Seventeen years is a long time to be away from anywhere, and for veteran striker Inih Effiong, returning to St Albans City has clearly meant more than just another transfer. The 35-year-old first emerged through the club's academy, scoring 15 goals in a breakout teenage season before leaving for local rivals Boreham Wood back in 2009, kicking off a career that would eventually wind its way through an almost bewildering list of clubs, including Hitchin Town, Chesham, Hayes & Yeading, Dunstable, Biggleswade Town, Barrow, Woking, Ross County, Barnet, Stevenage, Dagenham & Redbridge and Braintree.
The connection to St Albans clearly runs deep. It was former manager Steve Castle who first threw him into senior football as a teenager, and Effiong has since spoken warmly about how much that early trust shaped everything that came afterwards, describing the experience of being thrown into the deep end as formative for his career. This latest arrival marks his third spell in a Saints shirt, following a short but eventful stretch further up the pyramid. He'd joined Eastleigh partway through last season's National League campaign, not long after surgery to remove a bone fragment from his patella, and despite that injury setback, he's been clear that he still feels he has plenty left to give, even as his career enters its latter stages.
There's genuine ambition behind the move too, not just nostalgia. Effiong has said he rates this St Albans squad's chances of pushing for promotion back towards the National League, while cautioning that Step 3 remains a genuinely tough division, with other clubs also spending heavily this summer. He arrives as the ninth confirmed signing of the club's rebuild for the new campaign, with the coaching staff hoping to lean on both his physical presence and his knack for bringing team-mates into play through strong link-up work.
What stands out most, though, is the emotional undercurrent to the whole thing. Effiong left Clarence Park as little more than a kid and has spent the years since bouncing across the non-league landscape and occasionally beyond it, including a spell north of the border with Ross County and various loan spells sprinkled through his time in the EFL system. Now, under current boss Gary McCann, he's back where his career first took shape - hoping that experience gathered across two decades and 20-odd clubs can help drag St Albans back toward the level he first sampled as a raw teenager all those years ago.
+18 | Please gamble responsibly | Commercial content | T&Cs apply GambleAware.com
