...and then there was three...

Seeing Callum Wilson being interviewed on Football Focus today put me in mind of the falling away in numbers in recent years of ex-Poppies that we glimpse on the TV.  Callum, in midst of a stellar Premier League career, probably doesn't reflect much on his time with us, even though it represented his first prolonged run at senior football.  But, like all other Poppies fans, there is still that tiny frisson of joy that someone who pulled on OUR shirt is doing so well, and regularly appears on Match of the Day.

However, most former Poppies we used to see on the TV featured in the various Football League Saturday night round-up shows, rather than the august BBC Flagship show.  For the few years after our plunge down the divisions, several of the players who used to turn out for us, with varying degrees of success, flitted across our screens.

We basked in seeing our old players such as Chris Beardsley scoring, Andre Bouchard tip-tapping in the middle of the park, John Dempster nodding in at the back post and Guy Branston heading opponents into the terraces.  There were also a host of Poppy-loanees back playing for their parent clubs.  It all kind of made us feel that even though we might have been playing our games in front of 150 hardy souls at Steal Park, we were still a real team, who had real players.

Within a few seasons the ranks of former Poppies started to thin.  Beardsley flitted around a host of struggling clubs.  Bouchard slithered out of the League with Dagenham & Redbridge.  Demspter took a coaching job at Mansfield.  Branston continued heading opponents in a playing and coaching level at hundreds of further clubs as he drifted back into Non-League, even though he always had his mobile phone with him just in case the Premier League came calling.....

These days it's slim pickings for the Poppies-watcher.  Other than Wilson there seems to be only a couple of former Poppies plying their trade at League level.  Charlie Wyke, who looked a handful at Non Park has continued to look useful at both Carlisle and recently Bradford City.

The other player is Mustapha Carayol, who used half a dozen games for us back in 2009 to achieve the twin feat of pissing off Brett by nicking his place, and jogging around to slowly get his fitness back ahead of embarking on a bizarrely successful League career.