Sometimes, these On This Day articles give you the opportunity to dig into something that had become a very distant memory indeed. Take today, for example. There’s been a load of good games played – including one in which Raich Carter made his debut – and another in which Ian Snodin made his debut.
Either of those could be interesting – although we’ve covered Raich’s debut before – but when scanning the list of birthdays celebrated on this day, one name stood out to me.
Cedric Bardon. Whatever happened
to him? You’re about to find out.
Bardon arrived at The Charlie Hurley Centre in the summer of 2000. We’d had a good first season back in the top flight under Reidy, and let’s just say the gaffer loved getting people in on trial. More trialists than the Old Bailey, the gag went.
During this pre-season, a 23-year-old French forward, Cedric Bardon, arrived so Messrs Reid and Saxton could take a closer look.
Bardon had started at Lyon before signing for Rennes – where he was a teammate of a certain Regis Le Bris – and had earned himself a good reputation having played more than 100 games in French football. A lot was expected of the youngster, who’d maybe failed to hit the great heights so far that had been envisaged for him, but still had an awful lot of potential.
Reidy was keen for a better look as he sought to add attacking strength to Sunderland’s squad. Bardon had been pushed down the pecking order at Rennes – firstly by the arrival of El Hadji Diouf, and then after the club spent £23m on Severino Lucas, Luis Fabiano and the unfortunately named Mario Turdo.
Bardon had spent a few days training with the first team before Reid took him on a pre-season tour of the Netherlands, where he played against Fortuna Sittard, Appeldoornse Boys, and SC Heerenveen.
However, despite showing some nice touches, he failed to get on the scoresheet, and Reidy decided not to pursue it any further, saying he wouldn’t sign anyone he wasn’t absolutely convinced could significantly add to the first team squad. Whether new signing Tom Peeters was in earshot when he made that comment wasn’t reported.
Still, Bardon went back to Rennes, and we didn’t really hear much about him again. Until now.
He ended up staying at Rennes before moving to Guingamp in 2001 and then onto Le Havre. In his late 20s, he signed for Levski Sofia, and played in the UEFA Cup, scoring against Auxerre and being sent off controversially by that brilliant referee Mike Riley in the quarters. He then played in the Champions League the following season, as Levski became the first Bulgarian team to reach the group stages.
His travels then took him to Israel, where he played for Bnei Yehuda Tel Aviv, and after six months he joined Cypriot champions Anorthosis Famagusta, again playing in the Champions League as the club became the first Cypriot team to play in that competition, too. He then rejoined Levski Sofia, playing Champions League qualifiers and Europa League games before seeing out his career with lower league club Étoile Fréjus Saint-Raphaël in his home country.
So there you go – as he celebrates his 50th birthday today, Cedric will no doubt fondly recall his European adventures in the later stages of his career, as well as a couple of weeks spent under the tutelage of Reidy and Sacko back at the turn of the century.
