Gregor Robertson
By Phil Tooley
This article was originally published in the Barnet matchday programme
Twenty-three year old Gregor Robertson carved a niche for himself in Spireites folklore when, in just the second minute, he swung a right wing corner straight into the back of the net. At Field Mill. It's difficult to imagine how anyone could ever score a goal in a better context to open their Chesterfield account.
It was the Edinburgh born full back's fourth senior goal and every one of them has been scored in a different Country! His only previous league goal came in a 2-0 Rotherham United win in Wales, at Swansea City whilst he bagged two goals, both headers, for Scotland's U21 side, one in a 3-1 win in Austria and another in a 3-2 home defeat against Belarus.
A Celtic fan, how did he find his way to England with Nottingham Forest? "I started at Celtic Boys Club and played there for a few years but coming from Edinburgh it got to the stage that the travelling came a bit much, so I signed for Hibernian for a year and then I went to Hearts where I was spotted by Forest and I went down for a trial and they asked me to sign."
"There was a lad that played with me at Celtic, Stephen Gray who also signed for Forest, his Dad did a bit of scouting for them, he was watching games in Edinburgh and he was responsible for getting me to Forest."
Gregor's first game for Forest was at Prenton Park in a League Cup game in September 2003, a goalless draw after extra time, Forest won 4-1 on penalties, our man didn't fancy taking one, especially having missed what he described as 'a sitter' in extra time.
Forest had Barry Roche on bench plus Michael Dawson, Andy Reid and Marlon Harewood in the eleven, a very good side. "There were some great players, lads who've gone on to do good things, and there were some good players in the youth team as well that I played with. It was a good place to be."
Four days later, he made his league bow as a late sub in a 1-1 home draw with Derby County. John Thompson had just been red carded when Gregor replaced Eoin Jess in the 88th minute. He made an immediate impact, "The first thing I did was get booked, I don't think the fans were too disappointed with that, being against Derby. There were 30-odd thousand there and the first thing I had to do was defend a corner and we had to defend for all of the time I was on the park."
His first league start came at the beginning of October, a 1-0 home loss against Preston, whose goal came from Pawel Abbott.
Former Chesterfield manager Paul Hart was instrumental in the Scot's Forest career, "David Platt was the manager when I signed but Paul Hart was the youth manager, though he was in that position only for the first few months I was there and he then got the manager's job, so that was good for me. He was very good with the kids."
Robertson played a few games in 03-04 and again in 04-05, but Forest were were relegated in that second season, just how bad was that for the Club? "There was a lot wrong at the club, they had lots of managers, it was an unsettled time and it wasn't an easy place to be in the last year that I was there. Relegation was a massive blow for everyone."
There's a flash of red in his record in that season, he was given a straight red against Sunderland at home in the 80th minute. It was 1-1 at the time but The Black Cats hit a last minute winner, "That was one of my better games for Forest! The ball broke through on the edge of the box and I brought the lad down. It was in the box but he only gave a free kick, so I suppose I did OK."
He enjoyed a game against Spurs in the FA Cup, Forest lost 3-0 at the City Ground but playing against the likes of Robinson, Keane, Kanoute, Mido and Carrick, he gained some great experience, "In the first half, we matched them very well but in the second half, their quality showed, they had some great strikers, but that was definitely a high point."
Forest's managerial hotseat hosted Joe Kinnear, Mick Harford and Gary Megson in rapid succession after Hart got the push and in the summer of 2005, Gregor followed one of them, Harford, to Millmoor.
Whilst at Forest, he won the first of 15 U21 caps despite not being recognised earlier in his career, "I hadn't played at any of the schoolboy levels, I think I was a bit too small at the time. It was Archie Gemmill that recommended me to the then Under 21 coach Rainer Bonhof and I went on to play a lot of games at that level."
His debut, in May 2004 ended in a 3-1 defeat to Rep of Ireland in Galway. He had no family there - being good Scots, they were at home watching it on Sky!
In 2004-05, he played 9 more games including trips to Hungary, Spain, Moldova, N.Ireland, Belarus and Italy, "Some strange, weird and wonderful places but you don't get to see them much, but it was a great experience."
Peter Leven was also in squad that year and the two often roomed together on the trips.
On his two goals, "They were both headers. I used to play in a back three for Scotland, that was favoured by Bonhof and the National manager Bertie Vogts. I used to go up for corners and that's how I got the goals."
So, to Rotherham, "Mick had taken over from Joe Kinnear at Forest and he played me in just about every game and he offered me a new contract but a few days later and before I'd had time to fully consider, he was sacked, so that was that. I enjoyed working under Mick, he's a good guy. I had a few options available and the one at Rotherham was best for me."
Harford moved on and, in December 2005, Alan Knill took over as Gaffer as The Millers battled successfully to avoid the drop, "There were some huge games at the end of that season, we had to go out in every game knowing that we had to get points to keep up with the teams that were around us as they were all picking up points, there were a lot of big games and a lot of pressure."
In that 05-06 season, he was a regular in the side that escaped relegation in an 'us-or-them' last day game with MK Dons. A draw would keep United up, it ended 0-0. "The last ten minutes were unbelievable, they threw everything including the kitchen sink at us, we just defended as well as we could and there was huge relief at the end. They weren't a bad side but we handled the pressure and no-one made the errors, so luckily it was our day."
The summer saw United's financial problems reach a head and they began the 06-07 season on minus 10. "We found that being massive underdogs released a lot of pressure from us. We started very well and at one stage, had we not had the points penalty, we would have been third or fourth in the play-off positions, so we were confident of doing it and staying up, but we then sold two of our better players, Williamson and Hoskins, both to Watford, and that proved to be a big blow for us."
He was a regular until January, his last game of the campaign came in our win at Millmoor, he came on as a sub, "I got the injury before the Chesterfield game, in fact in the last game before Christmas, and I was strapping it up for a while. I wasn't really fit for the Chesterfield game so I was on the bench, I was thrown on at half-time as we were losing, that was the lat game I played for Rotherham. I had a couple of injections and eventually had to have an operation to investigate what was wrong with my ankle and I was told just to rest it until pre-season, that's what I did and it cleared up."
Knill was sacked in March this year and at the end of the season, United wanted him to prove his fitness before offering him a contract, so The Spireites offer and the opportunity to link back up with Knill tempted him to Saltergate and his steadily improving performances culminated in that already legendary goal at Field Mill.
Let's hope he goes on and enjoys many more famous moments.
Phil Tooley
