With Paul Barrowcliff moving onto Brentford, manager Paul Fairclough turned to £9,000 signing Warren Kelly to take up the Boro’ captaincy. The new arrival from Hayes, however, did not enjoy a particularly happy start to life with us.

In a bid to find the most productive defensive set-up, Kelly had the axe come down on him in 1998. As a result, he moved to Rushden and Diamonds on loan. And, shortly after that, the deal was made permanent. It was not necessarily an unpopular turn of events.