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BLIND, STUPID AND DESPERATE
 
Gone but not forgotten:
Adam Griffiths
 
Position: Striker
From: KV Oostende - Free Transfer - July 2005
Record: Played: 0(0) Scored: 0
To: ??? - free transfer - January 2006
Career stats: Soccerbase
See also: Past player profiles
He was: The bloke with the "Something about Mary" portrait photo

In some other universe, there's a phantom Watford eleven plying its trade. Moldovan Sergei Clescenco shares striking duties with Igli Tare and Jerren Nixon. Lothar Matthaeus and Richard Hill patrol the midfield. Stephen Armstrong trundles down the left flank. Giuseppe Bergomi marshalls Gary Fitzgerald in defence.

In the summer of 2005, the phantom eleven underwent a bit of a revamp. A host of exotic new names was brought it.... names that trip off the tongue. Devaney. Junior. Sietes. And perhaps, in Adam Griffiths, a new captain.

During a turbulent overhaul of the playing staff in the summer of 2005, a flood of new players arrived during the first fortnight of July. Griffiths was perhaps the lowest profile of the six, and in only being offered a six-month contract evidently needed to prove himself.

It seems fair to summise that he failed to do so. This remains a supposition, since all that many of us got to see of him was two minutes at the end of Alec Chamberlain's testimonial. I seem to remember him wearing white boots, but I may be wrong. He also played and scored in a pre-season win at Dulwich Hamlet, which even as friendlies go was an irrelevant fixture. And he made the bench for the Wolves game in the League cup. But when his appearances for the second string became restricted to run-outs as a makeshift (and, reportedly, ineffective) centre-forward, the writing was on the wall. The inevitable was confirmed some time before Griffiths' six months was up.

In January, he departed inconspicuously for trials at Bournemouth and Orient. His descent into infamy was complete.

Matt Rowson