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Which player has most successfully proved City wrong in releasing them?

Martin Weiler

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Was thinking about Ampadu playing at Bristol Rovers yesterday and then realised there was another City connection with Cameron Hargreaves on the home side’s bench. Cameron came through City’s Academy but was not offered professional terms in 2017. He joined Rovers and is now playing in their League 1 side. It strikes me as quite an exception, particularly in more recent years, for a player to be released by City but then go on and play at a higher level. If so that generally points to some good decision making by the Club. So who do Exewebbers think has most successfully proved us wrong after we have released them?

There are notable others who have come on trial and not been offered contracts, like Grant Holt and Kieffer Moore, but the focus of this thread is players who we released having actually been on our books.
 

Heysham Mike

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Dixie McNeil.
 

jimmy

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If Carlsberg did football clubs...
The first player that springs to mind in recent years is James Norwood.

We brought him out of non-league, didn't think he quite cut it...and he went on to score 29 goals in one season (18/19) in League Two for Tranmere.
 

Heysham Mike

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Alan Goad is another who went on to play a record number of games for Hartlepool United.
 

grecIAN Harris

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In a strange way Phil King. We sold him to Torquay for £3k. He eventually ended up in the Premier League with yesterdays opponents Sheffield Wednesday. It strikes me we obviously didn't rate his potential highly enough when we sold him to The Chipnickers.
 

jimbo-gould

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Does Kieffer Moore count?
 

grecIAN Harris

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The first player that springs to mind in recent years is James Norwood.

We brought him out of non-league, didn't think he quite cut it...and he went on to score 29 goals in one season (18/19) in League Two for Tranmere.
Anybody with half a braincell could see Norwood had potential. He just needed guiding as a person.
 

Oldsmobile-88

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In RaWZ we trust....Amen.
In a strange way Phil King. We sold him to Torquay for £3k. He eventually ended up in the Premier League with yesterdays opponents Sheffield Wednesday. It strikes me we obviously didn't rate his potential highly enough when we sold him to The Chipnickers.
The club was stitched up with Phil King(by the player himself)
I can’t recall the exact details but the gist was he wanted a move closer to Bristol & signed for Torquay !!
The fee was set by a tribunal.He moved from Torquay to Swindon after about 19 games with the Grecians due a extra payment on 20 appearances.
It all stank to high heaven.Colin Appleton & the club were fuming about it all.
 

budegrecian

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In a strange way Phil King. We sold him to Torquay for £3k. He eventually ended up in the Premier League with yesterdays opponents Sheffield Wednesday. It strikes me we obviously didn't rate his potential highly enough when we sold him to The Chipnickers.
I was told, many years ago, that King got his girlfriend pregnant. Our manager at the time was Colin Appleton, who was a bit 'old school ' in this regard and thought that this was terrible. Hence he wanted King gone...
Pity, as he was a classy full back.
 

budegrecian

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Brendon O'connell did very well after we released him. Did well for Barnsley in the second tier, IIRC.
 
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