Exeter City hit the jackpot with Plymouth Argyle transfer swoop | OneFootball

Darran Rowbotham moved from Plymouth to Exeter and became a legend there, despite a terrible injury which might have ended his career altogether.

When Exeter City signed Darran Rowbotham from rivals Plymouth Argyle in 1987, they were getting a striker who hadn't proved his promise, but he fulfilled it at St James Park despite a near-career ending injury.

The 1980s had started as a decade of optimism for Exeter City, with the first full season of the decade seeing them reach the quarter-finals of the FA Cup before losing to the eventual winners, Tottenham Hotspur.

But from there, it was a downhill slide. Relegation from the Third to the Fourth Division came in 1984, and even in the lower division the Grecians were unable to finish above midway in the table.

Darran Rowbotham failed to shine at Plymouth, where he started his career

The player who would prove to be the catalyst for change at St James Park started his career up the road at rivals Plymouth Argyle. Striker Darran Rowbotham was born in Cardiff, but started his career at Home Park, first as a junior, before signing full terms with them in 1984.

At that time, Plymouth had just gone one better than Exeter by reaching the FA Cup semi-finals, but the club had been unable to build on this success, and over his four seasons with the club Rowbotham was unable to break into the first team regularly, making just 46 appearances for the club - 24 of them as a substitute - and scoring just two goals.

Terry Cooper found a way of bringing the best out of Rowbotham

Rowbotham swapped Home Park for St James Park in 1987 as part of a part-exchange for defender Nicky Marker, and initially it looked as though the same problems were going to continue for him, but in the summer of 1988 Terry Cooper arrived as their manager and tweaked Rowbotham's position slightly.

The results were immediate; Rowbotham scored 20 goals for Exeter as they finished 13th in the table, their best finish since relegation, five years earlier. But the following season, he really caught fire. A run to the FA Cup Third Round saw him score an equaliser against First Division Norwich City before they lost the replay.

But it was in the League, where his goal-scoring mattered the most and by the middle of March he was already on 20 goals, with Exeter top of the table, albeit with a chasing pack snapping at their heels. On the 17th March 1990, the Grecians were at home to Peterborough United, and midway through the first half Rowbotham's season came to a very sudden halt when he collided with Peterborough goalkeeper Tony Godden and had to leave the field.

At first, it was believed that Rowbotham's injury might not be that serious, and Exeter's title charge was not unnecessarily derailed by losing their top scorer for a third of the season. They ended it as Fourth Division champions, their first divisional championship since joining the League, 70 years earlier.

But the news for Rowbotham was not good. He ended up missing a year with his knee injury, and in 1991 he moved on to Torquay United. He went on to play for Birmingham - where he was unsuccessfully reunited with Terry Cooper - Crewe and Huddersfield before returning to St James Park in 1996.

His second spell with the club wasn't quite as successful as his first, though he did still manage 22 league and cup goals during the 1997-98 season, and there was some disquiet among fans when he was loaned out to Leyton Orient in 1999. He was released by Exeter at the end of the 1999-2000 season and spent two years in non-league football with Weymouth before retiring from the game in 2002.

Nicky Marker, the other player in that original part-exchange, was also a success at Plymouth, making over 200 appearances for the Pilgrims before transferring to Blackburn Rovers in 1992, so it might be argued that the deal worked out well for both of these Devon rivals. But Darran Rowbotham remains one of the most talented strikers to pull on an Exeter shirt and his goals powered them to their first ever League title. Had it not been for that terrible injury, he may have gone on to scale greater heights.