The familiar figure of Andre van Troost was back at The County Ground today- but only as a visitor.

"Rooster" as he was affectionately known during his time with The Cidermen left the county because of injury during the 1999 season, after spending eight years on the staff at Taunton.

He moved to Cheltenham and enrolled on a three year Marketing Management course.

The giant Dutchman told me, "I'm in the last year of my course and doing a dissertation in sports marketing, so I've spent sometime down here today talking to Gianna Tesser and Peter Anderson, who have been a great help to me." What did he hope to do after his course I asked.

Rooster told me, "Preferably a sports marketing job with a professional sports club, I speak several languages and I think that will help me." I asked if he'd played any cricket this season, to which he replied, "I played the last two games for Cheltenham and got both runs and wickets!" He went on, "Holland have qualified for the World Cup in 2003 which will be played in South Africa, so I need to get myself fit and hope that I can make the team and perhaps play against England."

He told me that he keeps in touch with Somerset cricket by logging onto the Somerset website regularly. I'm sure that everyone at Taunton wishes Rooster good luck with his studies and will watch with interest to see if he makes it to the World Cup!

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