Often Partisan

Where Are They Now? Part VII

Marcus Bent. Now there is a name to send shivers down your spine. After just thirty-three league appearances and three goals, Blues waved goodbye to the journeyman striker in May last year. Ever wondered who his fifteenth club is? Probably not, but I’m going to tell you anyway.

You’d recognise that number nine anywhere, wouldn’t you? This is Marcus Bent lining up for Indonesian Super League side Mitra Kukar. On November 3 2011, Marcus put pen to paper to sign for Si Naga Mekes (The Mekes Dragon) for one year, and at the time of writing he’s matched his goalscoring contribution for Blues, with three goals in seven appearances.

You can see his goal against Persib Bandung in the video above – well, he tried to claim it but I think it’s an own goal from the keeper.

At the moment, Bent is injured with a strained hamstring, and was missing from a crunch tie with Persisam last weekend because of it. Apparently he was going to be a big loss for Mitra Kukar, but the manager was hopeful that they will be able to cope without him, which was borne out as they won 2-1 in a match which saw Persisam manager Daniel Roekito lose his job afterwards.

Mitra Kukar are managed by an Englishman by the name of Simon McMenemy, who has also been manager of the Phillipines national team and assistant manager of Worthing United. They’re based in a town called Tenggarong, which is on the island of Borneo – somewhat more exotic than Small Heath.

The football situation is a bit complex in Indonesia, with a “Super League” and a “Premier League” both being the top flight of their respective pyramids. The “Super League” in which Mitra Kukar plays is a breakaway setup which has no authorisation from the Indonesian FA. Mitra currently lie third in this league.

So there you go. Marcus Bent, playing for a rebel football club in South East Asia. No doubt he’ll pop up somewhere else next year – as to where, I have no idea.

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One Response to “Where Are They Now? Part VII”

  • Tony D says:

    Oh dear, Marcus, where did it all go wrong! I spent 14 years playing football in Asia, which says something about the standard over there!

    I love the scoreboard celebration – “Goool!”. Talking of which, what did the ‘goolie’think he was doing?

    Great fun, Aljamir. Thanks for your research on what has to be one of the best sites of it’s kind in the country.


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