THERE aren’t many clubs in the top two levels of English football whose manager would personally pick up a new signing from the train station.
But that’s exactly what Neil Harris did last week when Ben Marshall arrived at Bromley from Norwich.
Speculation over Marshall’s potential return to Millwall increased the Saturday before last after he was photographed at The Den attending the 2-0 defeat to Blackburn.
He completed his move the following Wednesday.
“I saw that photo,” Marshall said. “I was told I wasn’t in the Norwich squad so I had Saturday off. I got told on the Thursday. My dad lives in Manchester so I rang him and asked him if he wanted to do something.
“I said we could meet in London and having been a Blackburn player as well I said, ‘shall we go watch it?’ I texted Jed [Wallace] to see if he could get me a couple of tickets.
“There was nothing in it, I wasn’t meeting anyone. I met a few of the lads in the players’ lounge but that was it, really.
“I hadn’t even been told I could go out on loan at that point. I’d not seen my dad for a while so it made sense to go and watch a football game.
“There was, I think, contact on the Sunday or Monday. It was agreed and I got the go-ahead. I got the train down on the Wednesday morning, the manager came and picked me up from the station. I needed to get down and you know what the drive is like from Norwich. So I got the train, he picked me up and we went for a coffee and had a chat about things.
“There was a mini-medical as you would call it and that was it.”
*Read a longer, exclusive interview with Ben Marshall in today’s Southwark News in which he reveals why he didn’t even acknowledge interest from other clubs this month, the suggestion he only moved to Norwich for money, why he deserved to be dropped by Daniel Farke and much more.
Image: Millwall FC