One ex-Claret goes, another one stays

Last updated : 01 July 2005 By Tony Scholes

When you reach the age of 41 there is every chance that the end of your league career is well in the past but that’s certainly not the case with David Eyres. He just keeps going on and on and he impressed new Oldham manager Ronnie Moore enough to be offered a new one year deal.

Somewhat surprisingly Eyresy initially turned it down and it seemed likely that he might move to Shrewsbury to join Gary Peters, the manager who almost eight years ago took him to Preston from Burnley. This week though he has signed the deal with Oldham, the club he has been with since October 2000.

It’s been a remarkable career and despite being well on his way to his 25th birthday before he played league football he has now played 630 times in the Football League for his four clubs – Blackpool, Burnley, Preston and Oldham. With cup games that rises to 759 so he could be well on his way to 800 by this time next year.

Back in the 1998/99 season we were struggling under new manager Stan Ternent. This week Graham Branch, one of his first signings after the arrival of Barry Kilby admitted that when trying to sign him Stan had said the team was shit but he would sort it.

In that pre-Kilby period he brought in a number of players with little success. One of them was midfielder Matt Hewlett who arrived from Bristol City on loan in November.

He was 22 at the time and made little impact, playing just two leagues games for us, the last of which was the 4-0 defeat at Fulham when Stan screamed, “It is not my team.”

Hewlett went back to Bristol City but he moved on to Swindon five years ago where he has been a regular in the side as well as captaining the Wiltshire club.

Having been released at the County Ground at the end of last season he has this week agreed a deal with Torquay, who have just been relegated to League Two, and will join them for the next two seasons.