Cheltenham received a club-record offer for Gillespie
Cheltenham Town have revealed the fee they turned down from an unnamed club for striker Steven Gillespie.
The offer for the 23-year-old was £350,000 plus another £50,000 if the team won promotion this season.
"Turning down a very good offer shows our intent," chairman Paul Baker told BBC Radio Gloucestershire.
"It sends out a message to our fans that we do want to keep our best players and it tells other clubs you can't just nick our best players."
The offer would have been a new record fee for a Cheltenham player, beating the £200,000 Barnsley paid for Kayode Odejayi in 2007.
Cheltenham's main concern would be how to replace Gillespie if he were to leave with no obvious replacement already on the Whaddon Road payrole.
That would mean the Robins having to go in to what Baker feels is an already inflated transfer market.
"Good quality strikers are difficult to come by, Steven is definitely that and therefore it's really important that we hang on to him.
"That isn't to say he won't go in the future but he's certainly not going to go for that sort of price.
"He's got two years to go [on his contract] and we see him as being critical and crucial to our drive to stay in this division and to challenge for the championship."
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