Portsmouth FC have made Notts County call look foolish | OneFootball

Notts chose to release Colby Bishop in 2016 and the Pompey striker has gone from strength to strength since then.

Key Takeaways

Over the years, Notts County’s academy has produced several strong players at Football League level.

David McGoldrick, Leon Best and Jermaine Pennant all came through the ranks at Meadow Lane in the late 1990s and early 2000s, while more recent graduates include the likes of Kion Etete, Luther Wildin and Curtis Thompson who all forged successful EFL careers for themselves.

To the discontent of many Notts fans, several, like Etete and Wildin, departed Notts before ever really making an impact at senior level. Unfortunately for the Magpies, Portsmouth striker Colby Bishop is another one of those cases.

The 28-year-old was released by his boyhood club in the summer of 2016, having made just four senior appearances for Notts, in a decision that has proven to be a rather costly mistake.

Bishop was released by Notts in 2016

Bishop made his debut for Notts on Boxing Day in 2014, when boss Shaun Derry entrusted the then-18-year-old to start in the 1-0 home defeat to MK Dons in League One.

The Magpies were eventually relegated to League Two at the end of that season, courtesy of an agonising 3-1 defeat away to Gillingham on the final day.

The following summer, Bishop was released by Notts ahead of the 2016-17 and joined Worcester City, before also spending a chunk of the 2016-17 campaign at Boston United.

The Nottingham-born frontman’s career really started to pick up when he joined National League North side Leamington in 2017.

He netted 28 goals in just 51 games across his two seasons with the Brakes, during which he also worked as a PE teacher at a school in Newark (just outside Nottingham) alongside his playing duties.

Still only 22-years-old, Bishop was snapped up by Accrington Stanley in July 2019, with John Coleman’s side paying an undisclosed fee for the striker’s services.

Bishop made the three-division jump to League One look relatively easy, scoring 10 league goals in each of his first two campaigns for an Accrington side that were very much the underdogs.

His 12-goal return in 2021-22 prompted Danny Cowley’s Portsmouth to make a move, and Pompey duly snapped Bishop up for another undisclosed fee ahead of the 2022-23 season.

Bishop has really hit the ground running since his move to the South Coast.

He netted 20 League One goals in his first season with Pompey, before a 21-goal campaign last time out helped lift John Mousinho’s men to the League One title and a return to the Championship for the first time in 12 years.

Bishop has certainly made Notts live to regret their decision in 2016. He’s developed into one of the lower leagues’ deadliest strikers in recent seasons and his stock looks set to continue to rise.

He recently scored his first ever Championship goal in Pompey’s 3-1 victory over Preston on 9th November, in what was his first game back, having undergone heart surgery over the summer.

With Portsmouth caught in the middle of what could prove to be a particularly dramatic relegation battle in the second tier this season, Bishop could potentially be their key to survival if they can get him fit and firing on all cylinders once again.

From Notts’ point of view, Bishop’s remarkable rise is yet another story of an academy product that the Magpies would have wished had a different ending.