Who is Omar Bogle?

28-year old Omar Bogle was hot property when he was banging in the goals for fun as a young man in the non-league. After he helped bring Grimsby back to League Two he had another banner season hitting 19 goals in his first season in league football.

I remember thinking he would perfect for us then, but he wasn’t Belgian unfortunately so Wigan paid just over a £1m for him in January 2017, but a change in manager at Wigan saw him move on again to Neil Warnock’s Cardiff City.

Cardiff paid £700,000 for him and he scored three in ten games, but as the Bluebirds challenged for promotion the Brummie striker was sent on loan to Peterborough.

After Cardiff’s promotion to the Premier League in 2018/19 Bogle was sent on a season-long loan to his home town club Birmingham City. That didn’t work out as Bogle struggled for starts and the loan deal was mutually cancelled and he dropped down a divison to play for Portsmouth.

He scored on his debut for Pompey and got four in twelve games. Last season he was back at Cardiff, who were back in The Championship, and he came on as a sub against us at The Valley in November.

He only made three league starts however and under Neil Harris never featured. On the last day of the January window Bogle made the move to the Dutch Eredivisie stragglers ADO Den Haag to join up with Alan Pardew and Chris Powell.

He played in every game and scored at Heerenveen (photo) before Covid-19 brought the season down on March 12th.

Cardiff released Bogle after this past season ended.

One of those strikers then that perhaps has played too high up for his ability after his move from Grimsby, where he’s still widely admired. His one real time in League One was at Portsmouth.

Only time will tell if he can reinvent his career with us. He’s a big lad and a good age for a striker and Bow obviously feels there is a lot of raw material to work with. We’ll see, but in the mean time welcome Omar.