first team he played an important part in one of the club's best-ever seasons. The team won the title and were promoted to the Premiership. Roberts scored some important goals, including the winning strike in a top-of-the-table match against Sheffield United. Roberts revealed in his autobiography that in February of that season he had a cancer scare and had to have a malignant melanoma removed from his arm. A few days before the club's last home match of the 2003–04 season, Worthington announced that Roberts would not be offered a new contract when his deal expired that summer. Worthington felt that, following promotion to the Premiership, the club had to look to the future and that Roberts was now surplus to requirements. Although he had made 41 league appearances that season, he started just 13 games. With the championship already won, Worthington restored Roberts to the starting line-up for the last game of the season at Gresty Road against Crewe Alexandra and made him captain for the day. Roberts scored twice as City won 3–1; he described the occasion and the goal: "I'd never scored on the final day of a season before, it was my final game in a Norwich shirt, which was a very sad occasion, Nigel Worthington made me captain for the day and I'll be forever thankful for that, and I managed to cap it all off by getting two goals. One of them was a left footed volley into the top corner and I haven't got too many of those in my career!" Overall, Roberts scored 96 goals in 306 games for Norwich. Gillingham and Cambridge United After being released by Norwich, he received a number of offers to play for other clubs, including from Swiss side FC Basel, but eventually signed a two-year contract with Gillingham of the Championship, where he would be player/coach. Roberts his debut against Ipswich, Norwich's local rivals, and was booked after less than five seconds. The move to Gillingham did not prove a good one for him and he had a number of disagreements with the club, particularly with Stan Ternent after he succeeded Andy Hessenthaler as manager. In December 2004 Roberts had himself served as joint caretaker manager, along with Darren Hare and Paul Smith, after the sudden departure of both Hessenthaler and initial caretaker John Gorman. In March 2005 he joined Cambridge United on loan until the