A Story to Bore You With

By: Richard Lord
Date: 01/09/2008

THE story of Peter Bore is a curious one. He announced his arrival on the scene with a match-winning brace in the opening day 3-2 win against Boston United in 2006 and scored a hat-trick in the reverse fixture later that season. Two years on he finds himself on loan at York City, so what's happened?

Bore made an astonishing debut to earn his place in the side under the stewardship of former manager Graham Rodger. He scored further goals against Mansfield Town and Walsall, but even back then there were signs that he struggled with consistency.

It's possible that his meteoric rise to League 2 fame has been the undoing of him. When a player makes such a mark with his initial few appearances, it leaves the fans expecting that level of performance from thereon in.

Bore, like so many young players in the game, struggles for consistency. It s a chink in the armoury of every inexperienced professional as managers are less willing to play them every week for fear of burning them out. A good example of this is the case of Simon Ford, who revealed that he should never have played as many games as he did in the relegation season of 2002/3 and, as a result, played well below his own standards.

Talented young players not only require a level head themselves, but also the necessary support from their fellow professionals, coaches and managers. The sacking of Graham Rodger, who had overseen his development in the first team, and the appointment of Alan Buckley, must have left all the players wondering what would happen next.

The managerial shake-up must affect those youngsters breaking into the first team more than others since they must feel all their hard work has just been undone and must once more return to square one. It requires a mental toughness that develops with age and experience two things Bore hasn t got on his side.

Indeed, in Buckley s very first game he made several changes, not only in personnel but in formation also, choosing to go 4-5-1 in the FA Cup match at Northampton with Danny North plucked from nowhere to lead the line.

Bore s astonishing hat-trick in the 6-0 win at Boston reaffirmed his ability for this stage. But again, the sudden burst of talent was not followed up to the degree that Buckley or perhaps the fans were looking for, and since then he s been used from the substitute s bench time and time again.

Of course, none of us can oversee what goes on in training, so Buckley must have justified reasons for giving such limited opportunities to the 20-year old. But with ten goals in his 25 starts as a Mariner, Peter Bore clearly has the capacity to succeed in the game.

Interestingly, his last start for the Mariners came in the 4-0 win at Morecambe, where he and Gary Jones led the line so well to help record an emphatic victory against a side that came much closer to making the play-offs than Town did.

Fans have already labelled his loan move to York City as one that could be the making or breaking of him. Bore needs to play games full 90 minutes and he needs to play for a team and a manager that want him. I fear that this isn t the case at Grimsby, especially as the one-month loan move was announced as initial , hinting that his time in the Conference could be extended or even made permanent.

From York's perspective, they will be pleased to acquire a player that has a goals-per-game ratio better than one in three this being from a player whose position is still seen as midfield.

I don t believe there is anything to be gained from making senseless 30-second cameos from the bench, which, apart from it being a well-known time-wasting trick, is completely pointless and a hindrance in the development of a player that will more likely respond to a pat on the back and some words of encouragement than being part of these futile last-minute substitutions.

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