My favourite Bristol City player: Paul Gainey on the balletic brilliance of Paul Cheesley

The latest in our series celebrating the Robins' greatest players, icons and cult heroes, through the eyes of the fans

Each time a different Bristol City supporter selects their favourite player to have worn red, and the unique reasons behind their adoration. This week, it's the turn of Paul Gainey, a City fan of the last 47 years ...

Way back in the earliest years of my football-loving life, super striker Paul Cheesley was this fledgling’s first footballing superhero.

The player who everyone wanted to be in the school playground, self included,  the one whose name would have been adorned on the back of hundreds of replica kits were such things in vogue at the time.

A man at the peak of his game in the promotion season of 1975 and a certainty to play for England the way he was playing, no question.

A heading machine; whose pace, strength and conviction gave him the mascot status and made him a supporters favourite. He was supreme, his art conceived in joy, performed at apparent leisure.

Cheesley, began his career with Norwich City, for whom he made his debut as a substitute on November 17, 1971 against Chelsea in a League Cup tie at Carrow Road and went on to make 24 appearances, scoring just one goal on 15 December 1973 in a 1-1 draw against Liverpool before being snapped up by Bristol City manager Alan Dicks for a fee of £309,000.

He turned out to be the fabled missing piece of the promotion jigsaw.

During City's promotion season of 1975/76 he formed a lethal strike partnership with Tom Ritchie which saw them score 33 goals; Cheesley getting 15 of them.

The opening fixture of the season back in the First Division since 1911 was away to Arsenal at Highbury. City won the game by a goal to nil and Cheesley scored the winner - a header from a Clive Whitehead cross from the right.

Calm and controlled as ever, he rose to thunder an unstoppable header past Arsenal keeper Jimmy Rimmer into the top left-hand corner from eight yards.

In this balletic pose, Cheesley resembled a stage dancer – a kind of young Nureyev at the Kirov. What took my breath away when he scored the goal at Arsenal wasn’t his posture, but the height he attained when he headed the ball into the goal. He almost hangs in the air.

It was hard to decide whether he had descended from the belt of cloud above him or levitated vertically from the thickish grass beneath; both options seemed possible. Whatever the reason for his mastery of the air, he seemed to have defied gravitational law to achieve it.

His header travelled as quickly as any shot, but still seemed to take two minutes to reach the net, and the memory of the sweet and silken ripple of the net is still as vivid as the day it happened. I have relived that incredible goal over and over again. When football gets you, it gets you for life.

Cheesley had already been selected to play for England Under-23's to play Hungary, but as the game coincided with a crucial promotion clash against rivals Sunderland, he had turned down the opportunity.

Despite that, England boss Don Revie was known to be a fan, and his brave approach, speed and two-footed skill suited England’s style. With Cheesley turning in another eye-catching performance at the highest level, many believed it was only a matter of time before he received a full international call-up.

Just three days after the victory at Arsenal, City were playing again, at home to Stoke City. It was during this game that, in one brutal moment, Cheesley’s promising career was ended. A cross came into the box and he rose to challenge England 'keeper Peter Shilton for the ball, getting there first and heading over.

It was a harmless-looking clash but he landed badly, ripping his cartilage, tearing ligaments and chipping a bone in his knee. At the age of 23, and with a blossoming career ahead of him, he was taken off. Despite an attempted comeback in a home match against Birmingham City later that season he was forced to retire.

He scored his first goal for Bristol City against Carlisle United on the 6 April 1974, with a magnificent 15-yard header from Trevor Tainton’s free-kick. It was a typical Cheesley goal, seizing upon a half chance before anyone else could react, and he scored again in the next match, a 1-0 win over Nottingham Forest. Cheesley, slowly but surely, was beginning to look the part.

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Cheesley wreaked havoc during the next season (1975/76), and fired Bristol City into the first division for the first time since 1911. He scored two against Oxford at Ashton Gate, a hat-trick in a 4-1 win over York City in late October, smashing in from 18 yards, a penalty, and a diving header at the far post to put away Clive Whitehead’s cross.

His powerful header at Oxford from Gerry Gow’s perfect cross still lingers in the memory. This particular purple patch saw him score 16 goals in 40 league and cup games.

I discovered how quickly confidence evaporates when you meet your heroes. I met Paul outside Ashton Gate last season and stood there gaping, unable to find words, luckily he didn’t have the same problem and instantly started talking about his favourite games and the fans’ bar he set-up at the ground.

On the back of that meeting, I interviewed him for an article on his career.

Because he made the game look easy – and he played it like we all did at the time. All he wanted to do was score goals. That made him a force of nature.

He developed from the extremely raw player he was at the start of his City career, to a lethal finisher and an indication that he was on the way to being among the elite.

Sheer bloody-mindedness got Cheesley back on the pitch after his disastrous injury but the battered body eventually claimed its victim. It was an agonising way to end a career that had touched the heights.

If you'd like to feature your favourite Bristol City player, then please contact sports editor James Piercy james.piercy@reachplc.com