A once highly promising young defender who was a Scotland Under-21 regular, we found "Deputy" Doig playing as a 16-year-old in the first team at his home town club, and snapped him up straight away. He burst onto the first team scene when he was recalled from holiday by Harry Bassett to be on the bench at Old Trafford on Boxing Day 1999. We were already 3-0 down by the time he came on and we didn't concede any more, so I suppose his personal baptism of fire went OK. In his next game he was, however, cruelly exposed by the pace of Coventry's Darren Huckerby, and he retreated back to the Academy.

By the time we saw him again the following season, he had clearly come on in leaps and bounds. Though dogged by injury in the latter half of the 1999-2000 season (and indeed pretty much ever afterwards), on the whole he made a good impression. Tall, good in the air, calm and (like all Paul Hart's products) able to pass the ball properly, he appeared to have the potential to be at the heart of Forest's (and Scotland's) defence for many years to come.

Unfortunately he then marked time, missing a lot of games through a series of injuries. It was never really clear whether he was just unlucky or desperately injury-prone... but when he actually played, he looked a decent player. Clearly Paul Hart thought he had something, since The Deputy was his first choice central defender as Hart's reign commenced, but yet again injuries put an end to that, and by the end of Hart's reign he was out on loan at Northampton, trying to rediscover some form and fitness.

Finally he re-established himself in the first team as Gary Megson arrived, with Forest in desperate straits - he played solidly enough, without really setting the world on fire, on the left of a back 3. At the end of the season, however, his contract ran out and he was released.

Northampton snapped him up and he's been pretty much a regular ever since; at League One level, he's solid and dependable, so he'll probably be a lower league stalwart for some time to come.