AT the time of writing, Jim Corbett has only played a total of 16 league games , but is still a much talked about player by Gills fans, and is still to see the best of his career. BBC Radio Kent's Matt Davison profiles the former Gills starlet:

Jim Corbett was a YTS player at Gillingham in the late 1990s. Like every young player at the club he was hoping to make it in the game and had high hopes for the future, but like everyone else would probably have had realistic fears that he would be one of the majority of youngsters thrown on the scrap heap at the end of his second year.

But Corbett was a rarity at Gillingham. He made it, and pretty rapidly too. Tony Pulis's Gillingham side didn't often show a regard for youth players. Practically every player who played under him was a player signed from another club - he never signed a single trialist - and it was widely felt you had to have proved yourself at the level we were at to have any chance of getting even a sniff of the subs bench.

But Corbett was different. An exciting youngster, slight of build, but quick and skilful with feet and equally adept at wing-back or up front, he must have impressed somebody early because there he was playing a part in a campaign which should have ended in a play-off dream.

Corbett first appeared in a Gills shirt on 16th August 1997 at Turf Moor, Burnley, just a month after his 17th birthday, as a second-half substitute for Ade Akinbiyi. He made his first start in the home game against Bristol City the following October, and it was to be Bristol City he scored his first goal against, in a memorable 2-0 away win over the Aston Gate side who would eventually go up.
 
Corbett then scored a late goal in the 1-0 home win over Chesterfield in March as the play-off campaign gained momentum. Sixteen league appearances into his Gills career his talents were spotted elsewhere too, and with a number of clubs sniffing around it was Blackburn boss Roy Hodgson who won the battle to sign him, still two months short of Corbett's 18th birthday.

The fee was an initial £525,000 which would have risen to over a million had Corbett made a certain number of appearances. Sadly for Corbett, that's where his dream froze.

Blackburn had a bad season, Corbett's services were never called upon, the manager who signed him moved on and despite two seasons in the First Division he's still yet to make a first-team appearance for them three years after joining.
 
A loan spell back with Pulis at Portsmouth also didn't result in first-team appearances and at the moment he's still kicking his heels in various Ewood Park reserve sides.

But maybe there's light at the end of the tunnel. Peter Taylor thought about signing him as did Andy Hessenthaler. It would be lovely if the club who discovered him could be the one to benefit from his talents.