Richard Offiong - The Truth

By Kevin Luff - www.the-tinshed.co.uk
February 24 2003

Darlinton fan, Kevin Luff has written a column all about Richard Offiong. How he played and what the fans thought of him. A cracking piece of writing from the webmaster of http://www.the-tinshed.co.uk.

Darlington have long been after a striker since Marco Gabbiandini left the club after our last ill fated visit to Wembley. Quite a few have come but non has come close to Gabbas. Richard Offiong is one of these players.

The young Newcastle player came on loan to Darlington late in November of last year and made his first appearance against Southend United. Despite not scoring on his debut he gave a competent performance for Darlington upfront along side our big Irishman Barry Conlon. Darlington went onto the win the game deservedly by two goals to one. Offiong showed some staggering pace out on the Feethams turf and most Darlington fans went away from the game confident that Offiong could bag a few goals for the Quakers while on loan.

Darlington’s second round FA Cup tie against Stevenage Borough was his next outing and we were treated to a good performance from the youngster. Offiong bagged himself two good goals and could easily have had a hat-trick in the game as Darlo ran out comfortable 4-1 winners. But just as we were beginning too warm to Offiong we saw the other side of the player. The next two games saw against Hull and Macclesfield saw a lazy performance from the player and despite bagging two more on boxing day against a Carlisle side struggling against the drop he did little else.

By the time Quaker’s third round FA Cup date with Farnborough rolled around Offiong was clearly a man in a place he had no desire to be in. He seemed to be wanting to kick a ball around in Newcastle’s reserves than playing first team football for the Quakers. Offiong put in a poor performance but the next two games at Oxford and Kidderminster saw even worse. All skill he had showed during his first game and the Stevenage Borough FA Cup had seemingly disappeared.

By now people had seen enough to know that Richard Offiong was not the solution to Darlington’s striking problems and it was just as well that Newcastle were not keen on us having the player’s services till the end of the season.

This was surely a great chance for Offiong to make a bit of a name for himself while he was at Darlo. Darlington have had a tie with Newcastle before in the loan market and a couple of seasons ago we took on Bernard. He worked his socks off for Darlington and look where it got him. While Offiong show some tremendous pace and skill and bagged four goals in nine his commitment and general work rate were laughable. It was as if he considered that being at Darlington was below him. It was no surprise that his only truly great game was when the MOTD cameras were focused on Feethams when we played Stevenage Borough. Darlington was a great chance for Offiong to show Sir Bobby what he could do and that he had determination as well as skill, sadly Offiong never showed this and his time at Feethams on loan will hardly be remembered by Darlington fans.

Kevin Luff, from http://www.the-tinshed.co.uk