Nantwich Town sign former Crewe Alex keeper Ben Garratt

Nantwich Town have signed former Crewe Alexandra goalkeeper Ben Garratt on a free transfer.

The 29-year-old spent many years spent at Gresty Road where he came through the academy and went on to make 246 appearances for the first team.

He was given his break by former Dabbers manager Steve Davis.

The former England under-19 international also made nearly 100 appearances for Burton Albion before leaving at the end of last season.

Dabbers manager Paul Carden said: “For someone of Ben’s calibre to want to come and play for us and want to come and help us, he’s a local lad who’s been playing in the league for a number of years, three or four hundred league appearances, you don’t do that certainly as a goalkeeper if you’re not very good.

“He’s come in like Tom (Pratt) showing a desire to want to play and I think when you get offered these types of players and they want to come to the club you’d be daft to turn them down because you can never have too many good ones.”

Tom Pratt has arrived at Nantwich on a one-month loan from Guiseley.

The attacking midfielder had previously been on loan this season at Marine, but before that had scored six goals in 20 games in all competitions for Guiseley this season.

That followed a successful spell at Hyde United across six years. He has also represented Bury, Mossley and Ashton United.

Carden added: “We’ve got 10 games to go and we’ve got to go all out to gain as many points as we can, to do that you’ve got to score goals.

“We’ve got players who are capable of scoring goals but we haven’t been as reliable in terms of doing so over the course of the season.

“I feel Tom can give us that creativity which might just enable others to get the goals that they’re capable of scoring but also he’s a goal threat himself, I think his record’s about 1 in 3 playing in various attacking roles for Hyde and others over the last few years.

“He really wanted to come which is what you want, he could have easily sat about at Guiseley but he wanted to play and that’s the main thing is players who are hungry and keen to play and he expressed that as soon as we spoke so delighted to have him on board and hopefully he can help us in that department.”