Plymouth Argyle may never forget serious transfer regret to Exeter City’s benefit | OneFootball

Darran Rowbotham made the jump from one Devon rival to another, but despite serious injury, he'd end up a legend at Plymouth's rivals Exeter City.

Striker Darran Rowbotham made the controversial jump from one Devon rival to another, but Exeter City would get the best out of him while his former club Plymouth Argyle couldn't.

Making the move from one local rival to another always means a lot of pressure.

Even players who've been unsuccessful at one club may experience resentment should they leave for a rival, and this is what happened in the case of striker Darran Rowbotham, who couldn't make things work for Plymouth Argyle but would go on to play for both of their Devon rivals, becoming a legend at one of them.

Born in Cardiff, Rowbotham's first steps in the professional game would come during a highly significant season for his first club, but would then go on to play for both Exeter City and Torquay United, making history at Exeter despite an injury that could have ended his career before it had even really got going.

Darran Rowbotham joined Plymouth at a significant time for the club, but couldn't make it work at Home Park

Little did anyone realise it at the time, but when Darran Rowbotham signed youth forms with Plymouth Argyle in 1983, the club was set to embark on one of its most remarkable seasons. The 1983/84 season would see the Pilgrims go all the way from the Third Division of the Football League to the FA Cup semi-finals before losing narrowly to Watford, but Rowbotham wouldn't be part of this team, not making his debut until a 2-0 win against Cambridge United in November 1984.

But for all his promise as a youth player, Rowbotham couldn't quite make it work at Home Park. Over four seasons with Plymouth, he made just 52 appearances for them in all competitions, scoring just three goals, and was unable to tie down anything like a place in their first team, despite them winning promotion to the Second Division in 1986. But when he came to leave Home Park in 1987, it was for the Pilgrims' biggest rivals.

Rowbotham would become an Exeter legend with two fruitful spells with the club

Darran Rowbotham might not have worked out at Plymouth Argyle, but he certainly did at his new club. Exeter City had been relegated into the Fourth Division at the end of the same season that Plymouth reached the FA Cup final, and had spent the following four seasons in the lower reaches of the basement division. With Argyle by this time in the Second Division, moving to St James' Park was considered a step-down for a striker who hadn't made it at the higher level at Plymouth.

Initially, it looked as though Rowbotham's issues at Plymouth might continue at Exeter. He arrived at the club in October 1987 in a part-exchange deal which saw Nicky Marker make the move in the opposite direction, but he initially struggled to settle there too, scoring just twice in 23 games throughout the remainder of the 1987-88 season.

Rowbotham's career would start to come to life at the end of that season, with the arrival of Terry Cooper at the end of that season. Cooper tweaked Rowbotham's game, and the following season he featured in all but one of their games, scoring twenty goals to end it as their top scorer, with the team finishing in 13th place in the table, their highest league position since that 1984 relegation.

But all of this was a warm-up for what was to follow. The 1989-90 season turned out to be a dream season for the Grecians. They won the Fourth Division title by ten points that season, a charge fuelled by an exceptional home record which saw them win 20 and draw three of their 23 matches at St James' Park.

But Rowbotham wouldn't be present for the title run-in. In a League match against Peterborough United at the start of March 1990, he collided with the Peterborough goalkeeper Tony Godden and had to be taken off on a stretcher.

The injury was at first not expected to be serious, but this was not the case and it would end up keeping him out of their team for a year. Despite this, another 20 goals proved critical to Exeter's promotion charge - he'd managed this in just 32 appearances - and they ended up comfortably clear at the top of the table.

By the time he returned from injury, much had changed at St James' Park. Terry Cooper left for Birmingham City in August 1991 and was replaced by Alan Ball. A month later, after 58 goals in 142 games in all competitions for the club, Rowbotham left Exeter City for Torquay United in exchange for Peter Whiston.

But just as had been the case at Plymouth, he couldn't make it work at Torquay either, scoring just three times in 14 appearances for them. Four months after arriving at Plainmoor, he was reunited with Terry Cooper when the former Exeter manager took him to St Andrew's to join Birmingham.

Despite reuniting with his former manager, the goals wouldn't flow for Rowbotham this time. Loan spells at Mansfield Town and Hereford United followed, before he was sold to Crewe Alexandra in 1993, and this was followed by a season with Shrewsbury Town.

A return to Exeter City followed in October 1996, first as a loan before quickly becoming permanent. But although by this time the Grecians were back in the fourth tier and struggling again, Rowbotham found his feet again, scoring 22 times in all competitions throughout the 1997-98 season. But by the 1999-2000 season he was 33 years of age. A short loan spell at Leyton Orient didn't go anywhere, and he left the professional game for two years in the non-league game with Weymouth before retiring in 2002.

Darran Rowbotham isn't the only player to have played for all of Devon's big three of Plymouth, Exeter and Torquay. Goalkeeper Dave Walter, who lost his place in the 1989-90 promotion-winning team, would do the same. The relative geographical isolation of the south-western peninsula may have had something to do with this; moving between clubs was considerably less costly than uprooting to live in a different part of the country, after all.

But there is no doubt that Exeter City benefited over two spells from the striker in a way that neither Plymouth Argyle nor Torquay United could unlock. In total, Darran Rowbotham played 276 games for the Grecians in all competitions, scoring 103 goals. It might well have turned out to be a transfer that Plymouth Argyle ended up regretting.