Cheltenham Town youngster Grant Horton believes that going out on loan has given him a “winning feeling” he hadn’t experienced at youth level.
The 17-year-old centre back has been in the Robins’ academy since Under 10’s and signed a two-year scholarship deal in May last year.
The defender has been a dominant figure in the Under 18’s backline and has also enjoyed a loan spell at Midland Football League side, Worcester City this season. Horton claimed the experience drastically helped his development as a player.
“Going out on loan and playing with men you sort of get that winning feeling, whereas with the youth team it’s all about how to improve.
“I did well there and got a bit stronger because the physicality of men’s football is completely different.
“Once I came back I could see the improvements I’d made straight away.”
Along with Horton, fellow scholar Charlie Stanton also complimented the philosophy of loaning youth players at Cheltenham.
“In youth football you get a lot of under 16’s stepping up to 18’s and it’s all helpful but you just get that little bit more when you go to an adult team.
“You get roughed up a bit and it helps all aspects of your game; attitude, physicality and development.”
Loaning players to adult sides has proved a success for Cheltenham in the past, with first team players Matt Bower and George Lloyd both experiencing loan spells at Cirencester Town and Hereford United.
With Horton following the same route, the scholar was hopeful he could achieve a similar outcome to that of his elders.
“Seeing players like Matt Bower and George Lloyd get in the first team gives you a lot of motivation as I’ve been here for years and I’ve known them for a while, so seeing them come through makes you think hopefully someday that’ll be me.”
Horton has just one year left to vie for a professional contract at Cheltenham, but was mature enough to acknowledge the difficulty of achieving one.
“There are only a couple pro contracts given out every year, usually just one so it’s very difficult to say.
“But if not I can always go into the lower leagues as I already have experience at that level.”
Horton has not only had to adapt to playing senior football for the first time in his career, but his lifestyle has also altered since becoming a scholar of Cheltenham’s academy.
“I definitely prefer being in here all the time rather than going to school, playing football every day is what I want to do so it’s been really enjoyable.”
The youngster was also quick to compliment the impact the second-year scholars had on easing him into the setup.
“We had the older players who had been here for a year, which was good because they helped me settle into the environment and show me what’s expected.”
Alongside his loan spell at Worcester, Horton had been competing in the EFL Youth Alliance League with Cheltenham Under 18’s. Much to the disappointment of the defender, the first half of the 18/19 campaign saw the young Robins’ narrowly miss out on qualifying for Merit League 1, in which the best clubs from the south play in a league for the second half of the season.
Cheltenham and Portsmouth were both tied on 29 points after 20 games in the South-Western Division, but due to Portsmouth having a +7 goal difference, compared to Cheltenham’s -2, it meant Pompey scraped through by the skin of their teeth.
The cruel nature of missing out left Horton irritated by the small margins that cost his side.
“It was hard to bounce back from that disappointment. We’d like to play against the better teams in the Merit league 1 because that’ll improve us as a team but we didn’t get it so we had to do the best that we could in the other one.”
Cheltenham Under 18’s managed to end the season on a high note, finishing 5th in Merit League 2 to just edge into the top half of the table, shame that wasn’t the case for the South-Western League earlier on in the season.
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