A regular in United's mean defence this season, summer signing Anthony Tonkin is a classy left-back who loves to get forward.

Born and raised in Cornwall, Anthony took an unconventional route into the game by studying for a degree during the first three years of his playing career. Whilst most young players enter the game on Schoolboy forms and serve a two or three year YTS with a club, he was signed by Conference side Yeovil Town at the age of 18 after playing a trial game against their youth team.

Anthony signed a two-year-contract with the Glovers and their part-time status allowed him to combine his studies at Cheltenham with training and playing. But in his third year of studying Business Management and Sports Sciences, Yeovil changed to full-time, which forced some changes.

"I had to sacrifice getting an honours degree because I had to forgo the placement year and just didn't have time to do a dissertation, but I still obtained a degree," he says.

"It was a three hour round trip from Yeovil to Cheltenham and it was hard work sometimes to fit everything in around the football, but it was all worthwhile and it takes some of the pressure off when I finish playing football."

Anthony began to feature in Yeovil's first team on a regular basis during his second year after Dave Webb was appointed manager, and he was one of the players who earned a full-time contract when the club's status changed.

For the next two seasons he was a regular at left-back, earning England C honours and clocking up 96 Conference appearances and two goals - his only goals to date - before League 1 side Stockport County paid £50,000 to take him north in 2002.

"I'd been at Yeovil for quite a while and I wanted to play League football so in my last contract I had a clause that allowed me to move to a League club for £50,000," he explains.

Anthony signed a three year contract with Stockport but at the end of the first season Crewe swooped to sign him for £150,000, so in the space of one year he had moved from the Conference to League 1, and then up to the Championship.

It was a rapid rise and he credits the coaching staff at Crewe for working with him to improve some aspects of his game that were exposed at the higher level.

"Sometimes in that first season I had games where I struggled a bit defensively," he admits. "Because I'd never had a YTS I'd never really had the coaching on how to defend, but at Crewe they take you aside and do a lot of work with you to improve you and I was getting the coaching that I'd missed out on earlier.

"They do a lot of work improving players and they take a lot of players out of non-league, train them and then sell them on."

Anthony spent two seasons at Gresty Road from 2004 to 2006, making 88 league appearances before reaching a key point in his career that he describes as "a wrong decision".

Having just finished with one agent, he told his new agent he wanted to stay in the Championship and went on trial to Colchester, who had just been promoted. Unfortunately he got injured during the trial and missed a lot of the pre-season, and his options gradually dried up as interested clubs signed other players.

"I had offers and I didn't need to trial, but instead of dropping down to League 1 and signing a contract as first choice left-back, I took the risk of trialling because I wanted to stay in the Championship," he recalls. "But it backfired because I got injured and my options were very limited then."

'Tonks' rejoined first club Yeovil, who by now were in League 1, but he was playing catch-up with his fitness at the start of the season and was not the first choice left-back, so it was a frustrating year.

"Unfortunately for me, they overachieved massively and reached the play-off final that season and it was very hard to get into the team. The left-back had already played several games when I got there so it was very hard to get in, and when I did it was only coming off the bench and mainly playing at centre-half if someone had been sent off or got injured."

He finished the season with a two-month loan at Grays Athletic - "I just wanted to get out and play some football" - and almost joined Lincoln City in the summer, but talks broke down and it was a relief when Forest Green manager Jim Harvey contacted him.

"One of my good friends was already playing there and said good things about the club, so I thought I'd just go there for a year and enjoy myself and see what that would lead to," he says.

"We had quite a good season, with Stuart Fleetwood scoring goals and - before the transfer window - Mark Beesley as well, so I think we underachieved. The pitch didn't help in the second half of the season because Jim Harvey likes to get the ball down and play football, but the pitch was a hindrance because it was bobbly and we had Gloucester City sharing the pitch as well because of the flooding in Gloucester, so it had a lot of games played on it last season."

Anthony made 38 league appearances but missed the last two games of the season due to the illness and death of his father. He returned to the family home and was understandably distracted from football, and says he probably didn't speak to the manager enough during that period. Harvey had offered him a new contract a couple of times during the season and Anthony had expressed his wish to return to League football, so during the breakdown in contact following the end of the season he believes Harvey concluded that he had decided to move on.

Elsewhere, Cambridge United had appointed Gary Brabin as manager and he moved swiftly to make Anthony his first signing. Other clubs were interested, but a strong recommendation from his agent made him choose the U's.

"My agent was at Blackpool at the same time as the manager and Paul Carden so he knew them quite well and how professionally they would approach everything. He said I would really enjoy it here and it's a really professional and well-run club."

Having stated his ambitions to return to League football, Anthony has been impressed with his first six months at Cambridge United and believes he could achieve those ambitions here.

"It's a League club in all but status anyway," he says. "You look at the crowd we had on Boxing Day at home to Histon and it was bigger than a lot of clubs in the Football League. It's got a great fanbase and shouldn't be in this league, and the atmosphere we get at home games is great."

Anthony signed a two-year deal and has moved to the area, sharing a house in Landbeach with former Forest Green team-mate Mark Beesley, Phil Bolland ("They're both very tidy") and Mark Convery ("I think he's in the house for his entertainment value!"), who has just returned from a break in the North-east to continue rehabilitation on his knee injury.

Ever-present apart from three games in September and October when he was ill, which he feels affected his form for a few games afterwards, he is fairly pleased with the way the season has progressed but feels there is more to come.

"The main disappointment is those occasions when we've dropped points when we shouldn't have and that makes a difference to the league table - Histon on Boxing Day for example, when we dropped two points. There have been a couple of occasions like that, but as long as we can learn from it going into the second half of the season when every point is vital, I'm very confident that we'll be in the play-offs at the end of the season, if not automatic promotion.

"We can be really pleased with the amount of clean sheets we've kept so far and hopefully as a team we can keep as many, if not more, for the second half of the season."

Fresh from a morning training on an indoor pitch and an afternoon session in the David Lloyd gym, he adds, "I think we're a fit team. The manager's mentality - apart from wanting us to play football - is that we have to work hard; he tries to instil a good work ethic throughout the whole squad and he expects everyone to give their all in every training session."

The main Blue Square Premier news on the day we spoke was the departure of Nigel Clough from Burton Albion to Derby County. Although Burton have installed an experienced caretaker in former U's boss Roy McFarland, the clubs below will harbour hopes that Clough's departure could destabilise the runaway league leaders, which is something that Anthony has experienced first-hand.

"They have momentum that could keep them going, but in my first full-time season at Yeovil we had a good momentum and we were 12-15 points clear and we ended up losing the league, so a repeat would be nice! David Webb left for Southend and we had a 12-point lead with games in hand at one stage, and ended up losing the league to Rushden.

"But Burton have done really well - they're probably the best team we've played this season and they will take some stopping."

Anthony agrees with previous interviewees that the league is more open than last year and points out that Wrexham have quickly joined the play-off chase instead of taking time to adjust after relegation, as has often happened with other relegated clubs.

"There are a lot of big clubs in this league now that possibly should be in higher leagues - Wrexham, Oxford, Cambridge etc, they're massive clubs - and I think there should really be more promotion places. I think the clubs have better players this season as well, and then there are clubs in the play-off places that struggled a bit last season, like Crawley and Kidderminster, so it's very competitive."

He adds, "I think it was quite competitive last year as well until about Christmas, when Aldershot started to run away with the league, and the play-off places were quite tight as well whereas there are more clubs around those places this time."

Anthony will be 29 this month and he has another degree and a career outside football ("it's very insecure") in his long-term sights. Before he hangs up his boots he admits he would still love to play League football again, although it is not the be all and end all of his football ambitions.

"Nowadays it's more important to me that I'm happy where I'm playing, than being able to say you're playing in the League," he says. "I feel fortunate to have got into professional football in the first place and I'm really enjoying it at Cambridge, and that's the most important thing for me.

"I had a couple of bad games after I was ill and I was anxious to rediscover a bit of form and get some momentum back into my play, so I was fortunate to recover quite quickly. I think enjoyment is key - if you're not playing you become frustrated and disillusioned, and I'd rather be happy and playing."

Andrea Thrussell
web@cambridge-united.co.uk

*An edited version of this interview was published in the programme for the match against Crawley Town, originally scheduled for Saturday 10th January 2009 and rescheduled for Wednesday 14th January 2009.

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