Gary Jones Completes Team of Decade Midfield
By Deadly Submarine
March 21 2011
After another week of voting, the midfield of our Tranmere Rovers Team of the Decade (2000’s) is now complete as the final central midfielder takes his place in a now almost complete side ......
After another week of your votes, it has been decided Rovers fans that Gary Jones is the final player to complete the midfield four in our Tranmere Rovers Team of the Decade (2000’s) , becoming the ninth player to make the team.
As you can see from the poll results below it was a reasonably comfortable victory for Gary Jones who last week came second to Nick Henry in our first central-midfield poll, this time beating off competition from Sean Flynn, Steven Jennings and Micky Mellon....
| Player | Vote % |
Sean Flynn | 16% |
| Steven Jennings | 16% |
| Gary Jones | 49% |
| Micky Mellon | 15% |
| Mark Rankine | 2% |
| Theo Whitmore | 2% |
Gary Jones had two spells with Rovers which when combined, spanned a total of ten years – probably enough to have earned him a testimonial had it been one continuous spell rather than a split one.
His first spell was by far the longest, running from 1993 to 2000 in which he made just short of 150 starting appearances in all competitions for Rovers, scoring 34 times in total with his final season of that spell seeing him appear in the League Cup final for Rovers against Leicester before moving on to Nottingham Forest.
Ask Rovers’ fans what their abiding memory of Gary Jones is during his time at Tranmere and a large amount of them will probably say the same thing….
Who can forget that moment in February 2000 when Gareth Roberts’ long free kick met the head of Gary Jones and subsequently sent David Kelly clear to score the goal that every Rovers fan who was there will remember for the rest of their lives? Certainly his most famous Tranmere assist!
The former Tranmere trainee was back at the club in the mid 2000’s initially on loan from Forest before re-signing permanently in September 2002 and playing until summer 2005 making a further 99 starting appearances and scoring 21 times before moving to Grimsby Town.
Jones stayed at Grimsby for three years before retiring in May 2008 and is now assistant manager to Neil Young at hi s hometown club Chester FC after the pair moved there together from Colwyn Bay when the new Club was formed in 2010.
So far then the Team of the Decade for the 2000’s looks like this......
Who will join Achterberg, Roberts, Taylor, Goodison, Hill, Koumas, Hume, Henry and Jones next on the Team of the Decade (2000’s)? In the next week we will be voting for the first of two strikers to enter into the team and at the end of the week the winner will be revealed and placed in the Dream Team.
Stay tuned tomorrow for the launch of our best striker poll.
If you do not already have an account Click here to Register.
John Kings gunslinger and Muiry at his side
a just as able fastgun but as these two legends played in teams before 2000 I will have to have a think about this
and get back to you.My strikers would be Howarth and Greenacre (or Dave Kelly if he's eligible as he did play for us in 2000)
I was quite enthused at the thought of them signing a young striker who had been on Arsenals books, but it turned out he had gone to Brentford.
I was initially less enthused, when I realised Tranmere had signed a player in his mid 30's, that a second tier club like Wolves didn't want anymore, as I thought they might have been signing a stopgap player not a genuine first teamer.
Though I do think he did have something to offer and was a good player nonetheless, but I wouldn't consider him one of the greats. At best I'd say he's maybe comparable to Labadie in all honesty, who himself may prove to one day be a great, if he sticks around long enough that is.