Following Jason Roberts recent retirement from professional football, we will now take a look back at his loan spell early in his career at Torquay United where he received his first taste of league football.
With three uncles who had played professional football and another uncle who had been an Olympic sprinter, Jason Roberts had a lot to live up to when he arrived on loan at Torquay United in December 1997.
His uncles included the former West Bromwich Albion and England striker Cyrille Regis, ex Notts County striker Dave Regis and Otis Roberts, who briefly played for Crystal Palace, as well as former British 200 metres record holder John Regis.
So to say that sport was in his blood was something of an understatement.
A number of professional clubs showed an interest in him as a youngster in his native London, but it was with non-league side Hayes- the club which helped to launch the careers of his uncle Cyrille and Les Ferdinand- where Jason would make his name before joining Wolverhampton Wanderers in 1997 for a fee of £250,000.
However, it was during a 14-match loan spell at Plainmoor where he would get his first taste of league football.
At the time of his arrival in south Devon, the Gulls- then under the management of Kevin Hodges- were in mid-table in the Third Division with a team assembled on a minimal budget.
Hodges had made some astute signings during the summer, but his side still lacked some extra firepower to push for a top seven finish.
After making his debut from the subs bench against Notts County on December 20th 1997, Jason marked his first start for Torquay with a goal in their 2-0 win over Swansea City on Boxing Day.
He also found the back of the net in the next home match- a 2-0 win over Macclesfield Town- but their next fixture at Plainmoor would prove to be the start of something.
The Gulls defeated Shrewsbury Town 3-0 with Jason adding a third in the second half after Andy Gurney and Jon Gittens had found the target in the first half.
This proved to be the start of a club record eight-match winning streak, which propelled Torquay up to second in the table and earned Hodges the Third Division manager of the month award for February 1998.
Jason' made a valuable contribution during this run, scoring a brace in their 4-1 victory against Brighton at Priestfield Stadium- on February 7th- Brighton were ground sharing with Gillingham at the time- and also scored in the Gulls' 3-1 win at Chester a fortnight later.
His partnership with the mercurial Rodney Jack proved to be one of the most feared in the divison.
His final match in a Torquay shirt came on March 5th- a 1-0 win over Cardiff City secured by a Kevin Hill effort on the stroke of half-time, which also proved to the eighth match of the sequence- as he returned to Wolves, only to be loaned out to Bristol City.
The Gulls went on reach the Play-Offs, after missing out on automatic promotion on the final day of the campaign against Leyton Orient, where they beat Scarborough 7-2 over two legs in the semi-finals, with Jason an interested spectator, before losing 1-0 to Colchester United in the final at Wembley.
In the following summer, Jason joined Bristol Rovers for a fee of £250,000 before going to play for West Bromwich Albion, Wigan Athletic- for whom he appeared in the 2006 Carling Cup final, Blackburn Rovers and Reading and also earned an MBE for his charity work away from the game.
In addition to this, he also won ten caps for Grenada, whom he qualified to play for through his father, and made several of those alongside one of his former teammates at Plainmoor, Tony Bedeau.
