Few clubs anywhere in the non-league pyramid will have made a bigger splash this summer than Harborough Town, who've secured the signature of former Championship marksman Britt Assombalonga ahead of the club's first-ever campaign in the National League North. At 33, he arrives with a résumé that dwarfs almost anyone else at this level of the game, having notched up upwards of 500 senior appearances across a career spent predominantly in English football's second and third tiers.
The path that brought him here has taken in half of English football's middle tiers and a couple of stops in Turkey besides. He broke through at Watford in 2010, was loaned out to Wealdstone, Braintree and Southend, then went on to represent Peterborough, Nottingham Forest and Middlesbrough, followed by a spell at Adana Demirspor, a brief Watford return, more Turkish football at Antalyaspor and Amedspor, and most recently a stint at Barnet. The peak years came at Forest and Boro, where he compiled 232 Championship outings and 77 goals combined for the pair. His stock was once sky-high, too - Middlesbrough made him their record purchase in 2017, paying Forest £15 million for his signature.
There's something almost quaint about how the deal actually came together. By his own account, Assombalonga had never even heard of Harborough before turning up for a trial this summer, later joking he only recognised the town's name from train journeys near Nottingham. What swayed him, he explained, was less the club's history and more the way manager Mitch Austin talked about the environment there including the staff, the group and the project. Austin has been equally complimentary in return, describing his new striker's hunger and enthusiasm as unusual for someone with his professional pedigree, and making no secret of wanting a big goal tally from him this season.
It won't be straightforward. Assombalonga's final season in the EFL brought just a single goal from 16 League Two outings for Barnet, so there are legitimate questions over whether the sharpness that once terrorised Championship defences can be recaptured four divisions further down the ladder. Reaction among Forest supporters online has largely been fond nostalgia, many recalling the peak version of him before injury problems chipped away at his final years at the City Ground.
Context matters here too - Harborough only reached this level by winning the Southern League Premier Central title last term, meaning this is also uncharted territory for the club. Landing a forward with Assombalonga's name recognition as they take that step is a serious show of ambition, even if nobody quite knows yet whether the goals will follow at a level so far removed from where he made his name.
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