Boro’ went big in June 2024 to land defender Lewis Freestone from Cheltenham Town; ‘big’ in this context meaning a six-figure sum of cash. It’s not often you hear of us doing such a thing, which says one thing straight off the bat: here, we have a player we thought worthy of the money. The reaction from Robins fan was split into the “aww, he’s superb” camp and the “pfft, would drive him there myself”. Secretly, however, we know the latter would actually constitute the former – and only react in such a way to keep up appearances on social media.

To be objective if we can for a moment, Freestone is every bit the capable League One defender we were aiming for. It was perhaps a little rum of us to raid the Robins in such a way. Our 2-1 win over them at the end of the 2023-4 season being the reason they ultimately fell into League Two. Well, if you see past the previous 45 games in which they had to save themselves. It wasn’t where Freestone came to our attention, though. Alex Revell said on his arrival: “We tracked him all last season before making a bid and I’m delighted we’ve secured his signature.”

Lewis Freestone: Before Boro’

Freestone spent four years at Whaddon Road prior to joining Boro’. As a native of Norfolk, though, his career would get underway at Peterborough United just up the road. He turned pro in 2016; taking his Football League bow in April 2017. But the majority of his senior experience while with Posh came about while out on loan at non-league teams such as St Albans City or Bedford Town. He then penned a one-year deal with Brighton & Hove Albion’s U23 development side in 2019. This didn’t yield much in the way of game time, however; moving to Cheltenham a year later.