Like many a full-back, Gerry Forrest played his early football further upfield. He showed enough potential as a winger on Teesside for Rotherham United to sign him, just after his 20th birthday, in February 1977. He broke into the first team at the start of the following season – at right-back. Save when he was needed elsewhere in the defence, he made the No.2 shirt his own for the next eight seasons, during which the Millers won the Third Division, although they spent only two seasons in Division II. He inevitably attracted attention from on high, but Rotherham resisted an offer of £200,000 from Sunderland. In December 1985, however, they accepted a bid of only £100,000 from Chris Nicholl, recently installed at Southampton.

Now a few weeks short of his 29th birthday, Gerry was as surprised as anyone to be making the step-up to the First Division.

But he immediately replaced Steve Baker and remained in possession until October 1988, after which Ray Wallace came in for most of that season. When Gerry got a game in September 1989, it was at left-back. He tore his the anterior cruciate in his knee following a challenge with Wimbledon’s Dennis Wise which effectively ended his Saints career.

By the time he was fit to play again, he was behind Jason Dodd and Aleksey Cherednik in the pecking-order and was given a free transfer. To add insult to the injury, the club informed him that his age – 33 – rendered him ineligible for an insurance pay-out. He went back to Rotherham for a one-season swansong, during which he passed 500 League appearances.He then returned to the north-east, to play for a while, either side of a coaching spell at Darlington, where he was the caretaker-manager for four matches, and then to work as a kitchen-installer and shop fitter in Stockton.

In 2019 he was working night shifts in Newcastle hospital and confessed that living in Teeside he had only ever returned to Southampton the once since leaving but whenever he could he would attend matches Saints played in the north and he was there when they beat Sheffield United in September 2019. If the plaudits from your fellow-professionals are especially to be treasured, Gerry can point to three such honours. He was twice selected for the PFA’s Third Division XI: in 1980 – along with future Saints, Terry Curran and Kevin Moore – and again in 1985. And when a recently-retired Matt Le Tissier named his “Best Southampton XI” in August 2002, he included Gerry “an excellent footballer and very under-rated.”

In August 2023, living in Yorkshire, Gerry was at Hillsborough, in the away end with his son, to watch Saints opening match of the season (see scrapbook section).