Worst player to of ever played for darlo

[Big Tim]

I could think of quite a few especially from last season.

Mor Diop- f*ckin clueless
Paddy Deane- Why is he even a footballer
Ross Chilsom- Did nothing
Tony Kane- Awful defender

Apart from them i have to ndumbu-nsunga, laziest footballer i've ever seen, even lazier than jefferson louis

[loan_star]

You cant have been watching Darlo for long then!

[JE93]

Paddy Deane has to be the worst ive seen just had nothing about him to even suggest he'd played football before.

although dave was lazy he definatly had quality

[tdk1]

Hmm. I think there's been worse in days gone by. Steve McMahon in particular always stands out.

Ndumbu, as JE93 says, was outstanding on his day. Just a shame that day in Rochdale wasn't one of them.

[BeefSpud]

I'd just like to point out to the original poster that being lazy is totally different to being gash.

To answer the question however, I would probably have to go for Fabien Bossy.

[yackerquaker]

Wasn't Ndumbu Nsungu very very injured when he played at Rochdale and indeed for a few games before. He was only playing cos Wright, Blundell, Abbott were all injured and Cummins had to play up front. I don't think the lad was lazy he was just jiggered, think it was his knees or summat.

[Breedon]

In terms of a sheer lack of footballing ability it has to be David Brightwell for me.

[Paul2525]

Clint Marcelle
Craig James
Keith Finch

[hodgie1]

martin mcgrowther, the worst ever player to pull on a darlo shirt, the only keeper to turn his back on an on coming forward - against wigan in the FA Cup, not surprisingly he was released the following monday!

[bedaledarlo]

Noel Whelan was a bit like watching your uncle playing who was a bit special in the 60s.

[walshys_wingman_11]

Noel Whelan was a bit like watching your uncle playing who was a bit special in the 60s.

same could be said of John Burridge, I suppose

[darlointoronto]

Paul Dyson and Dave Moore stand out as really terrible defenders back in the 80's

[MKDarlo]

Steve McMahon - Terrible, utter sh*te

[KCChiefs]

Paul Dyson is a bit harsh thought he was ok - Moore was far worse, so slooowwww.....

David Shearer, Paul Clayton, Lee Brydon & Paul Beevers stand out for me.

[wylam_rangers]

No mention of Ashlee Jones??

[richmond_col]

I remember 3 dodgy French guys came at the same time put in a few games towards the end of one season. Possibly in the Bennet/Taylor years. Lehit Zeghdane, Cao and another.
then again you can take your pick from a load of these.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit ... rs&until=C

[MikeinBlack]

Or perhaps 95% of last seasons squad - especially the goalkeepers!

[bigrichiet]

Bernie Slaven

[Lawman3]

Dean Windass, anyone?

[knoxy5000]

As mentioned in the other thread like this, for me it's Lee Ellison

[divas]

As mentioned in the other thread like this, for me it's Lee Ellison

did you only see his second spell?

[mobi]

As mentioned in the other thread like this, for me it's Lee Ellison

did you only see his second spell?

Exactly! Lee Ellison was the boy wonder in his first spell. Rumours are that we could have sold him to Blackburn for £150K at one stage. Then he started to drink beer.

Anyway, Phil Linacre comes before Lee Ellison surely?

[divas]

Interesting article the Echo ran on Ellison not too long ago which mentions Billy McEwan who has been discussed on here very recently. Serves as a good reminder for any young player trying to make his name in the professional game.

NEVER mind Shildon and the first round of the FA Cup, Lee Ellison could have had it all.

As Ellison aiming to becomes part of Shildon and FA Cup folklore tomorrow when the Railwaymen play their biggest match in 42 years, the striker once touted as Darlington's next big thing could be forgiven for thinking what might have been.

Shildon go to Notts County as the lowest-ranked team left in the competition. The romance of the FA Cup is alive and well in County Durham.

Ellison is still in love with the game, but the last ten years have hardly been beautiful. Trying, pleasant and enjoyable perhaps. But not the beauty there should have been.

As he steps on to the Meadow Lane pitch he'd be forgiven for feeling that this shouldn't be happening, that it wasn't supposed to be this way.

Because it could have and should have been so different for the Bishop Auckland-born striker, who started his career at Darlington with a bang 13 years ago.

At the age of 30, Ellison should still be carving out a career in the Football League and, not, with all due respect, rattling around the Northern League.

He epitomises the case story of the footballer that has every right to ask: "Where did it all go wrong?"

Darlington fans remember him as the lightweight teenage starlet with a mop of blonde hair; the pace to outrun Third Division defences and undoubted ability to put the ball in the net.

He was the goalscoring golden boy.

However, somewhere between his debut against Hartlepool, exactly 13 years ago on Monday, and his last kick in the professional game in May 1999, something went wrong.

It had all started so well.

Just days before a crucial home match with Pool in November 1990, Ellison, a regular scorer in the youth and reserve teams, signed professional forms with the club.

At the end of the week, and in front of 5,000 fans, Brian Little threw the 17-year-old into derby action as a substitute to try and salvage an equaliser and 14 days later came his first start, and goal, in a 3-0 win at Lincoln.

During that Division Four title-winning season he went on to make 13 appearances, scoring three goals, but 12 years on and he's still waiting for his championship medal and that, understandably, still rankles.

"There's a player from that squad sat at home with a medal that he doesn't deserve," he says. "The day the medals were handed out I was off sick, so now I'm still waiting for mine."

After he returned to the club for a spell in the late 90s, manager David Hodgson and chairman George Reynolds made moves to obtain what is rightfully Ellison's.

His father, who has recorded every moment of his son's career with a collection of scrapbooks, has on numerous occasions contacted the relevant authorities - but all to no avail.

Football League rules state that all enquiries must be made by Darlington FC. Over to you at the Reynolds Arena.

The next season - 1991/92 - and almost a year to the day after making his debut against Pool, the local rivals returned to Feethams and this time Ellison got on the scoresheet - twice, in a 4-0 win that remains as prominent in his memory as it does supporters'.

He said: "I scored one of my best goals in that match. It was at the Polam End, I took a touch after Kev Smith crossed it from the right and then hit it with my right foot in the opposite direction to where the ball came from into the top corner.

"I've got a photograph of it, I'm hardly in the picture but you can see Martin Hodge, their keeper, diving the wrong way and all the faces of the Darlington fans."

Another scorer that day was the talented, albeit diminutive, Dougald McCarrison, on loan from Celtic.

"Put it this way, I'd rather we had spent the £95,000 on him," recalls Ellison, referring to the club's record transfer fee paid that year for striker Nick Cusack.

The goals against Pool were the fifth and sixth of a run spanning September and October which saw him score an amazing ten goals in ten games and earned him a Barclays Young Eagle of the Month award.

The last of those ten was, he says, his greatest: against Fulham at the Polam End, from just 18 yards he managed to chip a keeper who, despite being positioned in his six-yard-box, could do nothing but watch the ball sail into the net.

The run was an achievement that didn't go unnoticed by Kenny Dalglish at Blackburn. But nothing concrete came of their interest and then, after a great first 12 months, came the fall.

That season he scored just once more in 13 matches and those looking for an explanation labelled Ellison a drinker, something he vehemently denies.

"I know all about the rumours but the God's honest truth is that I wasn't. People were saying all sorts of stuff about me," he admitted.

"Unfortunately, if you throw enough mud, eventually some of it sticks. I'm the first to admit that I didn't help myself. My head wasn't right. I suppose I lost the plot a little bit the year we got relegated. I suppose I was feeling a little responsible - at 18.

"That summer I put a bit of weight on, I lost it again but I probably wasn't as a sharp as I should've been. And for the next year-and-a-half Billy McEwan tried to destroy me."

With Darlington relegated and 18-year-old Ellison feeling responsible, McEwan, a tough and uncompromising Scot, a name remembered with little fondness among fans as well as Ellison, took charge in the summer of 1992. From day one he didn't rate the home-grown hero.

Ellison says: "The first time I met him, before pre-season, he said 'I can finish your career if I want to'.

"It probably wasn't the best way to encourage a teenage striker low on confidence and goals."

Their relationship, described as rocky at best, didn't improve; Ellison made just three League appearances in the Scot's first year and was farmed out on loan to Hartlepool, scoring once in three disappointing performances.

After finally leaving Feethams in the summer of 1994/1995, he hoped for a new lease of life in the Premiership at Leicester where he rejoined Brian Little - who promptly left for Aston Villa soon after. Mark McGhee, another tough Scot, arrived as boss and he was another who didn't give Ellison a chance.

From Filbert Street came 15 months at Crewe where he was injured for almost a year before even playing a game.

He scored twice on his full debut in August 1996 in a side that included Robbie Savage, Danny Murphy and Dele Adebola, but shortly afterwards manager Dario Gradi showed Ellison the door.

So followed a mini tour of England in search of football, stopping off for short spells at Mansfield, Hereford and Barrow.

Home beckoned with a stint at Bishop Auckland, before coming full circle and finally arriving back at Feethams in March 1998.

He scored three at the back end of that season, but failed to hit the net the following year so when the Reynolds Revolution kicked into gear in the summer of 1999, at the age of 26 Ellison had played his last game in professional football.

Six months after leaving Darlington for the last time Ellison returned to Feethams with Southport in November 1999, then a Conference side, for an FA Cup match which Quakers narrowly won 2-1.

The irony is that his spectacular arrival had played its part in his downfall.

Ten goals in as many games pushed expectation levels through the roof and, at the age of 18, the responsibility of leading the line in relegation-threatened team proved too much. The burden of expectation weighed greatly on his shoulders as uneasily as his blond fringe flopped on his forehead.

The goals dried up and the fans, worried about the spectre of impending relegation, got on his back.

A decade on, Ellison is now a fitness instructor in Bishop Auckland, the trademark blonde mop is gone while 'lightweight' could perhaps be described as a little kind.

Regrets? Not at all. No sob story, no excuses. Openly admitting his failure to having never again reached the heights he scaled as a teenager, Ellison knows he could have done so much more.

He said: "I'm quite a positive person so I don't dwell on things, I prefer to look to the future and don't think what might have been.

"The Missus was looking through the old newspaper cuttings the other night and she asked me 'where did it all go wrong?' Basically, I ballsed up big style."

[chrismackz]

Phil Brumwell has to be one of the worst for me. Keith Finch was a shocker of a keeper who played a few games under Tommy Taylor.

In recent times Paddy Deane was awful not that he made it onto the pitch much.

[cameron-darlo]

noel whelan, sure its not even a contest?

[Robbie Painter]

Phil Brumwell has to be one of the worst for me. Keith Finch was a shocker of a keeper who played a few games under Tommy Taylor.

In recent times Paddy Deane was awful not that he made it onto the pitch much.

Yeah that Phil Brumwell was terrible wasn't he... I mean he only played in two darlo teams that made the playoffs, scored against the poolies in a 4-2 away win, setup the classic Strodder OG and made a total 199 appearances for the club.

[divas]

Brumwell was a fine example of a player who while not having as much talent as others certainly made up for it with willingness and enthusiasm, many a time he deputised all over the pitch and very rarely let us down, even when having to play at centre half!

[Lawman3]

Who is the player sitting at home with Lee Ellison's medal?

[BaronsCourtQuaker]

Interesting article the Echo ran on Ellison not too long ago which mentions Billy McEwan who has been discussed on here very recently. Serves as a good reminder for any young player trying to make his name in the professional game.

NEVER mind Shildon and the first round of the FA Cup, Lee Ellison could have had it all.

As Ellison aiming to becomes part of Shildon and FA Cup folklore tomorrow when the Railwaymen play their biggest match in 42 years, the striker once touted as Darlington's next big thing could be forgiven for thinking what might have been.

Shildon go to Notts County as the lowest-ranked team left in the competition. The romance of the FA Cup is alive and well in County Durham.

Ellison is still in love with the game, but the last ten years have hardly been beautiful. Trying, pleasant and enjoyable perhaps. But not the beauty there should have been.

As he steps on to the Meadow Lane pitch he'd be forgiven for feeling that this shouldn't be happening, that it wasn't supposed to be this way.

Because it could have and should have been so different for the Bishop Auckland-born striker, who started his career at Darlington with a bang 13 years ago.

At the age of 30, Ellison should still be carving out a career in the Football League and, not, with all due respect, rattling around the Northern League.

He epitomises the case story of the footballer that has every right to ask: "Where did it all go wrong?"

Darlington fans remember him as the lightweight teenage starlet with a mop of blonde hair; the pace to outrun Third Division defences and undoubted ability to put the ball in the net.

He was the goalscoring golden boy.

However, somewhere between his debut against Hartlepool, exactly 13 years ago on Monday, and his last kick in the professional game in May 1999, something went wrong.

It had all started so well.

Just days before a crucial home match with Pool in November 1990, Ellison, a regular scorer in the youth and reserve teams, signed professional forms with the club.

At the end of the week, and in front of 5,000 fans, Brian Little threw the 17-year-old into derby action as a substitute to try and salvage an equaliser and 14 days later came his first start, and goal, in a 3-0 win at Lincoln.

During that Division Four title-winning season he went on to make 13 appearances, scoring three goals, but 12 years on and he's still waiting for his championship medal and that, understandably, still rankles.

"There's a player from that squad sat at home with a medal that he doesn't deserve," he says. "The day the medals were handed out I was off sick, so now I'm still waiting for mine."

After he returned to the club for a spell in the late 90s, manager David Hodgson and chairman George Reynolds made moves to obtain what is rightfully Ellison's.

His father, who has recorded every moment of his son's career with a collection of scrapbooks, has on numerous occasions contacted the relevant authorities - but all to no avail.

Football League rules state that all enquiries must be made by Darlington FC. Over to you at the Reynolds Arena.

The next season - 1991/92 - and almost a year to the day after making his debut against Pool, the local rivals returned to Feethams and this time Ellison got on the scoresheet - twice, in a 4-0 win that remains as prominent in his memory as it does supporters'.

He said: "I scored one of my best goals in that match. It was at the Polam End, I took a touch after Kev Smith crossed it from the right and then hit it with my right foot in the opposite direction to where the ball came from into the top corner.

"I've got a photograph of it, I'm hardly in the picture but you can see Martin Hodge, their keeper, diving the wrong way and all the faces of the Darlington fans."

Another scorer that day was the talented, albeit diminutive, Dougald McCarrison, on loan from Celtic.

"Put it this way, I'd rather we had spent the £95,000 on him," recalls Ellison, referring to the club's record transfer fee paid that year for striker Nick Cusack.

The goals against Pool were the fifth and sixth of a run spanning September and October which saw him score an amazing ten goals in ten games and earned him a Barclays Young Eagle of the Month award.

The last of those ten was, he says, his greatest: against Fulham at the Polam End, from just 18 yards he managed to chip a keeper who, despite being positioned in his six-yard-box, could do nothing but watch the ball sail into the net.

The run was an achievement that didn't go unnoticed by Kenny Dalglish at Blackburn. But nothing concrete came of their interest and then, after a great first 12 months, came the fall.

That season he scored just once more in 13 matches and those looking for an explanation labelled Ellison a drinker, something he vehemently denies.

"I know all about the rumours but the God's honest truth is that I wasn't. People were saying all sorts of stuff about me," he admitted.

"Unfortunately, if you throw enough mud, eventually some of it sticks. I'm the first to admit that I didn't help myself. My head wasn't right. I suppose I lost the plot a little bit the year we got relegated. I suppose I was feeling a little responsible - at 18.

"That summer I put a bit of weight on, I lost it again but I probably wasn't as a sharp as I should've been. And for the next year-and-a-half Billy McEwan tried to destroy me."

With Darlington relegated and 18-year-old Ellison feeling responsible, McEwan, a tough and uncompromising Scot, a name remembered with little fondness among fans as well as Ellison, took charge in the summer of 1992. From day one he didn't rate the home-grown hero.

Ellison says: "The first time I met him, before pre-season, he said 'I can finish your career if I want to'.

"It probably wasn't the best way to encourage a teenage striker low on confidence and goals."

Their relationship, described as rocky at best, didn't improve; Ellison made just three League appearances in the Scot's first year and was farmed out on loan to Hartlepool, scoring once in three disappointing performances.

After finally leaving Feethams in the summer of 1994/1995, he hoped for a new lease of life in the Premiership at Leicester where he rejoined Brian Little - who promptly left for Aston Villa soon after. Mark McGhee, another tough Scot, arrived as boss and he was another who didn't give Ellison a chance.

From Filbert Street came 15 months at Crewe where he was injured for almost a year before even playing a game.

He scored twice on his full debut in August 1996 in a side that included Robbie Savage, Danny Murphy and Dele Adebola, but shortly afterwards manager Dario Gradi showed Ellison the door.

So followed a mini tour of England in search of football, stopping off for short spells at Mansfield, Hereford and Barrow.

Home beckoned with a stint at Bishop Auckland, before coming full circle and finally arriving back at Feethams in March 1998.

He scored three at the back end of that season, but failed to hit the net the following year so when the Reynolds Revolution kicked into gear in the summer of 1999, at the age of 26 Ellison had played his last game in professional football.

Six months after leaving Darlington for the last time Ellison returned to Feethams with Southport in November 1999, then a Conference side, for an FA Cup match which Quakers narrowly won 2-1.

The irony is that his spectacular arrival had played its part in his downfall.

Ten goals in as many games pushed expectation levels through the roof and, at the age of 18, the responsibility of leading the line in relegation-threatened team proved too much. The burden of expectation weighed greatly on his shoulders as uneasily as his blond fringe flopped on his forehead.

The goals dried up and the fans, worried about the spectre of impending relegation, got on his back.

A decade on, Ellison is now a fitness instructor in Bishop Auckland, the trademark blonde mop is gone while 'lightweight' could perhaps be described as a little kind.

Regrets? Not at all. No sob story, no excuses. Openly admitting his failure to having never again reached the heights he scaled as a teenager, Ellison knows he could have done so much more.

He said: "I'm quite a positive person so I don't dwell on things, I prefer to look to the future and don't think what might have been.

"The Missus was looking through the old newspaper cuttings the other night and she asked me 'where did it all go wrong?' Basically, I ballsed up big style."

a good article that, i hadn't realised had as many clubs as he did. Any comparisons with Main today, young lad in a relegated team who lost his confidence perhaps

[Spyman]

Why have we never discussed this topic on here before?