From the Unibond Prem to the Real Prem – that was the message on the back of Grant Holt’s T-shirt last month as Norwich City celebrated promotion to the Premier League after the final game of the season at home to Coventry.But for City skipper Holt – and the man who became his regular partner for the last dozen or so games, Simeon Jackson, the pair have had a remarkable rise in the last three seasons.
Both Holt and Jackson have risen up together from plying their trade in League Two in 2008/09, to League One in 2009/10, to the Championship in 2010/11 to the Premier League in 2011/12.
To find one player who has played in four different divisions, all sequentially higher, is remarkable. To find two in one team is astonishing.
Back in 2008/09 Jackson was leading the line for Gillingham, while Holt was at Shrewsbury. Their paths crossed quite spectacularly three times that season, first of all on September 13, 2008 when the pair met in Shropshire in front of just over 5,000 fans.
Shrewsbury cemented their fine start to the season by scoring four times in 17 first half minutes to take a 4-0 half-time lead.
Within 15 minutes of the second half it was 6-0 with Holt getting the sixth. Gillingham immediately made a substitution bringing on Andrew Crofts for Mark McCammon. So three of Norwich’s team that won promotion at Fratton Park last month were on the pitch in League Two just two-and-half years earlier.
The game finished 7-0 and it’s no surprise that Holt was booked, but despite such an early season mullering, Gillingham still hung around the top ten for most of the season and when the two teams met at Priestfield Stadium in March, with both Holt and Jackson starting.
Gillingham took an early lead in the return game and went 2-0 up after the break, a lead they held as the game moved in to the final ten minutes.
Step forward Grant Holt who reduced the deficit with a penalty and then bagged the equaliser in stoppage time.
Holt was like a thorn in Gillingham’s side, but it was Jackson who would have the last laugh that season. Both strikers were so dominant for their clubs that after the season ended with Gillingham in fifth place and Shrewsbury in seventh, the two strikers were the logical choice to appear on the cover of the programme for the play off final at Wembley.
Norwich had just been relegated to League One and on May 23, 2009 Jackson and Holt had a Wembley shoot out to see who would be joining them in the third tier the following season.
Holt was again booked in a tense game that saw just a single goal with Jackson stooping low to head home the winner from a corner in stoppage time.
Jackson and Gillingham joined Norwich in League One and within two months, Holt had made the journey too, signing for City in a £400,000 move.
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