Thirty Six year old David Edward Reeves is on the verge of a major personal milestone, he's just one game short of making his 600th League appearance, an incredible achievement. Just do the mathematics, that's the equivalent of 40 games a season for 15 seasons! Incidentally, his twin brother, Swindon's Alan, is miles behind on 425, but over 1,000 League matches for the pair born on 19th November 1967 is something the family can be very proud of.

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For The Spireites, Reevesy's appeared in 222 games in the competition, plus 34 in other tournaments, more than he's played for anyone else, the tally with other Clubs (in the League) in descending order of games is: Bolton Wanderers 134, Carlisle United 127, Preston North End 47, Sheffield Wednesday 17, Burnley (loan) 16, Oldham Athletic 13, Notts County 13 and Scunthorpe United (loan) 10. Add that up to get 598, during which 163 goals have been scored, his goals tally rises to 210 if you add in Cup and Play Off games, whilst his first team appearances rise to 729 with other games considered.


Very few out and out strikers manage to reach such a milestone, Peter Shilton (1005), a goalkeeper of course is the record League appearance maker, whilst Tony Ford, a midfielder / winger leads the outfield tally with 932 but you've got to go down to Frank Worthington, on 757, to find the highest placed front man. Incidentally, the second highest ever tally for a career striker is 749 from a certain Ernie Moss!

The first of that huge tally of League games came on 19th December 1986 whilst on loan from Sheffield Wednesday to Scunthorpe United, aged 19. The Iron hosted Exeter City and alongside David were two ex Spireites, keeper Paul Gregory and defender Les Hunter. The teenager made a dream start, scoring twice in a 3-1 victory, the keeper he had the better of that day being John Shaw, once of Leeds and Bristol City.


A further loan spell at Scunthorpe followed, and then one at Burnley where he bagged 8 in 16 games, before he made his Owls bow during the 1988-89 season. Wednesday were then top flighters and David's first taste of Division One, these were pre-Premiership days, came against a team with Chesterfield born John Lukic in goal and a back four of Lee Dixon, Nigel Winterburn, David O'Leary and Tony Adams. A daunting task, but Reeves tasted victory, Gary Megson and Nigel Pearson scored in a 2-1 win. His colleagues included another man with Chesterfield connections, Lawrie Madden, whilst Kevin Pressman, Mel Sterland, Nigel Worthington and strike partner David Hirst were also in the side. The crowd that day? It shows how football has developed, just 17,830 were at Hillsborough, over 7,000 fewer than we attracted last month two flights lower down the League!

Dave's first top flight goal came at The Dell, former home of Southampton, he bagged the winner in another 2-1 result after Imre Varadi had scored The Owls' opener. John Burridge, himself a man with 771 League appearances, was the unlucky keeper, Reeves' marker was former England man Russell Osman. In that one and only season as a top flighter, David started 8 games and was sub on 9 more occasions. He scored two League goals for Wednesday.

Onto Bolton Wanderers, he played in 14 games as they won promotion in 92-93 but by the time the season had finished, he'd moved on to Notts County and the following season he joined Carlisle United, where he tasted some welcome success.

Season 1994-95 saw The Cumbrians race to the top of Division Three with seven wins and a draw in the opening 8 games, Reevesy scoring in the first four games of the campaign. There was a minor blip in the Autumn as Mick Wadsworth's side lost at Northampton, the only defeat in the first 28 games!

Reeves was the goal getter in chief, 21 in the League as United won the Championship, defender Dean Walling came next with 7, and he also helped his side reach Wembley in the Autowindscreens Shield, Darlington, Chesterfield (David Currie scored in a 1-0 win at Brunton Park), Wrexham & Crewe were seen off in one-off matches before Rochdale were beaten 5-2 on aggregate in the Northern Final. Onto Wembley and 76,663 fans saw Paul Tait get the winner for Birmingham City, a Golden Goal in extra time. Unbelievably, given his tally that season, David didn't score at all in that competition!

From a Spireites point of view, that season saw us go a record 21 games unbeaten, including a 1-1 draw at Carlisle, until May 2nd when we hosted The Cumbrians. A win and automatic promotion was still a possibility, anything less and it was destined to be the play offs. A certain David Reeves bagged two, to condemn us to the play offs, which of course saw us go up.

A spell at Preston followed before Tony Lormor went to Deepdale and Reeves joined The Spireites, and as he's done many times, scored a debut goal in a 1-0 win over Grimsby Town.

Relegation in 2000 led to our most controversial recent campaign, the 2000-01 promotion under the "Brown Cloud". With Luke Beckett alongside, The Spireites swept all before them until the infamous Harry Harris began writing about the behind the scenes shenanigans, his first and most damning piece coming the day, ironically, Carlisle came to Town and grabbed a 1-1 draw in an awful match, after which we lost our way somewhat, lost nine points but still went up, despite the attempts of many to prevent the promotion. 

David really helped out the Club by moving on to his old mentor Mick Wadsworth at Oldham but he was soon back at Saltergate, his spiritual home, where, despite his fewer appearances these days and being on the transfer list, he remains a cult figure amongst the fans.

BY PHIL TOOLEY