10) Cherno Samba
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The son of a Gambian international goalkeeper, Cherno Samba gained his short-lived fame at the other end of the pitch.
Playing for the St. Joseph’s Academy’s football team, then 13-year old Samba scored a preposterous 132 goals in 32 games for them. It got people raving mad, especially the makers of the popular Championship Manager football game, who rated his prospects very highly.
His strange career began at Millwall, who would try to secure the young man’s future by blocking a £2 million move to Liverpool while ensuring his education stayed undisturbed.
For him it was great, but for them it was a big mistake. By 2004, they sold him to Cadiz FC, from where he would begin a grand career of 5 nations, 7 clubs, just 50 appearances and a grand total of 15 goals – in EIGHT years!
Despite that, he still managed to represent England at every youth echelon and won his first full cap for Gambia in 2008.
When he retired, he acknowledged the media hype for giving him a career. “I might not be where I am today without their exposure and writing about me,” he said in his leaving adress – a fitting end to an underwhelming career in 2012.
