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Now he is facing a make-or-break wait before learning whether he will be given a new lease of life – or, tragically, end up on the Moat Ground scrap heap.

Dolby has a long history of ankle injuries. They plagued him during his long and illustrious spell with Burton Albion and scars of many a battle in the red and white of Gresley have now taken a serious toll.

Says Dolby: “The problem now is that I have a dislocation and a break in a small bone. The break is not really a worry, but the fact that my ankle is out of alignment obviously is. It seems I could have been playing on it like this for a couple of years but I’m so used to problems with my ankles that I never really thought any more of it.”

Dolby is now in the middle of intensive course of physiotherapy in the hope of resolving the injury without the need for surgery.

Should the treatment fail, however, Dolby’s season will probably be over before it has even started.

He explained: “If I need an operation, it’s going to be a complicated business. The surgeon will take some muscle fibre from my calf and transplant in my ankle to strengthen it in the hope it will then pull it back into line.”

Amid the doubts, there is one inescapable fact should Dolby’s worst fears materialise he will be sorely missed by Rovers.

Without Dolby’s calming influence and ability to organise, Gresley’s defence has looked worryingly fragile this season – a fact reinforced by their home record.

In all three league games at the Moat Ground visiting teams have hit the target three times, leaving Rovers to fret over a miserly one point out of nine.

That’s a record which manager Frank Northwood will want to improve – and quickly.

It will be surprising if he does not make one of his customary dips into the transfer market before the season is much older.