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Rovers have been trailing the prolific non-league marksman ever since he moved to South Derbyshire three years ago.

But it wasn’t until this summer that Frank Northwood finally ensured that the club got their man.

Now he has fully repaid the faith the club had in him with a string of vital goals.

And it’s those goals that have earned him the Burton Mail Player-of the Month award for August/ September.

Goals have always been Beresford’s business and his record speaks for itself.

So far this season he has hit eight in 11 games, six of them in the FA Cup, including that dramatic winner against Worksop on Saturday and one of the goals in the FA Vase win at Clipstone.

All that has come after he missed the start of the season and the warm-up programme with an ankle injury.

“I’m still feeling the ankle a bit and I’ll be glad when the pitches get a bit softer,” he admitted.

That eight in 11 striking rate is just about the ratio Beresford has been able to keep up throughout his career. He was just one goal short of being leading scorer in the Southern League Midland Division for the third successive season last term.

But the success of the side’s he has played in has meant he has moved clubs more than perhaps he would have liked.

His goals helped pilot first Willenhall and then Dudley to the SLMD championship, but he refused to make the step up to the Premier Division with either club.

He explained: “There’s just too much travelling in the Premier Division for my liking.”

He works at Toons Furniture Warehouse in Church Gresley and as far as he’s concerned work must come first.

“You have to look after your job and there’s no way I would have been able to contemplate making some journeys involved in the Southern League Premier Division.”

So, after Dudley swept to the Midland Division title last season and earned promotion, they lost their leading scorer and Northwood moved in.

“Gresley have been trying to sign me on and off for a long time and this time it seemed to me that Frank had started to get a good side together,” he said.

“When I was at other clubs I used to hate playing at the Moat Ground, but things are improving there now and a lot of people are putting in a lot of work behind the scenes.”

But while Beresford is impressed with the calibre of the players around him he feels it will be a tough battle to win the Banks’s Brewery WML.

“There are a lot of good sides, Halesowen, obviously, plus the likes of Harrison’s, Lye Town, Tamworth, and Atherstone as well as Gresley. It will be a hard league to get out of, but there is terrific potential at the Moat Ground and the support is tremendous.”

Beresford’s career began at Walsall and after three seasons unsuccessfully trying to break into the first team he moved to Chesterfield where he spent one season.

“It’s my biggest regret that I never played a Football League game, although I did play in an FA Cup tie for Chesterfield against Boston United,” he said.

His career in non-league soccer began with Armitage and Brereton before he joined Willenhall, which led to a move to Worcester, back to Willenhall, on to Shepshed and then Dudley.

Throughout that time he’s consistently scored goals and everyone connected with Gresley will be hoping he can maintain the happy habit.