By Nathan Jackson
May 11 2010

Gary Taylor-Fletcher is one game away from playing in the Premiership after his Blackpool side deservedly put Nottingham Forest out of the Championship Playoffs. The striker was released from Sincil Bank in 2005 amid controversy, but he's certainly doing well for himself now.

If Blackpool win the Playoff Final against either Cardiff or Leicester City, Gary Taylor-Fletcher would not only join a rare breed of former non-League players in the Premiership, but also be the only ex-Imp in the Premiership (a feat which could be achieved by Dany N'Guessan if Leicester win promotion instead).

Although Taylor-Fletcher didn't score himself, he helped Blackpool to a 6-4 aggregate win over Nottingham Forest. If he did win promotion then it would be one of football's great Cinderella stories after he was left to rot in Leyton Orient's reserves before he was saved by Keith Alexander. He set Lincoln alight before controversially being released in 2005.

Alexander's "official reason" was that he thought Taylor-Fletcher's best Lincoln days were behind him, whereas many put 2 and 2 together and got 5 when he joined Huddersfield, fueling speculation that Peter Jackson had arranged a pre-contract agreement with him to there. It's interesting that GTF got ridicule for that but Yeo got none for admitting he agreed to leave Lincoln for the New Zealand Knights before the 2004/5 season ended.

He had two good years at Huddersfield, including scoring the 500,000th Football League goal. He left them in 2007 and went to Blackpool.

Ex-Imp one game away from Premiership

Discussion started by theimps.ka (IP Logged), 11/05/2010 22:10

theimps.ka
11/05/2010 22:10

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SidTheImp
12/05/2010 01:16

After he joined us from orient,thats when he got started again, wasn't it 2 in 2 years at orient,scored lots in 2 seasons here,moved to hudds,blackpool now within a game of premiership footy. really hope blackpool,if beat cardiff/leicester in the final,give him a chance at that level.

if it's leicester v blackpool,leicester may have a good chance,what with DJ not being allowed to play. N guessan/hobbs v GTF.

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mightyimp1
12/05/2010 09:45

taylor fletch is just a qwuality player simple as that.

was evident he was class above this league when he played for us

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79imp
12/05/2010 21:46

I remember Keith saying it was the steal of the century when he joined us on a free, and he was right. He was magnificent in that first season for us when he just plain old Gary Fletcher. I'm sure Keith knew he was going anyway, hence the free transfer, so why waste time preparing a contract he was never going to sign.

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