David Bridges
Having first joined Cambridge United at the age of eight and watched games from the terraces, David Bridges is relishing his second spell at the Abbey Stadium.
The midfielder graduated through the ranks of the Centre of Excellence and then the youth team, signing his first professional contract in February 2002. By the end of that season the attacking midfielder had made seven first team appearances and realised every fan's dream by scoring his first senior goal in front of the Newmarket Road terrace in a 2-1 win against Tranmere in the final home game of the 2001/02 campaign.
A regular squad member under John Taylor, David's chances became more limited under Herve Renard as the Frenchman brought in his own players and at the end of the 2003-04 season he realised his future was probably away from the Abbey Stadium.
"I think a lot of people have the wrong idea of what went on," he says. "I was offered a contract that was almost a kick in the teeth after the time I had been at the club when players were coming in from all over the place who don't care about the club. They were getting paid five or six times what I was offered, and I thought it was probably time to move on.
"There aren't too many people who are loyal in this game and I would have liked the chance to be one, but they made it pretty difficult. There were negotiations during the summer while I was in America, and when I came back to sort things out I was advised by my then-agent that there were offers elsewhere and the club weren't doing me any favours so I should move on.
"I was misadvised because there were no other contract offers on the table and the offer from Cambridge United was turned down by my agent when I didn't have another one to go to, which was obviously a learning curve and you learn from those mistakes," he admits.
"In any walk of life, you don't turn down a contract when you haven't got another one to go to, but I was told that there were other offers and I thought that if it wasn't right for me at Cambridge United then one of those offers would be.
"As it turned out, there were no other offers and my agent had turned down the contract here so I had to move on. It hurt because after spending so much time here you would at least want to feel that you were moving forward in your career if you leave, but it didn't seem that they wanted to hold on to players who wanted to play for the club and preferred to bring in players who would take the money and leave again."
Having spent some of the summer training with a couple of clubs in America, David realised that financially it would not be worth uprooting and returned to the UK, but with no contract on offer he knew he needed to get some pre-season training.
He was grateful for the chance to spend two weeks at Chesterfield with former U's boss Roy McFarland and worked his way through his football contacts as he tried to find a new club, finding success with Paul Ashworth, brother of former U's Youth Development Officer Dan.
"My agent didn't come up with much and I'd missed most of pre-season and needed a club, so I made a list of everyone who may be able to help and when I called Paul Ashworth in Latvia he said he'd take me straightaway," David recalls.
"I'd been coached by his brother Dan in the youth team a couple of years before and Dan had kept in touch with what was going on with me, so I told my agent I was going there and in the end he sorted out the details and I went two days later."
Unfortunately the move to SK Riga proved unproductive on a football front as David suffered a stress fracture of his foot just ten days after arriving and was unable to play after that, but he enjoyed the experience of living abroad and seeing another way of life.
Sharing a flat in Riga with former U's youth team striker Shane Tolley, he spent three months there but eventually had to return to the UK to sort out the foot injury.
"It was a great life experience although it didn't turn out to be a good football experience as I fractured my foot so soon and couldn't kick a ball after that. But I had spent so long in the same enclosed 'bubble' within Cambridge that it was great to experience a different culture and it makes you appreciate what you have, compared to other people in the world."
After returning to the UK for rehabilitation at Lilleshall, he began part-time training with Histon in the New Year and finished the season there with his foot back to full strength.
David had kept in touch with what was happening at Cambridge United through former team-mates and the media, and didn't hesitate for long when Ricky Duncan contacted him during the summer to find out if he was interested in joining a new-look squad for pre-season.
"I still felt a bit disappointed at the way it had ended," he admits, "but it's a different club now and the people I deal with day-to-day are completely different.
"The Gaffer and Spearo are good, positive people and there's a different board now to the one that made it difficult for me to stay the previous year. It felt like coming to a new club apart from the four or five players who were still here from before, and I felt lucky after spending a year out of the professional game.
"You realise how lucky you are, and you know you can't take anything for granted because you don't know when it will be over through injury or luck or whatever, so when I was asked to come back it felt like a second chance and not too many people get one of those."
Smiling at the thought that, at 23, he is one of the older members of the squad, Bridgo is pleased to accept the responsibility that comes with it: "It's given me a chance to have a run in the side after two or three years when I couldn't do that, either through injury or through not being selected, so to have played every game up to now has been great.
"And to see the young players come into the team and hold their own has been really encouraging too. Apart from the top and bottom few clubs in each division, I don't think there's really a big gap between the clubs in the Conference and League Two.
"The main difference is consistency, which comes down mainly to experience, so if we can get through this season and start next season with a year's more experience then it stands us in good stead to hopefully push on."
This season David started in the centre of midfield but had to switch to a right wing back role for several weeks due to Dan Gleeson's injury and a change of formation, and he feels his form suffered.
"Without question I'm more comfortable in the middle. When we changed to a 3-5-2 with Ritchie (Hanlon) sitting deep, allowing two to push on, it was the same time that Glees got injured and we needed someone to go out on the right, so whereas I thought it was going to open up for me to get into the box and score some goals from midfield, I found myself playing wing back instead!
"Obviously I'd rather play in the middle," he adds, "but with a small squad the Gaffer needed me to do a job there and, although I didn't feel it was doing me any favours with my performances, I think I did a job for seven or eight games when it was needed.
"I feel some of the fans were being negative towards me at that time and not really taking into account that I was being asked to do a job for the team, so it was disappointing to get that sort of feedback from some of them."
David admits that his "shhh" reaction to the terrace after scoring against Chester last month was a response to that criticism and he explains, "I was put out wide to do a job for the team and if they don't think I was pulling my weight then they're entitled to that opinion, but I don't think getting on players' backs is the right way to do things.
"Every player plays the game in a different way and I know I'm not a busy looking player like Luke (Guttridge), but I do care about this club and I put in every effort.
"It's not productive to get on my back, and more so the younger ones in the team like John Turner. He was getting such a hard time but that kid runs his socks off every time he pulls on a shirt. It doesn't affect the way I play but that 'shhh' was just a little reaction to the frustration I was feeling at the time."
David answered any critics in the best possible way with his performance at Morecambe. Ill with sickness and diarrhoea for two days before the game, he was asked to play for an hour but eventually played the full 90 minutes and scored the only goal to give the U's the first away win of the season.
"After that game I went to the Gaffer and asked if I could get back into the middle and get my performances back to where I wanted them to be," he reveals, "and he pointed out that I'd scored two goals from out there.
"I do like to score goals and I think if I had been playing in the middle for those games when I was out wide then I could have scored a few more by now."
Bridgo has been impressed with the attitude and hard work of Rob Newman and Tony Spearing and adds, "I think they're doing a great job despite their hands being tied financially.
"People looking from outside might not think so, but to be mid-table now when we didn't have a team in July is fantastic.
"If you look at York, they struggled when they came down but now look where they are, and if you can consolidate in the first year after coming down then I think you can build something, and I think that's what Gaffer and Spearo are doing."
*This interview was first published in the programme for the match against Scarborough on 3rd December, 2005.
Previous Featured Players:
01Feb06: David Chick
08Dec05: Michael Morrison
29Nov05: Ritchie Hanlon
25Oct05: Stephen Smith
05Oct05: Fola Onibuje
29Sep05: Mark Peters
Last season's Featured Players:
15May05: Your Players of the Year 2004/05
10May05: Tes Bramble
05May05: Tom Newey
30Apr05: Adam Tann
23Apr05: Iwan Roberts
10Apr05: Stuart Bimson
17Mar05: Matt Somner
09Mar05: Daniel Chillingworth
24Feb05: Dan Gleeson
17Feb05: Shane Tudor
14Feb05: Richard Hodgson
07Feb05: Warren Goodhind
22Dec04: Darren Quinton
06Dec04: Andy Duncan
24Nov04: John Ruddy
22Oct04: Kingsley Mbome
13Oct04: Jermaine Easter
17Sep04: Justin Walker
09Sep04: John Turner
26Aug04: Luke Guttridge
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