Rickie Lambert will be determined to remind Blackpool what might have been this afternoon.

The Saints striker missed last week’s defeat at Doncaster with a hip injury, but will be desperate to play against the club where his career might have ended when he was still in his teens.

Eleven years ago, the Saints striker was working in a factory putting lids on beetroot jars after being released by former Blackpool manager Steve McMahon.

“I can remember going in to meet him,” Lambert, now 29, recalls. “I wasn’t getting any games, even in the reserves, so he called me in and said ‘this isn’t working out’.

“It was obvious I wasn’t in his plans. I was on a month-to-month contract and he said ‘I’ll let you go at the end of the month’.

“I was absolutely gutted. I loved it at Blackpool.

“I spent my YTS there under Nigel Worthington and I thought he really liked me and that I was going to get a professional contract.

“But when McMahon took over he didn’t seem to like me and I was devastated.”

Lambert was an 18-year-old midfielder in those days and had made only three substitute appearances when McMahon let him go in November 2000.

His best pal, Danny Coid, still remembers the effect it had on him.

The pair have known each other since their days growing up in Liverpool.

“We played up front together for our schools and on Sundays and always used to practise on the Astroturf outside Rickie’s house in Kirby,” recalls Danny, who spent a decade as Blackpool’s right-back before signing for Accrington Stanley in the summer.

“I’d always pass to him but would never get a pass back, he’d shoot from all angles and from as far back as the halfway line!

“Rickie always had more strength and power than anyone else.

“We were at Liverpool’s school of excellence together, he was kept on for a while after I was let go at 14, but joined me at Blackpool not long afterwards.

“He was doing well under Nigel Worthington but when McMahon took over, he didn’t know whether he was coming or going.

“He didn’t get much of a chance but, looking back, it did him the world of good.

“It didn’t seem like the best thing at the time but he might have rotted there if he had been kept on.

“His fitness was stopping him from progressing.

“Rickie’s a class player with exceptional ability but he’s never been naturally fit because of his body size.

“He’s not someone that can run everywhere but that just needed tweaking. Fitness can always be improved and it’s made a big difference to him at Southampton.

“Rickie’s a legend at Southampton now, Blackpool shot themselves in the foot.”

Much has changed since Lambert was on football’s scrapheap while Coid was a regular in the Blackpool team that won promotion from League Two via the play offs in 2001.

“I used to go round to his house after training and he would be really low,” recalls Danny. “But it was a massive kick up the backside for him and real a taste of reality. He worked in a factory with his dad, putting lids on jars of beetroot.

“We would see other players we knew getting pro contracts and wonder if Rickie would ever get his chance.”

Believing his chance had gone, Lambert applied for a college sports course.

But within a few month he got his break at Macclesfield through the same mutual friend that recommended him to Blackpool when Liverpool released him as a schoolboy.

“He was only getting paid expenses for a while but soon after getting a pro contract at Macclesfield, Stockport signed him for £300,000!”

smiles 30-year-old Danny.

In March 2003, Lambert found himself up against Blackpool, still managed by McMahon, for the first time.

He scored Stockport’s first goal as they came back from 2-0 down to force a 2-2 draw at Edgeley Park.

“It felt so weird playing against him, especially when I got booked for a bad challenge on him!” recalls Coid. “I remember McMahon warning us that he was their dangerman which made me smile. Rickie scored a quality a free kick, I was pleased for him.”

Lambert enjoyed a memorable return to Bloomfield Road when he helped Stockport to a 4-0 win in August 2004 and will be looking forward to going back on March 31.

But today he will be focused on helping Saints to a 22nd successive league and cup victory at St Mary’s and scoring a memorable goal.

Lambert came very close to netting during Saints’ 2-0 FA Cup win against Blackpool in January.

Lee Barnard scored the first after Lambert’s shot had been saved and the Saints striker also fired a thunderous effort against the bar before providing the pass from which Guly Do Prado bagged the second.

“After what happened, I would be really proud of Rickie if he scored against Blackpool again and went on to play in the Premier League next year,” said Coid.

“We’re like brothers, we play on the X Box all the time, it’s our main form of communication and we often speak about our time together at Blackpool now.

“In some ways I wish I’d been let go too, but things happen for a reason.”