Having ended the 1984/85 season with relegation to the fourth division, the rest of the decade was spent there, and thankfully no lower. During that period we introduced no fewer than 55 new players.
It started with Ray Deakin and Jim Heggarty, who made their debuts on the opening day of the 1985/86 season against Northampton in Martin Buchan's first game as manager, through to Neil Howarth, now assistant manager at Cheltenham, who made his one and only appearance as a substitute at Colchester on the last day of the 1989/90 season.
Fifteen of these pages have profiles, including a new one for goalkeeper Chris Pearce which can be found on the front page. The others with profiles are Paul Atkinson, Ian Britton, Paul Comstive, Peter Daniel, Steve Davis (both), Ray Deakin, John Deary, Roger Eli, Andy Farrell, John Francis, Peter Haddock, Rick Holden and George Oghani.
This takes the number of profiles in line to 274 which is now over half way and next week, starting Tuesday, will see the re-introduction of the players from the 1990s.
Again, if anyone has further information on any of these players, or photographs where we don't have them, or they would like to write a profile, please EMAIL us.
The Past/Present Players feature can be found via the Players drop down menu.