Gareth Whalley

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Gareth Whalley (born December 19, 1973) is an English - Irish footballer.

A Manchester-born midfielder who first appeared in the Football League under Dario Gradi at Crewe Alexandra, Whalley spent a successful six years at Crewe before joining Bradford City, where he featured for the Bantams in both of their seasons in the Premier League.

Whalley had a brief loan spell back at Crewe and then played two seasons for Cardiff City before moving onto Wigan Athletic where he only played eight league games as Wigan got promoted to the English top flight.

The free transfer signing of Whalley in the summer of 2005 was widely regarded as a coup by Swindon Town manager Andy King, after he had helped Wigan Athletic reach the Premiership for the first time in their history during the previous season. Whalley signed for the Town despite being offered a better deal by Grimsby, opting for a two year deal on a lower wage, when three years was on offer with the Mariners.

Though his pre-season was interrupted by an hamstring injury that restricted him to just 100 minutes of action in the build up to the new campaign, he took his place in the centre of midfield for the opening match of the season, a 2-0 defeat at Barnsley. Though he kept his place in the side when available through to the end of October, he failed to meet the expectations of the Town's supporters - perhaps not helped by a series of niggling injuries, such as a knock to the chest picked up on his debut, a toe complaint that forced him to retire during a home game with Southend, and a knee injury that prevented him from taking part in new manager Iffy Onuora's first two matches in charge at the start of October. During this period, Whalley started twelve games, and was substituted in nine of them - a back injury then kept him out the following week.

After that, Whalley was relegated to the bench on his return and he started just one more league game before the end of the year, in a 1-1 draw at Port Vale - before yet another injury, this time to his leg, kept him out of the fixtures over the festive period. Seemingly the Town's forgotten man, it was March before he returned to the side - when Onuora experimented with Whalley as the creative influence in a midfield three with wingbacks at Yeovil. Though the Town drew 0-0, Whalley played well, and he kept his place for the remainder of the season - missing just one more match - though he was again substituted in seven of the nine games he played.

In the pre-season of 06/07, Gareth suffered a recurrence of a long-standing ankle injury and was out injured for the start of the season.

Whalley made a surprise return from injury in the Johnstone's Paint Trophy game against Wycombe Wanderers and then appeared on the substitutes' bench the following weekend against Shrewsbury Town.

Swindon Town F.C. - Current Squad
1 Brezovan | 2 J. Smith | 3 Vincent | 5 Ifil | 6 Williams | 7 Whalley | 8 Brown | 9 Roberts | 10 Peacock | 11 Monkhouse | 12 Shakes | 13 Stewart | 14 Gurney | 15 Nicholas | 16 Onibuje | 17 Comyn-Platt | 18 Evans | 19 Pook | 20 Brownlie | 21 Jutkiewicz | 23 Weston | 25 P. Smith | 28 Caton | 29 Rhodes | 33 Henry | Manager: Sturrock