A LONE RANGER TURNED GOOD!
BARRING the three months that he missed last season, undergoing a hernia operation, Angelo Balanta has enjoyed playing regular football over the years.
But it wasn’t always this way. At the start of his career, as a young prospect at Queens Park Rangers, stability was almost impossible to come by and he feels it hampered his progress.
“At the time, QPR were going through a lot of investment,” the striker, now at Dagenham & Redbridge, told The NLP.
“New owners came in and brought a load of experienced, proven players. That dampened my development to an extent.
I had about five managers in one season, so you can only imagine, for a young kid like myself coming through, what that was like.
“One manager might like me, but the next might not like me. That affected my confidence and things have a domino effect. It was very hard to hold down a regular place. There were a lot of proven players that came through the door.
Stop-start
“When the investment came in, they wanted to get the club into the Premier League, which is understandable, but as a youngster it was very hard to get any game time. I had to go out on loan, come back, prove myself again and then go out on loan. It was stop-start.”
After making 29 appearances for QPR while still a teenager, Balanta then spent long periods out on loan, including three stints at MK Dons. He was finally released in 2014, having not played for the first team in his last four years at Loftus Road. He ended up signing for Bristol Rovers, who had just been relegated from the Football League.
“I felt it financially and emotionally because I was a Championship player and I’d dropped down to NonLeague,” he says. “The reality is that a lot of youngsters, even now, are dropping out of the Premier League, Championship, League One, and even if they’re decent players, they’re not going to get a contract at these clubs. They’re going to drop straight down.
“It’s hard to take that because in the back of your mind you sort of expect to get another League One, League Two club. But the reality is, it’s not that easy. There are hundreds, thousands of kids out there who are just as good as you, and you’re probably going to drop into NonLeague like myself.”
Balanta was part of the Bristol Rovers team that won promotion via the playoffs, calmly tucking away his penalty in the shoot-out against Grimsby Town in front of a crowd of 47,000 at Wembley. He spent the following season at Carlisle United before deciding to move closer to home with Boreham Wood, where he found his best form.
“At that stage I was 26 and it was vital that I went to a club where I’d play,” he reflected. “I needed to go and play, simple as that. Luckily, I got a chance at Boreham Wood, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I got two great seasons under my belt.”
The second culminated in a heart-breaking defeat to Tranmere Rovers in the play-off final, despite playing against ten men for almost the entirety of the game. A few months later and Balanta completed a whirlwind move to Dagenham, where he has continued to perform well even in a struggling team.
Consistency
“It’s been good, but obviously it can be a lot better, added Colombian-born Balanta. “It’s a club that needs to be at the top end of the National League, fighting for promotion. It’s been in the Football League and it’s got ambitions to go back there. That’s the main aim in the next year or two. That was the main reason why I joined.
“Last season we started quite well and then we drifted off. Personally, I got injured and had to have a hernia operation. I’m over that now and hopefully I can carry on into next season and do well. We’ve got to be challenging for promotion. It’s all about starting well and sustaining that level of commitment and consistency.”
Having just turned 30, Balanta is now a senior player with the experience to show for it. Whether playing out wide, in the hole, or up front, he has established himself as a creative force in the National League. The more he adds to a tally of 39 goals in the last four seasons, the better it will be for Dagenham.