LEE SINNOTT had only just seen one striker saga end when he swiftly moved onto the other – the one he describes as “a longer-running soap than Emmerdale and Coronation Street!”
Altrincham prodigy Duncan Watmore may have left for the Premier League with Sunderland, but – amazingly – Damian Reeves is still at Moss Lane.
Yes, the man who has scored more times than Peter Barlow and Nick Tilsley combined in the last two-and-a-half seasons is still having to settle for Leanne Battersby – or whatever her surname is now – and Non- League football.
This isn’t doing Altrincham down. They are one of our best-run clubs; an institution among semi-professional sides. And this certainly isn’t an advert to try and sell the 27-year-old. His goal record – 44 goals in 2011-12 and 41 in the campaign just finished, remember – does that for itself.
It is to express amazement, shared by Sinnott who nurtured him through the ranks at Leeds United and then during Farsley Celtic‘s rise through Non-League to the Conference Premier, that a Football League club hasn’t taken a gamble on an ace goalscorer who would cost them nothing, other than his wages.
As the Robins’ boss says: “First game of the season, if Damian Reeves is wearing the number ten shirt then I know he’s staying. But we go through this every summer.
“That’s not setting alarm bells ringing. He’s under contract to us for another season but people are aware of the stipulations within his contract, where if a League club comes knocking then he is able to take up that opportunity if he so wishes.
Nuisance
“That is always in the back of our minds, but we have to plan that Reevesy will be with us next season.”
So why hasn’t anyone taken a chance, instead just skimming over the self-employed plasterer while obviously watching Watmore?
He was set for a move last summer, but then-Doncaster Rovers boss Dean Saunders ummed and ahhed before personal tragedy – with Reeves’ partner’s miscarriage of their first baby at 27 weeks – understandably put paid to a trial at Preston North End.
Sinnott has his theories: “He hit his 100th goal for Altrincham near the end of the season. His strike record is phenomenal, but people see different things, don’t they?
“Maybe you’re looking at his age and people are a little bit unsure. But you can’t argue with somebody’s strike record and Damian has got one of the best in the country.”
He certainly has. Only the prolific goalscoring of Wealdstone‘s Richard Jolly and Hitchin Town‘s John Frendo has denied him the NLP‘s Golden Boot award for Steps 1-3 in the last two seasons, beaten by one effort each time.
Don’t forget he was also Alty’s top scorer when they were relegated from Non-League’s top-flight in 2010-11, netting 19 times in 35 despite not being a regular in the opening half of the season.
Maybe it is because, as on the two occasions I’ve watched him in recent months in Conference North trips to Histon and Brackley – the latter in Alty’s play-off defeat – Reeves has hardly had a kick.
As one leading Premier boss said to me recently: “I’ve watched him five times, he’s scored eight goals, but he’s done nothing for me.”
Apart from do exactly what he’s paid to do, and put the ball in the back of the net.
He’s certainly not a player who will be dropping deep to receive the ball, helping out in his own penalty area, climbing high above centre-halves to win flick-ons or generally tearing around being a nuisance.
Poacher
Nor will he be found chasing pigeons on the wing, as he was ordered to when Steve Fallon signed him for Histon in 2008 and he had to fit in with coach John Beck’s long-ball game.
He is a poacher. A man who – like Gary Abbott, Lee Boylan, Terry Fearns, Jon Main and others before him – owns Non-League penalty boxes but appears destined not to get the chance to prove himself in those occupied by the top 92.
“I remember playing against Clive Allen in that season at Tottenham where he scored nearly 50 goals,” says ex-Watford defender Sinnott.
“You can fill your team with people who link play and all of that, but if there is no-one providing the end product, you don’t win games. That is as vital as the phase of play. Other people’s loss is our gain.”
As it seems set to be again in the next episode of the Reeves soap opera, if he is in Sinnott’s XI on August 17.
And with James Walshaw and Kyle Perry added to the cast list since Watmore’s exit, another 40-plus goal season will ensure the likes of Guiseley, Brackley, AFC Telford, Barrow and Stockport County don’t have it all their own way in Conference North.
