YOU’D think that Jack Shepherd would be a handy source of inside info.

City are preparing for their first trip to Cheltenham in over three-and-a-half years.

Shepherd, though, has much fresher experience of tomorrow night’s hosts after his loan spell in Gloucestershire last season.

But the 23-year-old, City’s man of the moment for Saturday’s stunning match-winner, will not be able to offer much in terms of their next opponent.

There has been a huge amount of change at Cheltenham since Shepherd’s last appearance in April on the afternoon their relegation from League One was confirmed.

Only three of the line-up beaten 2-1 at Stevenage that day were involved in their weekend win over Colchester. A couple of others are among a lengthy injury list.

“I think there’s only a couple of lads still there but not many,” said Shepherd.

“Matty Taylor, Bradders (Tom Bradbury), Kins (Liam Kinsella), Petty (Tom Pett) – other than that, I don’t think there are any others. There’s been a lot of change.

“I really enjoyed my time at Cheltenham last season and I learned a lot as well. It was a massive learning curve.

“Obviously we didn’t quite manage to stay up, and that was really disappointing, but we took it to the last game. I gained a lot of experience and that’s what I’ll take from it.

“Looking back at it now, if we’d won that final game, we would have stayed up. But that’s football and you’ve got to take it and learn from it moving forward.”

Shepherd played 12 times for Cheltenham and scored once – he has already doubled that goal tally in 13 City outings.

Everyone is still talking about the volley that sunk Gillingham and had boss Graham Alexander raving with comparisons of Zinedine Zidane.

Shepherd admits it is something that he will never forget.

Jack Shepherd made 12 loan appearances for CheltenhamJack Shepherd made 12 loan appearances for Cheltenham (Image: @CTFCofficial)

“I might have done the odd one or two like that when I was younger in the park but not on a football pitch in as big a game as that.

“It came out the sky and I just hit it. I looked up and thought, ‘oh my God, it’s going in!’ “I was backtracking a bit as the ball came down. I struck it very well obviously but I couldn’t believe it went in.

“I’m happy to score a goal no matter how it is but the main thing was we got the win to keep the run going.”

City will head south in good form with three straight wins and showed character to bounce back from going behind at home for the first time this season.

Shepherd said: “The lads showed good determination and discipline. We stuck to the game plan and didn’t rush anything.

“We got the first goal back and then, of course, I scored the second. I thought we dominated the game from then.

“You’re always going to face some pressure in the last 15 minutes when you’re only one up.

“But we showed good defensive discipline and shape and for a lot of the time they were just playing side to side across the pitch because they couldn’t break through us.

“We can take a lot of positives from that.”

Confidence is also growing with set-plays – an area where Alexander has demanded an improvement. Shepherd can sense they are building a threat from corners and free-kicks.

“We have got a big team and it’s shown in the last few weeks that we are getting better from set-pieces.

 

 

“They are massive in football and can win and lose you games.

“We’re getting better in both boxes. We’ve just got to keep building on it and hopefully results will keep coming.”

Safe to say, Cheltenham are unlikely to afford Shepherd too much room to manoeuvre when City do win a set-piece.

“Who knows, I might pick one out of the sky again!” he laughed.

“But I’m looking forward to going back there and hopefully I’ll get a good reception from the fans.

“As far as I’m aware, I didn’t do anything that upset them. But football’s football, so you can never tell.”