Released Arsenal youngster Romari Forde has already signed and debuted for his second club since leaving the Gunners on June 30th, and he’s now playing for St. Ives Town FC.
Following his departure from Arsenal this summer, Romari Forde completed a free transfer to Kettering Town on October 12th. Forde quickly made his debut as a substitute on October 18th, but his spell at the new club soured after manager Simon Hollyhead resigned that same day.
Forde made three further appearances on the Kettering bench over the next fortnight, but the new coaches in charge only gave him one further cameo on the pitch – a brief substitute showing against Needham Market.
By November 8th, Forde was out of the squad entirely, and by November 14th, Kettering’s Southern League Premier Central rivals St. Ives officially announced his transfer to their club.
Things have gone a little better with St. Ives so far. Forde made his debut on November 15th, ironically against the same opponents as he’d faced in his final appearance with Kettering, Needham Market.
St. Ives were 2-1 down when Forde was introduced in the 70th minute, but they rallied to score a 90th-minute equaliser to kick off his spell with a draw.
Forde has continued to make appearances over the following couple of weeks, and he’s now made two starts and three substitute appearances for the club.
Most notably, Forde played the full 90 minutes against Leiston last Monday, having one shot saved, firing another over the bar, and creating a chance for a teammate. It was his first competitive 90-minute match for a very long time.
Forde’s minutes at Arsenal were extremely limited by his final seasons, so he never completed a full match from the u18s to the u21s. His last full 90 was likely in an u16 game a few seasons ago, but data on those games isn’t publicly available.
Needless to say, it’s been a long road for Forde to be playing this regularly again.
Now the striker just needs to start getting involved in the goals for his new club, who sit 15th out of 22 teams in the English seventh tier after 20 games.