Here is a blast from the past. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cgryqewrykjo He could have been one heck of a player. Was an excellent prospect. For me was a better player than Andy Carroll. Most famous game is probably when he came on in the 4-4 v Arsenal. The clip and the article suggest that he has eventually grown up. Hope he has but obviously too late to have the career he should have. Quite a few young prospects never achieve what was expected and you never really know why. With NR I think everyone knew why even before he failed with the one big exception, him.
Thought he was overrated personally, headless chicken when he came on. Lots of running, but he couldn't really pass it about, he was just a bit of a handful. He's had one of these redemption arcs about 10 times.
Clearly hasn't twigged it yet and some of the stuff he said was massively arrogant "I should be playing at a higher level - everyone tells me" must be the same plebs telling him that that allowed him to waste his talent and piss it up the wall. Not sure how or why he ends up in the news so much, ended up playing at Kettering Town for a reason. That is his level
Nile Ranger had potential, that is all. Was never going to be a great player but could have obviously had a decent career. That article and interview are weird....it's not even like it's a story of him turning his life around, it's just a list of him messing his life up. He's 33, hasn't played since being at Boreham Wood 2 years and has just started playing casually for Kettering Town....hardly a glorious revival. He says he "followed the crowd"..... defrauding a granny, accused of rape, stealing from players, criminal damage, in jail twice....yep, it was all crowd. There's scumbag footballers, and then there's Nile Ranger.
Yes that was a particular highlight. He's 33, and the last time he played was a handful of meaningless preliminary cup games for Boreham Wood 2 years ago. To be honest he should be flattered Kettering were even interested.
"We're all on this journey in life together and we all make mistakes," says Kettering chairman George Akhtar. "Hopefully we learn from them and grow as people." **** me, how many more "mistakes" has this **** got to make before you realise he doesn't learn from them?
I give him 5 years and he will be in jail again. Once his career ends what the **** is he going to do for money. He’s a wasted talent.
This entirely. I really liked him when we were in the Championship, he looked too good for that level of play overall - his movement and awareness of play, given how thick he seems off the pitch he looked pretty intelligent on it. At that stage he was coming off a year or two of prolific goalscoring for our reserve team but just didn't have the composure to convert against better defences (he only scored 2 goals in the Championship depsite his promise). I think any other player we'd have been loaning them out to a championship side the following year when we went up as he wasn't quite ready for the tougher challenges but - i agree - looked a better prospect than Carroll. It was known at the club though that they needed to keep him close as he was a liability and what played out was bit-part roles, a decline in play and attitude, etc. Sadly the guy was a total tool. I remember when we got him a video going around of him referring to himself as the "total baller" an "absolute baller" with great skills and he very much came across as a kid you needed a Shearer/ Keane type to explain that he's a kid and needs to get back in his box until he's actually done something. I hope fatherhood does calm him down like he suggests, he is clearly reflective about his own father not being around when he was growing up and it'd be nice to think that makes him appreciate in the long term that it's important he's always around and not, as some suggest, in jail in 5 years time.
