At 6ft 5ins, Simon Patterson looked a mountain of man...trouble is, they all look the same size on the treatment table and that's where he spent nearly all of his three unfortunate years as a professional with Watford.

He threatened briefly to make an impact as a youngster after stepping out of a prolific goal partnership with Elliott Godfrey at Academy level. Some local non-League players got terrorised one pre-season but it wasn't to last.

In fact, in a list of Watford's professionals, it was almost rude to include Patterson - so slim were his chances of actually playing a competitive game of football.

Just a shame. Too tall for his own good, it seemed his knees couldn't properly support the rest of his body. Not ideal, really.