City squad boasts 2,325 League appearances

There are eleven men in the City squad who’ve played in the Football League before, with a total of 2,325 League games between them.

And only one of the eleven is the gaffa…

Here we list the eleven Grecians for whom the Football League is nothing new.

1) Marcus Stewart (pic) – 579 League games
Nobody in the City side has more experience than our big summer signing. Of course, quite a few of these games were in the Premier League with Ipswich and Sunderland. He’s scored 190 League or Prem goals too.

2) Rob Edwards – 493 League games
King Edwards is back where he belongs, and he’s been here before with Carlisle, Preston, Bristol City and Blackpool. As a measure of his experience at this level, he’s played in 38 League Cup ties as well.

3) Andy Marriott – 445 League games
He’s played League football for Forest, West Brom, Blackburn, Colchester, Burnley, Wrexham, Sunderland, Barnsley, Birmingham, Bury, Torquay and Boston – add been signed for but not played a League game for a handful of other clubs. It would be nice to see him get a game in League Two to add a 13th (and finest!) club to his collection.

4) Steve Basham – 232 League games
Bash is another who’s played top flight football – for Southampton, for whom he made his debut against Chelsea and scored in a win at Blackburn while playing alongside Sir Scott Hiley. Wrexham, Preston and Oxford were his other League clubs.

5) Matt Gill – 206 League games
More than most of us would have thought, eh? Gilly had played 149 League games for Peterborough by the time he was 23, and added a further 57 League games at Notts County.

6) Richard Logan – 155 League games
Everyone knows that Our Logie’s been about a bit, but he’s played plenty of football in that time. City will be his eighth Football League club, after notable stints at Peterborough (83 games) and Boston (35 games) among others.

7) Steve Tully – 106 League games
All Steve’s League experience came in one spell with Torquay, He made his debut for the Gulls as a 17 year old back in 1997 and picked up his first booking in a Devon Derby at St James Park.

8) Paul Tisdale – 39 League games
Yes, it may just be for emergencies, but Tis is registered as a player so we’d better count the old duffer! He played 16 Premier League games for Southampton, as well as featuring for Northampton, Huddersfield, Bristol City and – for 10 games in 97/98, the first six unbeaten – Exeter City. He is, of course, the only player in our squad to have played League football for Exeter City.

9) Bertie Cozic – 36 League games
Short spells at Cheltenham, Northampton and Kidderminster (alongside Billy Jones in the season they were relegated to the Conference) have given Bertie un petit peu of League experience.

10) Adam Stansfield – 32 League games
Adam has had one season of League experience, with newly promoted Yeovil in League Two in 2003/04. He helped get Hereford promoted to the League, but opted to delay his return to League Two by a couple of years in order to return home to Devon…

11) Ryan Harley – 2 League games
Ryan made his two appearances for Bristol City in League One in the 2004/05 season. Judging by his pre-season form, it won’t take him long to double that total.

And here’s a summary of their Exeter City appearances and goals scored to date.

Player (in order of Appearances)	Total Apps	Total Goals
Dean Moxey Matt Gill Paul Jones Rob Edwards Adam Stansfield Richard Logan Steve Tully Bertie Cozic Matt Taylor Andy Marriott George Friend Danny Seaborne Steve Basham Ryan Harley Ben Watson Paul Tisdale Marcus Stewart Manny Panther Craig McAllister Jack Obersteller Neil Saunders	151 120 103 102 90 67 65 51 47 40 39 37 34 15 12 10 0 0 0 0 0	18 5 0 (GK) 3 21 23 0 1 11 0 (GK) 1 4 6 2 2 1 0 0 0 0 0