Simmo’s Silkmen Superheroes – Richard Butcher

Richard Tony Butcher is a goalscoring midfielder. Starting his career with Northampton Town, he moved into the non league for a couple of seasons, with a good spell at Kettering Town which caught the eye of Big Keith and Simmo, both at the time managing at Lincoln City in 2002. A move to the Imps followed and in 3 seasons, he made over 100 appearances in the League, scoring 11 times and being part of many a play off campaign.

By the Summer of 2005, Butch was out of contract and his skills in the middle of the park had become well known, he made a move to Oldham Athletic, in League One. Despite making 36 appearances, with 4 goals, this move wasn`t a success and indeed he returned to the Imps during the 2005-6 season on loan for 4 games, scoring once.

With Big Keith and Simmo now working down the A1 at Peterborough, and Butch having been released from Athletic after just a season, he rejoined the dynamic duo at the Posh for a year, playing 43 games and scoring 4 goals.

Darren Ferguson replaced Keith as manager of the Cambridgeshire side during that season and despite being a regular in the side, he was allowed to move again, this time to Notts County. In 2 years, he had his best game for goal quota in his career, 80 games, 18 goals. With the changes at County and the takeover by Munto Finance, Butch didn`t fit in with the new look at the club and he moved for a third spell back to Lincoln, a city he still lived in and was Peter Jackson`s first summer signing of the 2009-10 season. Again he was a regular player for Jacko until the ex Huddersfield boss was sacked and replaced by Chris Sutton. Sutton brought in a number of players on loan from Premiership clubs and Butch found himself out in the cold. An initial move to Macc in 2010 saw 8 appearances and 2 goals and Butch was then released from his 2 year contract by Sutton in May 2010. A number of clubs were looking at the midfielder but the chance to continue his work with Simmo was enough to tempt him to return to the Mosssiders with only injury early this season keeping him out of the team.