Doyle the Royal was offered Town Trial

[larwood]

We have missed out on lots of players but there is no point dwelling on it

 I agree with you Nils,i am sure there are loads of players we have missed out on in the past and it will happen again.Hindsight is a great thing, but managers don't have crystal balls [jose might though ]Sounds like Doyle was injuried at the time of his trial too.

[Ben Wah Balls]

Thing is Rich King was going to look at him again and had offered him the chance to train with us again, Southend signed him before we had the chance, these things happen. Gotta say fair play for offering him the trial in the first place, we did not turn him down.

excuse me king turned him down and choose opara instead.

:nono: Is that right? Why then did we only take Eastwood on trial after we had signed Opara and he only scored the hattrick afterwards then?

The answer is you are wrong, Swindon did not turn down Eastwood, that's simply not true.

We signed Opara in June 2004, Eastwood was taken on trial in September 2004 and scored his hattrick on 28th September 2004, Swindon were then going to have him back but he agreed to sign for Southend on loan on October 5th 2004.

http://www.thisisstfc.co.uk/News_Headlines_Story.asp?NewsID=3548

POTENTIAL Town target Freddy Eastwood has joined League Two Southend in a month-long loan deal.

The teenager scored a fine hat-trick for Town’s reserves in the 5-0 win over Team Bath at Wanborough last week, prompting reserve boss Alan Reeves to say: “I think the manager was quite impressed by Freddy, so he may come training with us again and we’ll have another look.”

But it seems Town may have missed the boat, with Eastwood ­ who scored 37 goals for Conference South side Grays last season ­ agreeing to move to Roots Hall.

Southend are expected to make a permanent offer if the 19-year-old striker proves a success, although Grays are holding out for a sizeable fee.

[Dazzza]

Crying shame we missed out on Eastwood.  

I think he’s have made a momentous difference and with the benefit of hindsight I’d fiddle Winton to have seen what rewards a front pairing with Parkin would have brought.

Like poker one of those bad calls that would have brought the house down had you have played to the flop.

Ben’s right though we didn’t turn him down in favour of big Loyd as I don’t actually think Eastwood was at Grays at that time although I may be wrong on that.  If that was the case King deserves a castration.

It was an odd decision at the time as the lad wasn’t exactly a completely unknown prospect with his goal scoring and you would have to have thought that three goals would have really have been the clincher to the deal.  

Maybe we were broke at the time and couldn’t afford the deal.  But I’m inclined to think that the idiom “we’ll take another look at him” had the same significance as it usually did with King.

[Ben Wah Balls]

King said in an interview at the time that he would have liked to sign him, not a bad call just one that got away, similar to Henderson.

[lebowski]

eastwood was at grays at the same time as opara. as we all know, initially king went for opara but went back to have a look at eastwood later on. perhaps he was a bit apprehensive in signing freddy after what happened with opara?

[Ben Wah Balls]

Exactly so it wasn't a choice between them, we would have got Eastwood after going for Opara who had left by then anyway but unfortunately Southend took him before we had the chance.

[lebowski]

i also think at the time king may have felt eastwood was always going to be behind parkin, and we couldn't really afford to have backup players. unfortunately, he's turned out to be a highly sought after player - i wonder how much grays got for him, or if they get a percentage of the sell-on fee?

southend picked up another good player from grays pre-season: a left winger called mitchell cole to replace nicky nicolau.

[Ben Wah Balls]

i also think at the time king may have felt eastwood was always going to be behind parkin, and we couldn't really afford to have backup players.

Surely then he wouldn't have said he wanted to sign him or even offered him the trial. I don't think that's true. I believe at the time King was very much in search of another striker and Eastwood would've been ideal if Southend hadn't got there first.

[Dazzza]

i also think at the time king may have felt eastwood was always going to be behind parkin, and we couldn't really afford to have backup players. unfortunately, he's turned out to be a highly sought after player - i wonder how much grays got for him, or if they get a percentage of the sell-on fee?

southend picked up another good player from grays pre-season: a left winger called mitchell cole to replace nicky nicolau.

Ex-Hammer and porking Joe Cole's sister a while back.

Doing well this season they seem to have their nose to the ground at the moment.

[Johno]

we already had opara then...surely!?

[DV]

i also think at the time king may have felt eastwood was always going to be behind parkin, and we couldn't really afford to have backup players.

Surely then he wouldn't have said he wanted to sign him or even offered him the trial. I don't think that's true. I believe at the time King was very much in search of another striker and Eastwood would've been ideal if Southend hadn't got there first.

but didnt we get there first, we had Eastwood on trail before Southend came in for him. Surely we should have tried to sign him then?

[Ben Wah Balls]

i also think at the time king may have felt eastwood was always going to be behind parkin, and we couldn't really afford to have backup players.

Surely then he wouldn't have said he wanted to sign him or even offered him the trial. I don't think that's true. I believe at the time King was very much in search of another striker and Eastwood would've been ideal if Southend hadn't got there first.

but didnt we get there first, we had Eastwood on trail before Southend came in for him. Surely we should have tried to sign him then?

Southend signed him directly after his trial with us, it's worth remembering that Grays and Southend are both in Essex, so I'm sure they would've scouted him and he wouldn't have to move or travel far which is important for a young player who I doubt had much money at that point and I expect that's why he chose them over us.

[Johno]

we didn't offer him anything though did we? i remember him on trial...then going?

[Ben Wah Balls]

we didn't offer him anything though did we? i remember him on trial...then going?

We were going to have him back, possibly a loan spell and then offer him something after that but he decided to join Southend.

[Johno]

well....thats fair enough then. if true.