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Nile Ranger wants one more chance and says he will do his best not to be late…

5 years ago
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Nile Ranger hasn’t played football for nine months and hasn’t had a club since Southend sacked him back in January.

However, he insists ‘But I haven’t been in trouble for ages. Southend only got rid of me for lates.’

As well as all of his problems with the police, Nile Ranger has repeatedly proved incapable of turning up to training on time.

Newcastle United sacked him when he was 22 for these reasons and earlier this year League One Southend did the same.

Nile Ranger turns 28 in April and says he is desperate for one more chance, reading his quotes it is hard to believe that he has any serious chance of curing his lateness problem.

When you think of all the kids who end up not making it, it is just plain embarrassing that Nile Ranger couldn’t even be bothered.

At the age of 27 he has only started 69 league matches in his entire career…

Nile Ranger talking to The Sun:

“I’ve been sacked from a few clubs, which is obviously not good.

“But I haven’t been in trouble for ages. Southend only got rid of me for lates, which was stupid on my part.

“Everyone is late now and again but I can’t be. Simple as.

 “I look in the mirror and I’m like, ‘You are actually growing up but you have to work on your timekeeping’.

“I would wake up late and try to sneak into training in the back entrance.

“There were times where I would be up to an hour late.

“The players were getting on to me saying ‘Nile, stop taking the p…, you need to get with it because you are turning us against you’.

“The gaffer, Phil Brown, was telling me the same thing. They just wanted to help me but I wasn’t listening.

“But eventually the chairman, Ron Martin, pulled the plug and said enough is enough. I can have no complaints. Ron bent over backwards for me. Players wondered why I got special treatment but he just wanted me to get back to the top.

 (On going to jail last year) “I got caught up in something and it got messy. I think I just wanted to be a bit greedy.

“Lockdown in jail was stiff. I was banged up for 23 hours a day with cockroaches coming through my cell. And the food was shocking.

“I think some of the guvs knew who I was and some would try and mistreat me but I just got through it. I knew a few people in there and I know how to hold my own.

“There was a little incident when I got my cousin to post on Instagram about Cheick Tiote when he died.

“I spoke to him on the phone and gave him my password but I didn’t know at the time my cell-mate had been hiding a phone.

“They thought it was me that posted it on Instagram. I had an adjudication and they said I was not guilty and because I behaved well, I did only two-and-a-half months and then came out on a tag.

“My time inside made me reflect and think ‘I need to focus’ but I came out and lateness let me down, which is crazy.”

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