Not many get the chance to join a Premiership club for the first time the wrong side of 30, but Chris Marsden was given the opportunity by Dave Jones who had been his manager at Stockport some three years before.

Eyebrows were raised at the £800,000 fee, but they were soon lowered when Chris rolled his sleeves up and plunged with gusto into his first relegation scrap with the club. Up to now he had been what many would call a journeyman central midfielder but he was no mug and he could play. He relished hard work, never lacked effort and became a firm favourite. However, with Gordon Strachan’s arrival and a switch to the left side of midfield his career now entered a swansong phase.

Linking up with Wayne Bridge the pair combined so effectively that there weren’t many better left side partnerships in the Premiership and, every now again, he would also chip in with a memorable goal such as the virtuoso solo effort at Ipswich during 2001-02 that he famously described as “Maradona, Ricky Villa and John Barnes rolled into one”. 

Such infectiousness made him the ideal recipient for the captain’s armband when room mate Jason Dodd was injured and it was Chris who led the team out at Cardiff for the 2003 FA Cup Final v Arsenal. With his contract due to run out in the summer of 2004 and knowing that Gordon Strachan was planning to leave St Mary’s, Chris decided to take up an offer from his very first manager, Ian Porterfield, to play in Korea but the move did not work out and he returned after just two games to his boyhood team, Sheffield Wednesday to see out his career. He later took his family to Cyprus to live but when his marriage broke up he and his son went to Murcia, Spain where he became involved in the building trade.