, and I think somebody worked out that if you took the 2 or 3 biggest League Two clubs out of the equation (including Portsmouth at the time) there wasn't much of a difference at all between League 2 and the National League.
 
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Canaryboy

Canaryboy

Well-Known Member
Wouldn't surprise me if Loza is on as much as a teacher or police officer to be honest... making a living. But I'm surprised he hasn't taken a punt on making it overseas to try and earn some decent wonga (like Dom Dwyer, who's on $550,000 a year in the MLS, but would probably flop big time in the Championship!).
 
Canaryboy

Canaryboy

Well-Known Member
This is so surreal:

"Hi mate,

We had in our top ERE-division-years, playing Ajax PSV Feyenoord etc, already a big player from Norwich City, named John Linford ... he is our all-time cult football player! You never heard of him ... ??

Cheers!"

So some bloke who runs a pub in Norwich is the all-time cult hero at Dutch club, when they were in the Eredivisie, and that's never been picked up by the local media? Has any Norwich fan ever heard of this living Fortuna Sittard legend?



Famous in Holland, not even famous in his own city :oops:

Apparently also the co-licensee of the Belle Vue, which was 5 mins from my house when I lived in Norwich. This sounds like a story / interview which needs to be picked up by the Evening News / Pink Un. "The Norwich lad who made it big in the Eredivisie".
 
morty

morty

Moderator
Staff member
Canaryboy said:
This is so surreal:

"Hi mate,

We had in our top ERE-division-years, playing Ajax PSV Feyenoord etc, already a big player from Norwich City, named John Linford ... he is our all-time cult football player! You never heard of him ... ??

Cheers!"

So some bloke who runs a pub in Norwich is the all-time cult hero at Dutch club, when they were in the Eredivisie, and that's never been picked up by the local media? Has any Norwich fan ever heard of this living Fortuna Sittard legend?



Famous in Holland, not even famous in his own city :oops:

Apparently also the co-licensee of the Belle Vue, which was 5 mins from my house when I lived in Norwich. This sounds like a story / interview which needs to be picked up by the Evening News / Pink Un. "The Norwich lad who made it big in the Eredivisie".
Click to expand...
Send it to one of the pinkun journos? Or tweet him and link him to this post?
 
Canaryboy

Canaryboy

Well-Known Member
morty said:
Send it to one of the pinkun journos? Or tweet him and link him to this post?
Click to expand...

Do you fancy doing that mate? I don't have a twitter account.

Direct them to this thread.

When they get here, they can also visit this thread for reference: http://www.fortunasc.nl/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=6884

He owns the Marlborough Arms and co-owns the Belle Vue, his ownership of those pubs has been reported by Archant but not his glittering Dutch footballing career and legend status.

Also found a Dutch article about the craziest players in football history or something, think he was a bit of a wild child (also makes sense with that interview).

Although not sure if Norwich Talk members should be doing their work for them, they wouldn't go out of their way to credit this forum or anything would they :rolleyes:

"I first became aware of Norwich when they signed somewhere in the eighties .. can not remember his name? Great colors ofcourse

After reading your post I am even more happy with Todd joining our team. We suspect John Linford being involved in this. The guy is a legendary club in Norwich called the Marlborough Arms"

(Think it was supposed to say legend of their club who owns a pub in Norwich).
 
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