Cod Almighty | Article

by Various

1 July 2004

Short, pacy, tigerish, stocky, light shortish hair. Remind you of anyone? Two words: Ben Chapman. To recap, Chapman was noted for his energy, his snap and his wholeheartedness, possibly counterbalancing a loose grasp of football's finer arts. But Chapman made a minimal number of appearances for Town in their days as a Division One club before settling further down the divisions at Boston, whom he eventually went on to captain.

Ronnie Bull – like Chapman – worked his way through the ranks. A league debut for Millwall in 1999, aged 18, was the start of what could have been a promising career for Bull: promise that looked like being fulfilled after 29 appearances he made in the Lions' 2001-02 season, which ended with defeat in the play-off semis to Birmingham. A sparser playing season followed that, and Bull was farmed out to Yeovil and then, for a longer stint, Brentford in 2003-04 (he played for the Bees in the Mariners' final home game that season). The record books show that Bull is 5 foot 7, but it is unknown whether this was recorded while he was wearing studs on a hard surface.

Ironically, Chapman trained with Town in the summer of 2004. Some fans have called for him to be brought back into the fold, but reports suggest that in Bull we've signed someone with all Chapman's plusses, and then some.