This is unacceptable’ – The strange case of Stoke City’s record buy who went missing
Sambegou Bangoura was a potentially prolific striker who went AWOL during Johan Boskamp’s rollercoaster mid-table season in charge
It is coming up to 17 years now, since Sammy Bangoura played his final game for Stoke City, but his name still brings a shudder. It was the end of a 13-month chapter for one of the club’s most infuriating players.
He would stay for a while longer yet – and was actually still on the books at the start of the 2007/08 promotion season – but he would never again be seen in Stoke colours. Where to start with this potentially prolific but reliably unreliable striker?
He was signed by Johan Boskamp from Standard Liege for a club record £900,000 in August 2005, with a decent track record there and at Belgian first division rivals Lokeren. And he was handed his first appearance in October – almost two months after being granted a work permit – with a 20-minute cameo at Derby County, losing 2-1.
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He would find his stride in the Championship soon enough. By the end of December he had scored eight times in his 14 games. Then he went to play for Guinea in the African Cup of Nations.
He was technically available again in time to take on Preston on February 4, but he had still not turned up by February 9, probably the last time that he was mentioned in a positive light during his time at the club. Then aged 23, the Sentinel revealed he had been subject of a £2.75m bid from Russia – which had been turned down by Stoke chairman Gunnar Gislason.
Manager Boskamp was pleased about that … so long as he could track down his sta
“It is three times more than we paid for him a few months ago but the main thing is we want to keep him,” he said. “I drove past his house on Tuesday night and the lights were on, so I don’t understand (why he hasn’t appeared at training).
“He’s got to go back to his country to see the president after the tournament and they take his passport off him, so he has to do that. But he should be back by now.”
Bangoura didn’t show up in time for Stoke’s clash with Cardiff on February 11, which they lost 3-0.
“He knows he should have been here last Tuesday,” said Boskamp. “If I was a player, not a manager, I would kick him in his b—-s. I’ve no respect for him.”
The forward finally appeared nine days after his country had been knocked out of the African Nations, offering an apology but only a vague explanation to his teammates.
The boss said: “He said sorry, but I’m still so angry as this is unacceptable.
“He says he has problems in this country with his family, but he should still have had the dignity to call the people he works for.
“For now, the best way he way can repay me and the players is to score goals. Everybody knows he is a key player for us.”
Bangoura’s two agents visited the Britannia Stadium, discovering he was to be fined two weeks’ wages for his no show.
Defender Clint Hill would have preferred to have been repaid in goals. Stoke had not scored in the league since Bangoura’s final game before jetting off on January 2.
He said: “I can’t believe Sammy. He’s supposed to be a professional footballer and he owes us a big one. We need his goals. He’s got to repay the faith we’ve shown in him.”
Stoke would not manage to find the net in the league again until February 25 and Bangoura would only score one more time in a further 15 outings in a Stoke shirt, in a 4-1 win at Ipswich in the dying embers of Boskamp’s time in charge.
He finally left for Boavista for £270,000 in the summer of 2007 … still owing former friend and strike partner Mama Sidibe £2,000 into the bargain.
