Welcome back, fledglings. You join us as Season 3’s pre-season games are winding to a close. We’ve two games and David Gill’s cheque book to get through!
First order of business is a visit to the club shop (portacabin) as there is a player in there holding a black sharpie, and signing autographs for a queue of fledglings supporters… There is buzz amongst them, after this free agent rejected Football League clubs including Barnsley and Wycombe to join us!
Ro-Shaun Williams is a former England youth-international who was at Man Utd for more than 10 seasons, before leaving for League One’s Shrewsbury Town in 2019. A ball-playing centre back, who can deputize at right back, Williams will provide defensive cover and could even fight with Vermijl for a starting spot on the right.
Williams was school friends with Marcus Rashford and Axel Tuanzebe, and captained the youth team with himself and Tuanzebe in the heart of the defense. Williams was on the bench for two senior games but with Lindelof, Bailly, Jones, Smalling, Rojo and Tuanzebe ahead of him in the Utd pecking order, he made the decision to leave for first team football.
This could be a great and exciting long-term signing! Welcome, Ro-Shaun.
Friday 4th August, Bury, Friendly
We’ve had a five-day break between friendlies. It’s a local tie against Bury next, and we’re able to put a full strength side out. Left back Andy Kellet has had a patchy start to life at New Trafford, so I give Adam Eckersley a rare start. Richardson goes to the right wing-back slot, and new signing Ro-Shaun Williams comes in at the back alongside McCullough.
We control the game; Kieran Richardson runs the game from the right flank – and is rightly awarded MoM award for his efforts. Matty Willock scores his second goals of pre-season from midfield, after a Richardson run and cut-back. DJ is having fun with the freedom of the AMC role and is doing great job at the top of the diamond. He scores after another driving run from Richardson down the right. The near-post cross is swept in by DJ, after the Bury centre half Adam Thompson and Shaun Kelly are left watching SEB.
That five games and five clean sheets for our back line!
After the game my twitter notifications light up. The same message is being tweeted and retweeted. #incoming. WTF?
I stride into our General Manager’s office to see a familiar face sat in a chair beside the desk.
“Hey, gaffer”, says the mystery player is wearing a wide grin.
“Danny?!”
Those who joined us regularly in Season 1 may remember a certain FA Trophy game against AFC Fylde, and a striker who put us to the sword with a hattrick.. (see episode 20 https://wordpress.com/post/cm0102blogs.wordpress.com/2511). Danny Rowe was a man possessed that day, and we could not touch him. He scored a hattrick again Roy Carroll and was unplayable. Jed, our-then apprentice (now GM), found out he was an ex-Man Utd trainee after reading his biography in the programme notes. Rowe- who scored 30 goals in 25 games for Fylde would snub us in favour of league football at Shrewsbury town.
Fast forward 18 months, and whilst on the lookout for Striking reinforcements the scouts have found out he’s available again! 29 goals in 42 start for League Two’s Shrewsbury says he’s still not lost it. Thorpe and Vermijl certainly won’t forget him…
Danny Rowe was a part of the Manchester United youth team, growing up in a team playing alongside Tom Cleverley and Danny Drinkwater. After being released as a teenager he moved to Preston where he admitted in an interview with Sky Sports in 2020 he “fell out of love with football”, and fell down the leagues.
In real-life Danny Rowe got his move back into the football league with Oldham in January 2020. He scored 155 goals in 250 games for AFC Fylde including the winner in the FA Trophy Final in 2019.
Welcome, Danny Rowe!!
Tuesday 8th August, Stourbridge, Friendly
The last friendly is upon us, and it’s against NPL side, Stourbridge. The Glassboys are on the back-foot from the kickoff after midfielder David Fox scores a screamer on 4 minutes. This lad doesn’t score many, but when he does…
Danny Rowe gets an earlier-than-planned introduction to the Newton Heath faithful, after an early injury to SEB. It takes him 17 minutes to score a poachers effort from a Matty Willock corner. I can’t wait to see this lad get going!
On the stroke of halftime Stourbridge are reduced to 10 men after right back Alex Hickman brings Rowe down in the area. Rowe steps up to convert cooly, and we are cruising. I make a host of changes at halftime, to rest players ready for our league opener. We go through the motions and hold on to our 3-0 win!
It’s quite remarkable, we’ve gone through the whole a pre-season without conceding!
Bad news off the back of the win is that SEB will be out for two weeks and will likely miss three games.
After the Stourbridge game our newest recruit comes down from the stands and is holding up a Newton Heath scarf. He’s awkwardly being paraded around the New Trafford grandstands on the arm of our young general manager, Jed Woodward. This player started on loan at Sheffield United in-game but didn’t make an appearance. Fast forward a year, and after an impressive cameo in our friendly in July, he’s available from Man Utd’s in-game reserve team. He’s not the same England International we know today, but will provide competition with Luke Daniels.
Dean Henderson started his career at Carlise United, before joining Manchester United’s youth set-up in 2011 (aged 14). He signed his first professional contract with the club in 2015, and went on a series of loans, starting with Stockport County and Grimsby in 2016-17, then League One Shrewsbury on 2017-18, and most famously Sheffield United from 2018-2020. It was under Chris Wilder and Sheffield United that Henderson rose to prominence. Henderson won promotion to the Premier League in 2019, winning the Championship golden gloves in the process. He would then feature in Sheffield United’s surprise Premier League campaign of 2019-20. When COVID pandemic hit in early 2020, Sheff Utd were fifth in the Premiership and Henderson was a part of Gareth Southgate’s England squad.
At time of writing Henderson and David De Gea have been sharing goalkeeping duties for Man Utd, having signed a long-term contract. In his first 10 games, Henderson kept 5 clean sheets. After De Gea’s disasterous penalty shoot-out performance in the Euopa League final, calls have been made for Ole to make a decision. Can he permanently dislodge De Gea? It remains to be seen.
Luke Daniels in no David De Gea, but my hope is they can spur each other on in this save… Welcome, Deano (Hendo?)!
And with that, our pre-season draws to a close.
This is how the squad looks for the coming season. Join us next week as we kick off our conference campaign, and play though six matches. Until next time, fledglings.
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