Interesting face on this Cheltenham programme cover

18 Feb 03 on a cold Gloucestershire Tuesday night. I was there with a couple of other local Reds, standing in front of his "Gloucester Reds" flag draped across the back.

Local paper was full of admiration for the standard of player we had at our disposal. They could only dream about having forwards like Mike Sheron and Bruce Dyer.

We won 3-1.

 

and got some good years out of the player on front cover

 

How were we so, so bad that season? I can barely remember it as I was only small. Was the rest of the squad bobbins?

 

It can't have been too long after that game that he joined us.

 

August 2005

He left Cheltenham in July 2005 to join Watford. He didn't play a game for them before signing for us.

One thing though is Cheltenham, Barnsley and Watford were all promoted through the play offs in 2005-06. I call it the Devaney effect

 

Well, we had the likes of Mitch Ward and Kevin Donovan, Alex Neil and Kevin Dixon. Lee Crooks, Brian O'Callaghan, Gary Jones, Paul Gibbs.

Get the picture??

Counter that with decent players like Dean Gorre, Bruce Dyer and, of course, Mike Sheron. There was certainly a lot of "monetary value" in that squad. Just lacking in real quality on the pitch I suppose. Glyn Hodges was manager as well, so that didn't help.