Not content with already adding to his forward ranks in January 2020, gaffer Graham Westley got Simeon Jackson to sign on the dotted line too. He came in not long after Jake Cassidy, with Boro’ needing some useful know-how up top; the fear of dropping out of the Football League forcing the boss to act. And Jackson clearly had an eye for goal; his stats for Rushden & Diamonds, Gillingham and even Norwich City stating that case. Now into the latter stages of his career, however, we needed a bit of that magic for ourselves.
Not that we saw that magic. Jackson’s impact on our fortunes was minimal. We continued to struggle for goals and for points right up until the point the 2019-20 season came to an early end. By the summer, Alex Revell had taken charge. And, with a new direction to take to avoid the same woes, there was no room for the striker. Jackson was one of 22 players to leave the club after his deal came to an end in summer 2020.
Simeon Jackson: Before Boro’
Born in Jamaica but capped for Canada, Jackson’s came to Boro’ after a spell north of the border at Kilmarnock. It was actually his second Scottish club after moving on from Walsall in 2018; St Mirren picking the striker up on a trial basis in September that year, before then signing him on a short-term deal at the start of 2019. Both clubs in Scotland only saw him for a short while; neither St Mirren nor Kilmarnock opting to keep the player on for a bit longer after his deals with the respective clubs came to an end.
It was in 2004 when Jackson’s career first took off; Nene Park providing a platform for his talents after starting out at Dulwich Hamlet. By the time he left the Diamonds, he’d made himself the club’s eighth-highest goalscorer. But it was that scoring form that convinced Gillingham to sign him for £150,000. And it was his goals again that helped the Gills back into League One at the end of the 2008-9 campaign. A year later, however, and Jackson was on the move once again; this time to the Canaries and, while there, getting a crack at Premier League football too.
In summer 2013, Norwich let the lad go after struggling to find a place for him in their side. Jackson took that chance to try something new and went to Germany to play for Eintracht Braunschweig. It didn’t work out so well, with both parties agreeing to cancel his contract halfway through the 2013-4 season. He came back to England, but found it hard to settle at one particular club. There were spells at Millwall and Barnsley to name just two, before Walsall came in for him in July 2016.
