Well Father Christmas this year decided to gift me our old favourite Adebayo Akinfenwa's autobiography. No literary masterpiece I can assure you and it doesn't take long to read at only 270 pages in large font but it certainly did leave some insight to the goings on behind the scenes at clubs including ours so I will highlight some of the points about us. Bayo nearly signed for us in 2007 under Ronnie Jepson. After breaking his leg at Swansea and previous interest by RJ, Bayo came down to Priestfield in the summer of 2007 and spoke to the club. Sadly at the time Bayo's injury still hadn't recovered and so wasn't fit for the start of the season. Bayo stayed around the club for a couple of months to do his rehab in the hope of getting a contract but after seeing a specialist it transpired that the physio at the time wasn't doing the right things to help Bayo's injury so he had to pursue his rehab elsewhere. Fast forward to Hess signing him in 2010. Bayo admits he had a slow start and wasn't enjoying the success he had at previous clubs so he spoke to his agent to try and find him a move elsewhere in the January. Bayo I think then realised that this was wrong and then apologised to Hess and once Cody got fully fit, as we all know they fully hit it off. Come the end of the season when we missed out on playoffs, the club had to cut its costs and the offer they made Bayo was so "insulting" that he had to look elsewhere. Fast forward to 2013 and Mad Dog tried signing Bayo in the January when Cody arrived on loan at the same time. For one reason or another it didn't happen until he rejoined in the summer. He then spoke about Allen's methods being extremely bizarre and that he often had a Jekyll & Hyde personality. Absolutely fine and can have good conversation off the pitch on a 1 to 1 basis but completely mad as a brush on the training ground or on matchdays. He didn't go into details but did state there were off the field issues which was the reason he was dismissed, something I think we had all assumed by then. His report of Peter Taylor wasn't exactly complimentary either but he certainly didn't defame him in anyway. He spoke about due to Taylor's age and experience he wanted things done a certain way and there wasn't much movement on that. In training they would spend long sessions training against mannequins. As a result of this they could look technically very good on the training ground but come match days, they were no longer trying to knock it past people who were staying still which is why the team often took a good 20 to 30 minutes to adapt to the opposition's style of play under PT. Taylor also had this thing in his head that Bayo couldn't play 2 games in a row which baffled the hell out of the big man. Especially now as he's still doing it week in week out for Wycombe and scoring more. Bayo said that it was for those reasons that he wouldn't sign a new deal at Priestfield even though he thanked them for the offer. Hopefully I've covered most points and was very interesting to read. Feel free to read the book for yourself for more details but hopefully I managed to summise the key points.
Excellent review PegLeg We all certainly knew MadDog was mad as a brush, I think I may have even called him Jekyll & Hyde once in one of my write-ups, good to see brb knows what he is talking about again and that the big man bayo confirms it, he probably read my past review As for Peter Taylor, I pissed myself laughing at that bit, mannequins That explains a lot, wheres bristol407 when you need him See i can go a whole thread without mentioning alwaysright (mannequin 1) & grumpygit (mannequin 2) Ssshhhh But no, seriously fella, great review.
Well done brb - I see that somebody gave you a sense of humour for Christmas. I hope you can maintain your wit - because I will be able to remember better than grumpygit that you have called me a dummy.
I'm still trying to work out how PegLeg managed to read 270 pages Or was he just looking out for the words 'Cody'
Bayo was certainly a larger than life character, I thought he was one of the most skilful players of recent years and enjoyed watching him.
One thing I did forget to mention about his time under Mad Dog, Bayo felt he asked the opinions of the experienced pros too much about what was going wrong. Bayo said every morning Mad Dog would call him in and speak to him about tactics and Bayo didn't like the fact he was spending more time as a coach assisting Allen than he did playing. Funny old world.
