Not me but My kids played a lot of football with Jack Stevens (Southampton) after school he was with Plymouth then.

When I was at Thomas Bennett school in Crawley, We had Brain Bason come in to train the school Football team for one term.

At school when I was 14/15, I played a few times against Kevin Bond.

I thought he was inspirational - if he could make it as a pro, then so could I. In fact so could anyone.

Must have been a later developer, I'm sure it had nothing to to with his dad.

Old, Ungifted and White

I grew up in the same small town in Aberdeenshire as Barry Robson. He was a few months older than me, so was in the next school year up. Went to the same primary school, in the same cub scout troup... we used to have our fair share of scraps lol.

He was an attacking left sided midfielder. He played for a number of Scottish premier clubs (including Celtic, even though he was a rampant Rangers fan), then spent three seasons with Middlesbrough. 17 caps for Scotland. Then went back to Aberdeen for the last few years, before retiring about 5 years ago.

He always had a great left foot, though was completely one-sided. Even as a young kid he was always geared to becoming a pro footballer, perhaps because to be fair he was never the sharpest tool in the box academically. He was a decent player and energetic, but I always thought he was too weak on his right foot to make it as a pro. He made the most of his talent though. Fair play to him.

I've played with a couple of ex Bristol City/ Rovers players at local level. Dave Whiffle played for Rovers before moving to Man City. He was a few years older than me, but still had the skills to make the game stand still.
Nigel Hawkins played for City, and was signed for Forrest by Cloughy, unfortunately knackered his knee so never really played for Forrest.

Went on a team tour to Newcastle, and played a game against a Gateshead side, we had been pissing it up the night before the game so where in pretty bad shape.
The opposition came running out in Chris Waddle Sheffield Wednesday kits. We were all commenting on this when Waddle himself runs out!
He was absolutely amazing to watch, although I doubt he was trying too hard.
My mate did nutmeg him though, something he still brings up 15 years latter. (so would I).

I played for Corinthian Casuals from 1975 to 1994. I played in the same team as Andy Gray, who played for Casuals for a few years before moving on to Dulwich Hamlet with the Manager.
When I was playing in the vets, Alan Suddaby ( ex Blackpool ) played for us and my last game for the club was in a National Vets cup tie and Paul Mariner played for us; he'd just come back from playing in the MLS and brought a friend called Alf who was also an ex pro, didn't recognise him though.
I worked for HM Customs for a while and played for the Civil Service representative team against the Army, Navy and RAF. We had an ex QPR player ( name escapes me due to age I'm afraid ) and Billy McKinlay who played for Morton.