If he's rumoured to be good enough for League Two why was he never given a chance with us? He's around the same generation of Youth Teamers as Pat McFadden etc? Can't remember Mullholand even being on the bench for us when he was here.
As we have discussed previously there is nowhere for the Youth Teamers to go when they get too old for Youth football.
Not everyone matures as a player at the same rate so it may well be that Astley was not as 'outstanding' then as he has turned out to be.
If we'd had somewhere for them to go, or maybe if the Youth Teamers had been appreciated a bit more then we could conceivably have had some half decent players coming through, some of whom may have stayed and some of whom, you never know, we could gave perhaps got a few bob for.
It wasn't to be though for a number of reasons (although I do believe that the Financial Reason oft quoted was a convenient diversion from a certain degree of intransigence and could have been overcome)