CHARLIE'S BIOGRAPHY

Hi I'm Charlie, 16 years old and I play for Cheltenham town football club.  I started playing football for my local team at 7 years old.  However, I struggled to start, which made me almost lose the love for playing.  My Dad always encouraged and supported me, helping me join another team, where not only did I love playing but I progressed in leaps and bounds allowing me to improve enough to move into the junior premier league playing for Yate town.  A short lived journey, only playing for a few months before I had interest from Bristol Rovers!  The staff at Yate were incredibly supportive in my time there and encouraged the move so I followed their push and it paid off. The higher level and more frequent training aided my development a lot, allowing me to train with my childhood club, Plymouth Argyle, in addition to Bristol Rovers who were in a higher division.  After being top scorer in my one and only season I moved to Burton Albion.

​​I struggled there and didn't find it the same as my previous clubs leading to me doubting my own ability, but thanks to my Dad and the staff at Burton, I found my feet towards the end.  It was never going to last so mutually we decided it was best I moved on.  Thankfully, Coventry were interested even with the less than stellar season prior, so after signing there I began playing at my own high standards once again. However, one issue that had always been slightly prevalent were minor injury issues but this injury was not quite so minor.  After a bad challenge from behind, I suffered two fractures in my spine, which led to nine months of me being on the sidelines, effectively killing my dreams of becoming pro.  But, after months that seemed to last forever, Cheltenham who were oddly my local pr team, offered me a chance with them until the end of the season.  This was in January 2019, so in the last four and a half months I have put in as much effort as possible and thankfully it seemed to pay off, leading to now, where I am playing two games a week and training every other day.  I am also being loaned out to a fairly high level mens team on a work experience loan.