Ex-Newcastle United youngster involved in embarrassing pre-season blunder

Mo Sangare spent five years on the books at Newcastle United after joining from Accrington Stanley back in 2017. Although he never made a senior appearance for the Magpies, he has been capped 10 times by the Liberian national team.

After returning to Stanley last summer, Sangare was on the move once again this year, moving north of the border to join Scottish Premiership side Livingston. The 24-year-old was due to make his first appearance for his new club in a friendly match against Queen’s Park on Monday night, however, Sangare was left out of the starting line-up by David Martingdale after turning up at the wrong stadium!

Sangare instead had to watch the game, which was played at Lesser Hampden, from the sidelines having initially turned up at the Tony Macaroni Arena before realising his error. The former Magpie did make it to Little Hampden with an hour to spare, however, he had to settle for a place in the stands.

Speaking about the mix-up, Martindale said: “The players were meant to turn up at 6.15pm at Hampden, he turned up here at 6.15. He is just new up the road and it’s going to be a steep learning curve. 

“He is a talented footballer, a super kid, very laid-back, which gives you some kind of explanation as to why. I spoke to him about attention to detail. He was due to start, he got there half an hour late, an hour before the game.

“He never started, never got on the park and played with the B team on Tuesday night. A clean slate for him and we move on. 

“It’s not the first time, it happens most years. It was Dylan Bahamboula last year and funnily enough he was the one phoning Mo, saying, ‘Where are you?’.

“I normally take the bus but we were in training the next day and a lot of our players are west coast. I wasn’t going to ask the guys to drive through to the Dakota hotel to drive to Hampden.

“They could go straight home after the game as opposed to having drop-off points on the bus. I can see why it went wrong but he needs to pay more attention.”