Surf’s Up

Ask any fan and they’ll have an arbitrary youth prospect from the past committed to memory as someone who was destined to be the next superstar, but never advanced beyond a few minutes in obscure FA Cup games against the likes of Sutton. Whether it’s Jamie McMaster, or Harpal Singh of ‘Liverpool have Michael Owen, but we have Harpal Singh’ fame; Chris Dawson, Zac Thompson, Monty Gimpel. There’s a long list of nearly players we believed would be world class (and the Championship Manager/Football Manager games of their eras to support this), yet few rose to the level we expected.

Joe Gelhardt exists in this uncertain state between ‘the next big thing’ and ‘what happened to Joffy?’, and it’s really odd. Leeds signed the highly rated centre-forward from Wigan barely a month after winning promotion to the Premier League under Marcelo Bielsa. The fact he cost around £1m was seen as intelligent business, capitalising on Wigan’s delicate financial position to grab a player who many rated as the next Wayne Rooney (boo, hiss). While the Scum legend is clearly a person we should (and do) hate, being compared to him in footballing terms is obviously a huge compliment. The stocky, powerful and skillful young lad immediately got fans excited and our joy only increased the more we saw him play in PL2 Division 2.

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