Former England Under-21 Star Joins Dorchester

Boost for Magpies.

Pitching In Southern Football League Premier Division club Dorchester Town have announced the signing of vastly experienced midfielder Tom Soares.

Soares, who is 35 today, started his career with Crystal Palace in 2003 and made 163 appearances for the Selhurt Park based outfit, scoring 10 goals before he secured a £1.25m move to Stoke City in September 2008.

He made just 12 appearances for the Potters and joined Charlton Athletic, Sheffield Wednesday and Hibernian – all as loan moves where he played a further combined total of 50 appearances and scored a further 5 goals.

Released by Stoke City at the end of the 2011/12 season, he trained with Portsmouth before eventually signing for Bury in November 2012 and scored the winning goal against Tranmere Rovers on the last day of the 2014/15 season that gained Bury third place and automatic promotion to League One.

He played 165 games for the Shakers, scoring 22 goals, before moving to AFC Wimbledon in January 2017.

He made a further 69 appearances for the Dons, scoring just the one goal, and then spent the 2019/20 campaign with League Two Stevenage.

The 34-year-old central midfielder, who was also capped four times as an England under-21 international, has been training with the Magpies squad over the past week and could make his debut in our friendly against Hamworthy United today at The Avenue.

He did turn out a few times for Odcombe in the Dorset League last season.

Manager Robbie Herrera said told his club`s website: “It’s a fantastic acquisition for the club. He obviously brings experience and loads of quality, and he's going to be invaluable to us not only off the pitch but on the pitch too - he’ll bring calm and he’ll be great for the younger players.

“He's already mixed in brilliantly with everybody and the lads have all taken to him, you can see he can play, and he’s kept himself in good shape.

“It’ll be great for the younger lads to listen, learn and take advice off him - we haven't got that much experience in the squad, and he’ll provide us with something on the pitch as we can only do so much from the sidelines, so it’ll be great to have him in and around the place.

“He’s shown he’s still got that hunger to play and hopefully do well with us at Dorchester”.

Dorchester Town Web Site