Clutch issue, the transmission will not shift into gear?

So, I have the car listed above Ex model, which starts up and the motor runs, will not grab any gear. The clutch is spongy, no leaks that I can see, the reservoir has fluid. If I start the car in neutral, it starts up and idles like normal except for not being able to grab any gear. But if I start the car in first gear sometimes it struggles to start until I press the gas and bring up the RPMs, it idles normally. Now when I bought the car, I was told that clutch was toast. But given some of the symptoms I'm unsure if the clutch is completely done for or not. Any ideas?