Two join Spitfires

Blue Square Bet South club Eastleigh have signed experienced midfielder Shaun Wilkinson and have taken former Wealdstone favourite Graeme Montgomery on a month`s loan from npower League Two side Aldershot Town.

 

Graeme Montgomery

Montgomery signed for Ryman League Premier Division side Wealdstone prior to the 2005/06 season, making his debut in a League Cup tie against Croydon Athletic in the November.

Over the next three seasons he improved his game which brought him to the attention of professional clubs.

Having trialled at Watford and Yeovil Town and after making 141 appearances for the Stones, scoring seventeen goals, he gave up his administrative job with Hertford Council and made the step into the pro game by signing for League Two side Dagenham & Redbridge in December 2008 for an undisclosed four-figure fee and made his League debut as a last-minute substitute against Barnet the following month and appeared four more times from the bench (all in the final minute) before the end of the season.

In the 2009/10 season, Montgomery broke into the Daggers team on a more regular basis but was loaned out to Hayes & Yeading United in November 2010.

After that Montgomery was signed by Newport County on another loan until the end of the season.

And in May 2011 Dagenham announced the release of Montgomery at the end of his contract.

He successfully trialled at Aldershot Town and signed a one-year deal in August 2011, which reunited him with now Shots boss Dean Holdsworth, who had taken him to Newport.

Wilkinson was most recently with Eastleigh`s league rivals Havant & Waterlooville, with whom he had a long history dating back to Christmas 2001 when he first came on loan to the side after spending two years rising from the youth to the senior team at Brighton.

He made quite an impact in the midfield during his first stay with the Hawks, and was redrafted on loan again eight games into the 2003/04 season before signing a two-and-a-half-year contract in November 2003.

After making just four appearances as a fully-fledged Hawk, he followed departing manager Mick Jenkins to Weymouth in January 2004, but failing to make an impact at the Terras returned to the Hawks on a month’s loan in December 2004 and then went back again when Garry Hill’s revolutionary arrival started Weymouth’s meteoric rise to the Conference National.

Wilkinson was the first player to leave the Terras in January 2007 when the club’s financial collapse saw the entire team transfer-listed, and he signed a new contract with Havant.

A long-term injury suffered at Bishop’s Stortford in October 2009 saw Shaun out of action for the remainder of that season and he was released in May 2011.