A look at a player who played for both Saints and Brentford but never at the Dell

Scott Marshall spent a season at the Dell in 98/99 after arriving from Arsenal, considered something of a coup at the time the writing should have been on the wall when we looked at his age (25) on arriving after spending six years at highbury since his debut at 19 and amassing only 23 games in six seasons, he had managed 27 games in a couple of loan spells but perhaps wasnt the experiences central defender he should have been at that age.

But he was highly thought of at Arsenal and Saints fans had high hopes, on his debut in the fourth game of the 98/99 season Saints had already lost the first three and at Elland Road it didnt get any better especially as Marshall opened the scoring for Leeds with an OG  on 38 mins.

Four days later and the central defender made his second appearance, this time Newcastle walloped us 4-0 at St James Park, Scott never opened the scoring that day, but he notched the third to make it two games and two own goals.

He would never make another first team appearance for the Club, meaning that given the long distance in both his appearances and the fact that he never played at the Dell the number of Saints fans that actually saw him play would be minimal.

He had a spell on loan at Celtic in the spring of 99, but Saints had clearly decided that he was not the player they thought they had signed and in October 99 he was allowed to go to Brentford for a fee of £250k so at least Saints recouped some of their money, at Griffin Park  he again netted an OG early in his career and found some stability playing 94 times before a back injury started to ge tthe better of him in 2001, he struggled on for a season or so before Tony Adams made him his first signing at Wycombe in 2003, he managed only 8 games there before finally deciding enough was enough and retiring in 2004.

In 2007 he returned to Griffin Park as youth team coach where he remains to this day, if he is at the match on Saturday there wont be many Saints fans who recognise him, but ultimately he saw a promising career stagnate for too long at Arsenal and really should have played a lot more than the 150 or so games he managed in a career that spanned over a dozen years    

Photo: Action Images

MytchettSaint added 10:50 - Apr 28 I went to see an old firm game that season in whch he played and guess what he managed to do again......yep score an own goal!!
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