Grocott joins Stratford Town's 100 club

JUST one week and two games after Edwin Ahenkorah made his 100th Stratford Town appearance, it was the turn of Will Grocott to also reach three figures in the game against King’s Lynn on Saturday.

Grocott has been Town’s midfield playmaker for the past two seasons, but it may be a surprise for some more recent Town supporters to realise that the midfielder is in his second spell with the club having made his debut back in the 2011/12 season.

At the age of 19, he was brought in by the then Town boss Morton Titterton on a short-term loan from Tamworth and came on from the substitutes’ bench during the second half of the midweek away MFA game at Dunkirk on 25th October, 2011.

And as a foretaste of what was to come, he marked his arrival on the pitch after just ten minutes with what the match report describes as “a tremendous individual strike as from 25 yards out he hit an absolute screamer which flew into the top corner of the net.”

But he only played in the next two games before moving on, and didn’t return until the start of the 2016/17 season, when current manager Carl Adams persuaded him to switch from Kettering Town.

And it didn’t take long for Town fans to appreciate his quality as in only the sixth game of the season Town travelled to Kettering and came away with a 3-0 win over the stunned Poppies.

Grocott was credited with the assist for the first goal and hit the second with an exquisite right footer similar to his Dunkirk effort, leaving one disgruntled Kettering fan to moan: “Grocott was the best player on the pitch and we’ve let him go.”

With his silky skills in the middle of the park and his pinpoint set-piece deliveries, he soon became a fans’ favourite and during the season he only missed four games, making 51 appearances and contributing six goals.

Not surprisingly, he made a clean sweep at the end-of-season presentation evening, walking off with the supporters’, Stratford Herald, players’ and manager’s Player of the Year awards.

Realising his importance, Adams made it his priority to secure Grocott’s signature for the new season last summer and he has once again been pivotal in all the best Town performances.

Again, he has been a virtual ever-present, missing only three of Town’s 49 matches to date.

Injury ruled him out of the home league fixture against Biggleswade back in December and the other two were the League Cup ties when Carl Adams fielded squads of mainly fringe players.

With 11 goals already, he is on target to double last season’s total with six games still to go.

And no doubt he will again feature strongly when the awards for this season are handed out in a few weeks’ time.

Article courtesy of the Stratford Town Independent Supporters’ Association.