Andy Carroll has kicked off Bordeaux’s revival project in the most Big Andy way possible

Andy Carroll never struck you as the type to play deep into his thirties for the love of the game.

Big Andy was just 22 when he left his beloved boyhood Magpies to join Liverpool for a head-spinning £35million fee, his stock as high as it ever would be.

He’d fired his hometown club back to the Premier League with 17 goals in 2009-10 and kicked off the following season on fire, having notched 11 Premier League goals prior to his mid-season move to Anfield. It remains a career-best total and it was only from half a campaign; not once since has he hit double figures.

The too much, too soon parable is well-worn by now.

“As I was injured, I remember hoping to fail my medical,” Carroll infamously recalled of his Liverpool transfer, the kind of move that would’ve represented a career peak for most other professionals.

Who knows how his career might have panned out had he remained at Newcastle, where he was evidently comfortable, and remained injury-free? That physicality and aerial menace alone would’ve been enough for him to become a Geordie folk hero. Just look at Shola Ameobi, who never managed more than 10 league goals across his 14 seasons on Tyneside.

By the time that Carroll finally made his long-awaited homecoming, Newcastle had become a sorry mess under Steve Bruce. A flat, characterless side in the death throes of Mike Ashley’s ownership, diametrically opposed to the spirit of classic Barclaysmen in terms of vibes.

Injuries had clearly taken their toll on a jaded Carroll, who mustered just one goal in 43 appearances – albeit most of them off the bench – across his eminently forgettable second stint back home.

Surely those big contracts at Liverpool and West Ham had set Carroll up for life? Nobody would’ve batted an eyelid had he decided to hang up his boots when he was released by Newcastle three years ago. Those England caps and any joy from football now felt like a tiny speck in the rearview mirror.

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But it’s to Carroll’s credit that he decided to kick on and keep going. He made himself useful enough for West Brom and Reading in the Football League before an eyebrow-raising move to Ligue 2 Amiens last summer.

“I had many options from many countries, including in England,” Carroll explained of a move that nobody saw coming.

“When I spoke with John (Williams, Amiens Sporting Director), I came here straight away and cast my eye over the city and the club. I knew it was the place I wanted to play.

“It was by speaking to John and my teammates that I made the decision to come here. It’s a good club, a family club, with great facilities.”

Carroll scored four goals as Amiens finished eighth last season. He looked set to stay and see out his two-year deal this season before a new opportunity emerged – at French giants Bordeaux, starting from scratch in the fourth tier.

This is a club with six Ligue 1 titles under its belt. Semi-regulars in UEFA competitions. One that boasts Zinedine Zidane, Jean Tigana, Alain Giresse, Bixente Lizarazu and Yoann Gourcuff among its alumni.

After years of frustration, a career that looked destined to fizzle out in an unsatisfying fashion, Carroll suddenly finds himself with a chance to end on a high note, a Bordeaux cult hero with a place in their history books as they begin their ascent back to the summit of the French football pyramid.

Bordeaux get it in the mixer… and Big Andy Carroll notches a late equaliser (his second goal of the game) on his debut for Les Girondins.

Fucking magnifique.pic.twitter.com/V7JHxPm35J

— A Funny Old Game (@sid_lambert) September 21, 2024

And he’s started as he means to go on with a debut brace, both goals in a 2-2 comeback draw with Chateaubriant.

The second was vintage Big Andy; a giant leap and powerful header home from a corner. Close your eyes and this could be his Euro 2012 pomp.

All of a sudden you’re reminded of that weirdly sizeable cohort of people that insisted Big Andy could still “do a job” for England, even early into Gareth Southgate’s tenure as Three Lions boss.

We can’t explain the psychology of it, but sticking the ball into the mixer and having it met by a proper thumping header just does things to us. Forget reason. Big Andy. Enough said.

Get him in the squad, Lee Carsley.

By Nestor Watach