Player Profile

Rob was one of the original players for Esprit back on day one, and he played a major role for the club especially in the earlier years as he was always trying to help out wherever possile. Rob played in the club's first ever game against Brookfield and was awarded the man of the match for that game, hence becoming the first ever player to earn an accolade for the club [ see classic matches ].

He started his Esprit career with such promise that he earned the first Outstanding Contribution Award in the club's first season back in 1997. Another first for Rob was he took the club's first ever penalty in a friendly game against Newventus, which was neatly dispatched into the bottom right corner. In fact it had to be retaken so he planted it into the same corner, so really he took the first two penalties. It proved to be the winning goal in a 3-2 win. At the end of the season he was promoted to club physio due to his degree background, but mysteriously the players picked up more injuries, which we still can't work out !!!

An ever present in the team for the first three seasons, the usually pacey right back had opponents left behind him with a quick swivel of the hips, but unfortunately he was injured with a serious knee problem in the 1999/2000 season, which robbed us of his talents for a season. (sorry about the pun!) But Pob showed great character to bounce back. He made a successful comeback the year after and carried on from where he left off, recorded his best defensive record of 5 clean sheets in a season. The following season he scored his second goal for the club in a pre-season friendly when he was playing left back. Later on that season he grabbed his third goal, but unfortuntely it was a classic own goal, which would make his hero Gary Mabbutt proud of.

In January 2002 he joined the 100th caps club, beating Digital Line 4-2 on his special day. However after playing 6 full seasons with Esprit with an average of 20 games a season, Rob decided to call it a day and moved on for a fresh challenge. After a 3 year absense he did come back for the 2006/07 season but again he had to move on. He left us with his pride intact and has been a great credit to this club and we wish him every success with his footballing future.