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James ("Jamie") Kearns
In August 1997 Aston Villa signed 12 new YTS players, one of whom was central midfielder James Kearns from Northampton. In March 2000, whilst still on Villa's books, he had a trial with Reading's Academy and played as a defender against Watford in the Under-19 play-offs, which Reading won after a penalty shootout. We tried to get him on another loan spell at a later date but this fell foul of the rule that you can only take a player once in each year. Kevin Dillon did ask Jamie to return to Reading in the year that he left Villa but he had lost interest after his setback at Villa.
Instead, he spent five months at the end of 2000/01 with Raunds Town. Gary Mills, manager of Tamworth in the Dr Martens Premier League, contacted him in the summer of 2001 and he joined them. In August Tamworth sent him on extended loan to Paget Rangers of the Midland Football Alliance, from where he was recalled in October.
In December 2001, he went on loan to Gainsborough Trinity of the Northern Premier League and played six matches for them until the end of February 2002. When he returned to Tamworth, he was contacted by former Reading player Nicky Platnauer, the manager of Rothwell Town in the Dr Martens League (although I doubt if the Reading connection had anything to do with it!), and so joined them in March. He played the remaining eight matches of the season for Rothwell, including scoring the winning goal in a 2-1 victory over Peterborough United in the final of the Northants Senior Cup.
In July 2002 the Non League Paper reported that he had moved to Cambridge City but Jamie didn't enjoy pre-season there and so went back to Rothwell Town. He spent a successful season there, playing in midfield and scoring goals, before joining another Dr Martens League club Grantham Town for 2003/04. At Grantham, he played in their 2-1 defeat at home to Leyton Orient in FA Cup Round 1 and so appeared on Match of the Day that evening.
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