Winter and Appleby sign pro deals

By Albatross
June 28 2005

Hartlepool United have announced that another two players from our Youth Team have signed professional contracts. This time it's Andy Appleby and James Winter that have signed on the dotted line at Victoria Park.

Keeper Winter has yet to make an appearance for the first team - he's not even been on the bench yet - but his showings for the reserves and youth team were enough to net him the Youth Team Players Player of the Season award. He also played some Unibond League football with Gateshead last year.

Meanwhile Andy Appleby has been a regular part of the squad for most of the last year, making his debut as a sub against Barnsley in September and notching twice in 15 appearances from the bench - including the late winner against Bournemouth. He initially made it into the first team reckoning towards the end of 2003/4, after some good performances while on loan at Whitby - travelling with the squad to Grimsby.

Although Appleby has made a breakthrough into the first team squad, there's a big challenge ahead for both him and Winter. Both have established players ahead of them, and it will take either some exceptional performances in training and for the reserves, or a serious injury crisis, for them to be regularly in the first team. Appleby has Boyd, Porter, Daly and Williams ahead of him; Winter has arguably a harder task at present with Konstantopoulos and Provett vying for the gloves.

I don't know if we can expect either of them to become overnight successes, but they have done enough to persuade Martin Scott that they are capable of making the grade - and although they have signed pro deals, it's very much a case of the hard work starts now for them. Pools can't really afford to carry players unless they can perform for the first team: they have to show that given the chance that's precisely what they can do.