I might just be preaching to Torquay and Rochdale fans here, but to those that have heard of Morike Sako will probably have a good giggle remembering him. In August 2006, Dale fans got a little bit excited when then manager Steve Parkin signed Frenchman Morike Sako on a free transfer from Torquay...fancy foreign names weren't a regular thing at Spotland and standing at 6ft7 we thought maybe, just maybe, he'd offer us something different...how wrong we were...
He'd had a few trials including Bristol City and Blackpool before agreeing to join Rochdale. We were a little skeptical but a little bit excited when he first signed, he was a different mold of player to what we were used to but he was also fairly unknown having had a decent but not impressive previous season at Torquay making 25 appearances and scoring 3 goals. He took up a midfield role for Torquay but he came to Rochdale with more of an attacking role with the hope that his height would give us that edge up front.
He started off well, scoring his first goal of the campaign against Grimsby, which gave us a bit of optimism...but it wasn't long-lived and we found ourselves becoming more and more frustrated with him. We'd never seen a player who had to head the ball down for it to hit the cross bar every time and we started to loose patient with him as he became more of a problem for us than the opposition.
But don't get me wrong, he did chip in...with 3 goals to be precise...including one in the 5-0 win over Darlington...and we've him to thank for the "even Sako scored" chant.
In his time at Spotland, Steve Parkin left and that's when Keith Hill took over, so when it came to the end of December 2006 we all sighed with relief when he told Sako that his contract would not be renewed. Sako clearly didn't favour the sights of a northern town and headed back to another seaside town with an unsuccessful trial at Bournemouth.
Sako's story then took a turn and this is where he could probably have also feature in my series of "where are they now" blog posts...he seemed to kind of disappear from the football world only to pop up in Germany playing for FC St Pauli in the German 2 Bundesliga after rejecting a contract offer from Bury (tee hee hee!!!). He signed another short term contract in January 2007 for the remainder of the season and then signed for the 08/09 season too.
Going off the fact that there is a YouTube video dedicated to his best bits, I get the feeling that they took more warmly to him in Germany, either that or we signed the wrong Morike Sako...!
He went on to play 71 games for the German side and scored 8 goals as well as helping FC St Pauli gain promotion to the Bundesliga in the 09/10 season. I'm sure I won't be alone in saying I was slightly confused after hearing how well he was playing in Germany, I guess English football just wasn't for him. In September 2010 he teamed up with another German side in the Arminia Bielefeld in 2 Bundesliga once again.
And that's where Morike Sako's story ends...his time in English football was more of a short story, but it seems like he's found his place in German football...perhaps the crossbar is higher in their game...
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