One of our new arrivals in January 2020, in came midfielder Diaguely Dabo with Boro’ looking for added strength in the middle of the park. Up until that point, the player had spent his whole playing career in his native France. But that didn’t seem to worry boss Graham Westley; confident that Dabo could fit into a side in need of some oomph with relegation from League Two becoming a real possibility.
Dabo made an instant impact too; an impressive outing in central midfield as we went against the trend and smashed Cambridge United by four goals. He was arguably our best-performing player in the couple of months that followed. Injury didn’t help, though. And the curtailment of the 2019-20 season meant we only got nine games from him as Boro’ finished bottom of the League Two table. There wasn’t much he could do.
At the ‘end’ of the season, boss Alex Revell decided against offering Dabo a new deal. That came as a slight surprise given his initial impact. But a new direction was needed. And the French midfielder didn’t seem to be part of it.
Diaguely Dabo: Before Boro’
Before moving to these shores, Dabo turned out at a handful of clubs around France. After starting out at FC Lorient’s B side, he saw action at other clubs including AS Cannes, SAS Epinal and Stade Lavallois. US Avranches was his most recent club before Boro’ moved in to sign him; the lad reportedly without a club after leaving them in summer 2019, however. For us and for him, the time had come to prove himself in England.
