Trainee sold for a pittance who made it to European Final -

I remember seeing Zamora and Ellington come on as subs, I think it was away to Wycombe, and thinking that we'd had a glimpse into what the future held for Rovers. Sadly Olly didn't agree.

Ollie offered Zamora a new contract, but the board wouldn't budge and give him better terms and was asking for an amount of money which fell outside our existing wage structure for players his age (offer was around the £600-£800 a week figure, can't remember exactly) and in the end let him leave because he was out of contract the following summer and had his heart set on the move to Brighton following his successful loan spell. Zamora felt he would get a better chance of regular first team football at Brighton, which was true when you consider the strikers we had at the time (ironically things changed soon after). As for the "pittance" that joeb talks about, the initial fee may only have been £100-150k or whatever it was, but we did end up making well over £1million after various add ons.

Continually sell your best players and try to replace them for a fraction of the fee and eventually you are bound to come a cropper, especially at a club of our size.

Some shocking signings in his final season, but selling over £7million worth of talent during his time here is pretty impressive.

Isn’t that what the majority of clubs in the world do though??? Even C**y pay a lot less for players than they sell them for.

It was away at Wycombe. I was also there and my recollection is of two precocious talents. I think it was Ellington running through the Wycombe penalty area bouncing the ball on his shoulder that sticks with me.

When Zamora was on loan at Brighton, Rovers Reserves were playing Brighton's at Worthing FC's ground. I went along and Zamora was there watching. I was able to get pretty close and say hello to him, but my main memory was the way the Brighton staff and players were all edging him on to join them. I remember writing to Holloway to inform him of this, but as you say Tilly, it seems Holloway wasn't too interested in keeping him. You could argue that the fee we got wasn't too bad for an unproven youngster, but.....

Pirate of course you are correct but hindsight is a wonderful quality. Of course had we signed Piggott in the summer we would not have been relegated in the same way had we kept JCH we would not have been relegated. We failed because our clubs vision of the Peterborough method failed because we have no intention whatsoever of following the Peterborough method. Our aim was to bring players on and sell them for more than they cost with no intention to spend any or much of the profit on a replacement. The Peterborough method was to sell a striker for big bucks but then to use a fair proportion of that money 1.3m to buy a suitable replacement and they will no doubt sell JCH for a very large fee-possibly 7 m but will this time spend 2m on a replacement or maybe even get Piggott for less than that!! Its speculate to accumulate.
the fact that Andy Tillson is still our record signing is why we will be supporting a League 2,1 or National League side for the forceable future!

I watched that game as well. Last minute equaliser if i remember. Must have been young Alan Hurfords son who is your friend. He said the same to me once.