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Stories coming out of Rushden and Boston of dressing room disharmony and disruption were dismissed, mainly due to no-one really liking or having any respect for either side.
He struck up an immediate bond with supporters and players alike and the future seemed bright. And then at the end of a glorious season, with rumours of an unhappy girlfriend/family, Bayo decided that he did not want to move from his London home to Doncaster. Penney, who stuck by his rule of having players living within 30 miles of Doncaster, immediately withdrew the offer of a new contract and cast him aside. Rovers fans were concerned, but he'd only played 10 or so first team games so wasn't overly missed and most would rather have signed Chris Brown from Sunderland anyway.
But it was a little surprising to see Bayo turn up, in of all places Torquay. Even further away from London, the newly promoted Gulls snapped up Bayo to replace the departing David Graham who was winging his way to a guaranteed spot in Wigans Reserves. Torquay fans were not impressed that they'd replaced their top scorer with a player who wouldn't have looked out of place standing outside a nightclub checking to make sure people didn't have trainers on. But, after a slow start he made himself invaluable scoring nearly twenty goals in a relegated team.
And guess what? With his contract up for renewal he decided that he was no longer happy at Torquay. Add in massive confusion with two seperate agents supposedly representing him, a rather peeved Torquay manager and chairman, plenty of narked off Torquay fans and an Adebayo Akinfenwa who looks destined to sign for Bristol City reserves. I can only imagine the look of horror on a Bristol City fans face when they watch Bayo knocking people over in his first pre-season friendly.
Dave Penney took a bit of stick for this one last summer. In my humble opinion, Dave got it spot on and pulled the plug when it was obvious what this guy was all about. I think we got off lightly.