\u201cThe difference between the reserves and first-team games is a feeling,\u201d echoed defender Adam Eckersley. \u201cIn a first team, you\u2019re someone important. You\u2019re doing a job. You\u2019re playing for points, for people\u2019s livelihoods, for the manager\u2019s job. We would get 6,000 or 7,000 people at Antwerp, rather than 300 down at Altrincham for United reserves. I saw my career as a ladder, and this was another step up the ladder.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Inevitably, being away from friends and family provided the loanees with a surfeit of free time. While Bistiaux says, with a smile, that the fledglings, \u201cdiscovered the beautiful city, enjoyed the good Belgian food and occasionally went clubbing\u201d, striker Fraizer Campbell admits there were hijinks in his time spent sharing a flat with Jonny Evans, Darron Gibson and Danny Simpson.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember one day we were bored, so we went to the equivalent of Toys R Us, got super soakers, water balloons and were just driving down the streets watering people from the car,\u201d admits the former Reds striker. \u201cThen we got a call from the manager saying: \u2018What the hell are you doing?\u2019 It didn\u2019t help that we were driving a car with the team badge on the side. It all helped me grow, though. Some of my first experiences in life were out there.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
While the development of individual players was key from United\u2019s perspective, the collective fortunes of Antwerp was always the priority for the club\u2019s supporters. To see talented young loanees giving their all for the collective cause ensured a special place in Antwerp hearts for a number of the young Reds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSome players became very popular,\u201d confirms Bistiaux. \u201cDanny Higginbotham, Luke Chadwick \u2013 who helped us gain promotion in 1999\/2000 \u2013 and Fraizer Campbell, to name just a few. I could also name Danny Simpson, Jonny Evans, John O\u2019Shea, Kirk Hilton, Phil Bardsley and Ryan Shawcross. They were all very popular with the fans.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe difference between the reserves and first-team games is a feeling,\u201d echoed defender Adam Eckersley. \u201cIn a first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[6],"tags":[19,2440,2439,144,2441,2061,2442],"class_list":["post-2865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-antwerp","tag-antwerp","tag-first-team","tag-like","tag-news","tag-search","tag-senne-lammens","tag-united-now"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}