Randall – another ex-loan player on the move
Mark Randall, who ended last season in League Two with Barnet, has swapped North London for South Wales and signed for Newport County.
In January 2008, I watched our youth team beaten comfortably by Arsenal in the FA Youth Cup. The final score was 5-1, and this after we had taken the lead with an Adam Kay penalty, against an Arsenal team included such as Wocjciech Szczesny, Henri Lansbury and Kieran Gibbs with Lansbury the stand out player by some distance.
Just under three weeks later, manager Owen Coyle announced that we were signing the star of that game on loan. As we awaited the arrival of Lansbury, it was Mark Randall who arrived at Turf Moor for the remainder of the season.
He didn’t impress and made only two starts, the first of them against an over physical Stoke team on their way to promotion and the second on the final day of the season when we were hammered at play-off chasing Crystal Palace.
Despite being just 18 at the time, he didn’t look like a potential future star for the Gunners and so it proved. He made just two league appearances for them and went out on loan on another two occasions to MK and Rotherham before signing for Chesterfield.
From there he’s since played briefly for Ascoli before returning to England with MK and then Barnet who he joined only in January. Despite making twelve appearances, he was released at the end of the season and yesterday penned a two year deal to stay in the division with Newport County.
Newport boss Warren Feeney said: “Mark is a very good signing for us. I thought he played very well against us earlier in the season for Barnet and he has that ability to turn games. Mark also has an edge to him and I have spoken before about how I want to bring characters into this squad and Mark certain ticks that box.
“I want to bring in players that know this division and Mark has a vast amount of experience of playing at a higher level.”
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