By Phil Tooley
Players come and go at every Club, but one strand of continuity we've had here at Saltergate has been Steve Blatherwick, so often and for so long our reliable tower of strength at the heart of the rearguard. Blathers joined the Club, on loan initially, in September 1998 and a £50,000 fee made his move permanent in December of that year after he'd had an unhappy spell at Burnley, who'd paid home Town team Nottingham Forest £125,000 for his services.
During his time with us, he's experienced one top ten finish in this division, relegation and immediate promotion back and a few years of battling against the drop, so does he consider the current squad, sitting in the heady heights of a play-off position, as the best gathering of players in his time here?"It's my eighth year here at Chesterfield and the squad we have here now is definitely on a par if not better than the promotion squad we had in 2000-01, the Gaffer's done really well, getting all of these players together, playing for each other and helping each other. The Gaffer and Rico keep me, Shinner, Hally and Wayne Allison wanting to play for them, they have that knack that makes you want to keep on impressing them, that's important. I'm still eager to impress them and the same goes with the other older boys as well. We have a good mixture and a good balance. The balance of the team just seems very good, although we have the occasional blip, we seem a consistent team which is very important in this league because everyone beats everybody, so consistency will make you come out on top and we're heading down the right track."
During the summer, though everyone was delighted that his regular partner Ian Evatt had moved up in the footballing echelons to Queens Park Rangers, he no doubt felt that the former Skipper's boots would be hard ones to fill, but his new right hand man, Reuben
Hazell, has stepped in filled the post in fine style. Steve says, "For me, Reuben's done a brilliant job, he's 26, many people don't realise that, they think he's a young boy, he's got experience and for me it's nice playing with that and in addition I think Aaron's a great player and Janos is a fine prospect, but Reuben's got a cool head, he's not the biggest but he'll go and attack the ball and that's what you need to do at this level, the bread and butter basic stuff and keep it simple and that's exactly what he does and it works."
Steve's Chesterfield careers had plenty, promotion, relegation dog-fights, goals, red cards, injuries both long term and short term, but precious little in the way of a Cup run, something that didn't happen again this term! "I'm very disappointed after being here so long we've not done better in the Cup, it's a really weird thing." Blathers has though played in the latter stages of the FA Cup, I'm sure many remember his 5th round appearance at Saltergate in 1997, though that day he was wearing red! "I remember that Stuart Pearce was manager that day and the Club was in a bit of turmoil, we had some big name players, though I was a young kid with hair trying to do a good honest job, but a few of the big name let us down that day and Stuart wasn't particularly happy!"
No doubt as a Nottingham lad, he's also looking forward to New Year's Eve's trip to the City Ground, "I grew up as a Forest supporter but I've changed now and I'm more of a Chesterfield fan after 8 years. When you go to a Club and stay there a while the more it gets in your blood and your heart and I'm more Chesterfield now and Forest come second. It'll be great to go back there, my Grandad's Dad supported Forest and it's come down the family, but I hope we get three points when we go there!"
But would he have expected to go to Forest as a potential play off candidate? "That's a tough one because it's hard to know how players are going to do when they come in. Colin Larkin's always shown potential but you don't know how they'll perform or whether they'll gel, so all in all, I didn't expect to be in the top six before we started in August. I thought mid-table would've been our sights, and that's still an ongoing improvement. At the end of the day, we're not a huge Club, we know that, so going into a few games as underdogs suits us, but some of the players that have come in have been tremendous."
"Mark Allott for me is making a really good midfield player now, Derek and Hally do well, Larkin's done a superb job, the way he links up with Chief is spot on, Chief needs someone like Colin Larkin, his pace makes him get onto more things that we've been used to. With Hurst and Smith, the consistency of Shinner and Reuben and Alex Bailey and there's Gareth Davies, an awesome player, he comes in and does a job wherever he plays, so to me the squad looks very good. I don't like to predict much but I'm very happy with what we've got at this Club. And as for Barry Roche, he's done a fantastic job, though it is of course a collective thing, not just about one person, but Rochey gives you that insurance, as Carl Muggleton did, so we've got two great keepers there and it's pleasing that we can be winning a few home games by two or three nil."
So what is it about the place, what's made Steve want to stay and move up the list of all time Saltergate appearance makers, of which he's currently approaching the all time Top Thirty, three behind Dave Pugh and just 38 behind Pughy's mate Kevin Randall? "I've never liked change, I've always wanted to be accepted and I'm accepted here, so for me to have moved on maybe four or five years ago may have been something I could have done but to move on now wouldn't be very nice for me because I'm accepted here, my little boy supports the team, my family come along and they love it, so I love it here, though with so many good players here, even though I don't get as many Man of the Match awards as I used to! I was just happy to get Player of the Month at the start of the season, I like being more in the background, doing my job and letting the others play a bit and do their tricks, showing off and getting their rewards. It's just a great place to be."
We all think so too Steve.
