To begin with, Robbie Apter was merely a rumour. The few who witnessed youth team games spoke in reverential terms of some young kid who was tearing it up.
Then he was a video, filmed from side on, halfway line at youth games, the strange sight of a match on video but without any football backdrop, the green of the pitch blending with the empty fields beyond, no zoom, no multicam, jerky panning. It's not easy to pick up what's going on but you couldn't fail to notice the little lad with the mop of hair picking the ball up, running wide, cutting in and finding an impetuous finish, tinny celebration by peers and coaches, puncturing the silence of the clip.
As he progressed through various loans, the noise grew, the backdrops became less agrarian and more recognisable as football stadia. Bamber Bridge, a tough grown up league to survive in for a player with a school boy physique ticked off and rave reviews received. Then to Chester and in turn, on to Scunthorpe, both proper clubs., proper grounds, half decent crowds but the latter in freefall, a toxic crisis of a place, a horrible platform for a maverick looking to learn their unconventional trade - but again, end of level boss defeated and XP gained.
There was now a clamour for him in tangerine. No longer merely a distant idea, he became a real physical option. Pre-season offers glimpses of him. He has had the odd moment in the first team. An injury crisis at Wigan sees a youthful Apter come on and immediately create a goal. 2 years later he plays a part in the lovely Stephen Dobbie inspired swansong (a pleasing coda to an otherwise discordant season) and fleetingly looks the part in the few Championship minutes he gets.
The next season starts, Apter again shows up in preseason. Pool are turgid and lack ideas when the business begins. I travel to Wolves, we lose by 5 but it's worth it for two things, a glorious sunset and a short substitute cameo from Apter where he shows mesmerizing feet and balance that suggests if football doesn't work out, tight rope walking or impersonation of a weeble is an alternative employment option. I travel to Lincoln, we lose by 3 and Neil 'grey polo shirt' Critchley doesn't bring him on. I'm furious at that. We have no creativity so why are we leaving a little magician on the bench?
Apter goes on loan again. It's football league. It's Tranmere, the club he spent his childhood development with. We bring in Karamoko Dembele, who is basically Apter with a stats boost. Dembele is special, but Apter explodes onto the league scene with double figures worth of goals and a bag of assists in the division below us. The videos are higher quality now and it's easy to see the impact he's having - one game at Stockport the highlights looks like County vs Apter, such is his domination of the key moments of Tranmere's play.
I still wonder inow f Apter's extra magic would have been enough to see us over the line in a season where we fell painfully just short of the where we needed to be - we were all but in the play off's except for a horrible lack of footballing imagination - but in Crichley's defence, Apter as a bit part occasional lockpick might have benefited the team, (which actually, thinking about it, in prosecution of him, was what he was their to improve) the loan was probably the right option for the individual - the full season of league football and the success as a result undoubtedly benefited Apter's game.
Then there was this year. After so many years of him being at arms length, we had the chance to see him close up for an extended period. Coming on the back of Dembele, he had a hard act to follow, stepping into the boots of a player who was, without question, one of the most naturally gifted players I've ever seen in the flesh but that didn't daunt him. Confidence is not something that he lacks.
The most notable thing about him is his ability in a tight space. It's not so much that he can wriggle out (and he certainly can) - it's his ability to hold the ball and then find an angle for a pass that seems impossible. It's almost an illusionist trick and Apter is spectacularly good at it.
There's also his desire to shoot. I love players who have a go at the goal - because, whilst yes, pass and move is pleasing to watch, ultimately possession without an end becomes frustrating and soporific. Apter won't always retain the ball but he certainly won't leave you wondering about why players insist on sideways and backwards when there's space to run into or a sight of goal. That tendency to seek individual glory might have been what made Neil 'possession stats' Critchley cautious about using him. It didn't seem to bother Steve Bruce though.
He runs hot and cold. He's alternately brilliant and invisible. When he's got the run on his full back, he looks Premier League. There's an air of Pat Nevin to him in both his stature and the way he can glide through defences. When he hasn't got the beating of his man, he can look a lot less than this. He plays a lot of games. He keeps going. He gets booted up in the air and crunched. He skips and tricks and leaves players lunging at empty space. He doesn't lack fight or effort - he's just fundamentally little and can be pushed about - he's got plenty of fight - but it's not always an equal match. He has moments of invisibility and moments of technicolour presence. He's a mercurial winger after all. That's what they do.
He's got superb feet and a velvet touch. He's got a lovely delivery (particularly for a player always playing on his wrong foot) and a real sense of timing of his movement in space when we pick up possession - he's always available. He's a big part of why we're really good on the break. He scores a hat-trick. Our strikers never seem to score hat tricks, but he makes it seem like he's just strolling into the right place and scoring cos he can. Away from home as well. He looks almost sheepish as he celebrates the third.
He's just half a yard short of pace. James McLean serves as a villain for many, but if we ignore the politics of sectarian divides, there's still the horrific and deliberate tackle that subdues an initially lively Apter away at Wrexham and the sense that, like a few other fullbacks he faces, McLean can use a mixture of intimidation and experience to shepherd Apter - because, despite a nice sharp acceleration, he doesn't have a great top speed - so he can't simply roast them with a punt and run into the space behind them, he has to get up close to beat them. He relies on skill - and that gives him an almost old fashioned feel - he bamboozles defenders with feints and feet in an era where pure pace and muscle are the default currency.
All of this leaves me wondering if his future might see him come inside. He's so good in a crowd that the open space of the wing seems a waste in some ways. He needs more time though - he's not yet wise enough to be that fulcrum of team, to know when precisely to give and when to go - there's still development to be done - it's just a case of enough football in his legs, enough games running through his memory.
Then he was gone. My thoughts of a fluid front five running amok in glorious Tangerine, with Carey and Apter wide but just as happy coming into the middle are gone with the swirl of a signature on a set of Charlton cheques. The are no lights as bright as Blackpool's in winter but nonetheless Apter's head is turned by higher wage, higher division and why shouldn't they be, because this is the increasingly stratified landscape of modern football. Charlton only finish a few places higher than us, but a promotion means their income is increased by a significant factor - and we therefore can't compete when they come knocking.
Like Carey before him, he goes with my best wishes. It was a pleasure to see him play and ultimately a frustration and a sadness that we didn't get to see more of him. I wonder if we left it too long to introduce him but I also wonder if he left too soon. There's a player with certain skills of the highest quality there - but I'm not sure there's yet a player who is good enough to play the role that would best suit his attributes over time and whether learning that at a higher level is the right development - I don't know. Then again, I didn't want him out on loan, so it's maybe hypocrisy to say he should have spent another year at a level lower than football is willing to provide for him.
I'm also left with a reminder of the transactional nature of modern football. The sense amongst many is that the money is enough to salve the wound left by the one player we've produced in the best part of a decade leaving. It probably is, if you see football as a simple case of 'asset out, asset in' - a bit like horse trading but with a bit more football in between the exchanges.
For me, I'm sad. Not because I think Apter was world class - he was great in his own way, but he wasn't the finished article - but because again, the pleasure of seeing a player develop over time is one that is increasingly denied to all but the most powerful of clubs - watching a player learn to play within the limitations of themselves and maximise their strengths is one of the sub plots that keeps the game entertaining even if the main story isn't going your way. Like so many before him, Apter leaves us with a sense that we didn't get to see the full development of his narrative - sometimes a player leaves because they're palpably too good not to - but with Apter, I've seen unequivocal brilliance but also times it's felt like there's development needed. Carey hit such a vein of consistency in the second half of the season that I suspect it's a case of using him right to get the best of him - whereas Apter seemed to always play the same role and be more dependent on the game state or opposition as to whether he'd have an impact.
Charlton gain a player who might yet have learning to do, but who can be ignored by an opposition at their peril. We lose one of those players who, every time the ball goes near them, makes you alert, who prompts the possibility of an attack, a shot, a ball slung across the face of goal - to use the cliche, a player who gets you up on your feet.... 'Go on Robbie' - I must have said this to myself hundreds of times last season and for better or worse, he mostly responded with an attempt to do just that.
I look at us at this point in time and we're lacking in that. I've been awoken by the economic realities of football in 2025 - we're in need of some real attacking potency. CJ and Coulson have their uses and Bloxham has shown serious ability in a few moments - but to me, that isn't anywhere near the quality we need. We've invested quite heavily so far and parts of the team look better stocked - but other parts of the team are without question weaker than they were - the search goes on and sadly, in what we've lost, we've lost a rare level of idiosyncrasy and raw skill - that's not always easy to find - because as we've already stated - physical ability and 'presence' has always been treasured in the English game (and let's be honest, I'm as big a fan of an ox of a target man as anyone) - which means the flimsy players blessed with golden touch and magic feet are that little bit rarer and more special for it.
Mainly though, I'll remember Apter for the moment in a game early this season just gone where, boxed in by two players, he teased the ball past one, coaxed it down the line, using the spin of the ball to keep it in play, left the second for dead and put the ball across the box. I don't recall if we scored or not. That's beside the point. He'd left his mark with a moment of sublime skill - he lived up, in that moment, to the hype and the potential, the cheeky little scouser leaving full backs with their boot laces tied together and a look of sheer confusion on their faces, forever attacking, forever going for goal - and for those moments, I loved having him on the pitch - because they are the moments we dream of in our playground fantasies. Those childhood dream never leave us - and when a player like Apter appears and weaves a little spell, for a few seconds we're who we were, alone on the grass - with the whole world at our feet and our future ahead of us.
Good luck Rob.
Onward!
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