This feature interview is taken from issue 284 of HeedLines, sold at our fixture at home to Woking on April 18, 2026.
Adam Desbois has become a Gateshead cult hero in just over a month on Tyneside.
Arriving at the beginning of March as Rob Elliot’s new number one, Desbois came with a reputation on his name after an impressive season with Slough Town in the National League South.
You only had to read the comments from Slough supporters on the club’s social media posts confirming his move to Tyneside to see the esteem he was held in, and the kind of player their supporters knew they were going to miss out on for the rest of the season.
Even if you weren’t aware of that though, you would have formed the very same opinion yourself after watching Desbois turn out for Gateshead over the past 11 games.
The shot-stopper has forged a name for himself as one of the National League’s standout goalkeepers since making the step up, and has played a key role in The Heed’s remarkable survival turnaround to stay up with two games to spare.
Three clean sheets and just two goals conceded in five – with those two both consolations very late on against Yeovil and York City – speaks for itself, especially given that Gateshead were once conceding three or four goals a game earlier in the season.
“I’m a big believer in doing your part,” said Desbois.
“My first mindset was to focus on my own performance and make sure that I was doing the right things in each game to help the team.
“Once you’ve done your part, then you help your mate do his and from there the team will perform well.
“Sometimes it’s tricky, I’ve had situations growing up in football where I’ve been quite fixated on trying to make sure everyone is doing their job really well, and sometimes that can cause you to lose focus on what you need to do.
“That typical talk goes around about how useful goalkeepers are, and that you can’t win things without a good goalkeeper.
“That isn’t me calling myself a good goalkeeper by the way, but that’s just the way people talk in general.
“I’ve seen things in the Premier League about David Raya and affecting crosses, and that’s a big part of what I want to identify with.
“I’m very aggressive from crosses, which might go unnoticed to someone who’s not really assessing a goalkeeper’s performance, but that’s something I really pride myself on.
“I thought I’d come in, be really aggressive and keep the back line nice and high to affect crosses coming into the box.
“I prefer not to gamble and make big worldie saves, I like to make sure I save what I should save, be in the right place and be a reliable shot stopper rather than make a really crazy save, then let a poor one go in.
“It doesn’t always go to plan, but since I’ve been in things have been good, and the lads around me have allowed me to show my good traits.”
It has been emphasised countless times already since last Saturday’s defining win at Aldershot Town, but it’s well worth emphasising again that Gateshead were once 11 points from safety, and 10 inside the bottom four when Desbois joined in March with 13 games to go.
The Heed had 26 points after playing 33 games, and now sit on 50 points after only 11 more – almost doubling their points total in a third of the time.
Desbois’ arrival coincided with the upturn in fortunes, only stalled by defeat to Forest Green in the game before his debut, with that only one of two losses since mid-February.
“When you come into a club and you don’t know much about the culture, you’re thinking that it’s going to be tricky,” he said.
“Gateshead lost to Forest Green the game before I came in, and Rob [Elliot] told me that wasn’t the team’s normal selves, and was an off game in comparison to the games before where momentum was building.
“Me, my agent and Rob were definitely confident that it was doable. It was tough, but with the continuation of performances beforehand, definitely could be done.
“We managed to solidify the defensive structure, which is the part I can affect.
“I can obviously help a little with certain direct balls, but as a whole we made that structure strong with whoever filled in and whatever shape we were playing, so definitely confidence was there once we solidified as a back line.
“There was still a long time left [after Forest Green] and things can change quickly in football. We went from 26 points to 50, so from when I came in we’ve almost doubled our points tally.
“We’ve performed really well, and the form table shows the calibre of team we are, and the fact that we are definitely capable of competing with the guys at the top.
“There are a few things to refine, and maybe a nice pre-season as a whole would have been helpful, but we managed to make it all work.
“We had a gist that going down was unlikely to happen before the Aldershot game last weekend, but I took a bit of a pessimistic or cautious approach.
“If we lost and teams below us won then there’s only two more games, and losing two on the bounce in football is not that hard to do.
“We knew it would be such a relief for all of the boys to win and confirm it last week – we didn’t want a dampener on the hard work we put in if other teams were to win.
“It was a tough game and we were performing quite poorly, all six out of tens really, so it was about pushing through that finishing line.
“I had a dead leg, which feels quite good now and I think I’ll be fine for Saturday, but it affected my game a little bit – kicking was a bit tricky.
“To get across the line showed teams that even on a bad day you’ve got to do a lot to get around us, and even if you create lots of chances we can still keep you out, so the mindset was to win at all costs.”
Remarkably, Gateshead now have the chance to finish as high as 12th with two wins from the final two games.
For Desbois, that would be the perfect statement to set The Heed up for the 2026/27 season.
“Sometimes in football, I think it’s about creating that sense of fear,” he said.
“If we can continue creating that, then teams know that we won’t take our foot off the gas.
“It’s not that we’ve stayed up and we’re happy with that, it’s a little bit of a mindset shift and that goes a long way in football.
“There’s another two games to continue creating that confident culture that we have, and hopefully we can do well for those.”
