Source: FOOTYMAD
Reds Caught Up In TV's Drugs Expose!
Former striker O'Connor named by Channel 4 Barnsley were unwittingly caught up in a drugs fiasco last night after a Channel 4 documentary revealed former striker Garry O’Connor was banned for using cocaine in October 2009- 11 months before he arrived on loan at Oakwell from Birmingham. Due to the Football Association’s ridiculous policy of only naming players who are caught taking performance enhancing drugs and not recreational ones like cocaine, Barnsley were totally unaware that the 28 year old former Scotland international had failed a drugs test. General manager Don Rowing appeared in Channel 4’s Dispatches programme about Drugs in Football shown last night and stated if they had have been informed about O’Connor’s misdemeanours then they would NOT have signed him, either on loan in September 2010 or permanently as they then did in January. The mystery around O’Connor’s ban was helped by the fact the current Hibernian hit-man was injured at the time he was caught out by drug testers and so his two month suspension was largely irrelevant. The programme also showed then Blues boss Alex McLeish come out in a press conference saying O’Connor would be out for three or four months due to an operation on a torn thigh muscle but made no mention of the ban and O’Connor never played for Birmingham again. He joined Barnsley initially on loan in September 2010 and made a fine debut, scoring in a 5-2 win over Leeds United - which will be a year ago tomorrow - but then his form tailed off. Still, then Reds boss Mark Robins signed him on a permanent basis at the start of January when his Birmingham contract ended but he once again failed to sparkle, scoring once in five games before being released this summer. He moved back to Hibernian and his actions there may show that his cocaine usage was not a one off after it was reported in May that he was arrested by police in Edinburgh after being caught in possession of the Class A drug but he was released without charge.
