OUMAR Camara is a man on a mission, to prove doubters wrong and put lessons from his day job into practice.
The striker has returned to Mossley AFC as they look to move up the Northern Premier League West Division table under new manager Alex Craddock.
And while the name may be the same, he believes the Lilywhites have a different player leading the line after a season-and-a-half at Ramsbottom United, in which he scored 21 goals in 43 appearances.
He said: “I just want to prove my point. I want to have a good season, push myself and perform for the team.
“The point to prove is more to the fans. I want to score more goals for the team and just want to have a good, full season.
“And I feel like I’m 100 per cent more experienced. I feel like I’m ready to perform and ready to put what I’ve learned from other strikers that into practice.
“With the group of players we have now, everyone’s together. There’s so much banter going on, it feels like a bond, a team, like a real team spirit, so I feel like that’s the biggest change.
“It feels closer than first time around. Everyone gets on with each other and speaks to each other.
“And I missed the club, so I’m happy to be back.”
Mossley AFC fans may see Oumar Camara the striker on the pitch but when he is away from it, he is Oumar Camara the mentor.
That comes from working with primary school-aged children at Bolton’s Forwards Centre pupil referral unit.
And what he experiences in that eye opening job can help him on the football pitch, while it can work both ways in terms of attitude.
Oumar added ahead of the season opener at home to newly promoted Lower Breck on Saturday, August 9: “I work with challenging kids.
“Ones excluded from schools and I try to get them to be better in terms of how they behave and just enjoy school.
“A lot of them are children that come from poor families and it’s not really their fault how they behave, because they see and they learn from it.
“We just try to promote the positivity in them.
“It’s hard work, especially because it’s primary school-aged children. It’s more hectic, but we’ve got good staff around as well.
“In the football team, we’ve got a good team spirit and also at the PRU, so it just makes it easier to work.
“And every day. They always say, ‘Mr Camara, can you come and play football with us?’ Because they know I can play football and they always ask me.
“And to be fair, I’ve learned a lot from them as well, because they’ve told me stories about how they are, how they live and stuff like that.
“It’s just heartbreaking but hearing that can push me as a footballer while also pushing them.
“Sometimes I tell the children, ‘You’ve got to have a goal if you want to be,’ because there’s many of them who want to be football players.
“’If you want to be a football player, just focus on it and even if you get semi-professional, it’s a good standard to play at. It doesn’t have to be professional.’”