Owen Garvan is hoping that his first taste of action in the English football’s fourth tier is part of the “rollercoaster” of him climbing back to the top.

The 28-year-old impressed as he came back from a lengthy injury lay-off to make his first appearance of the season as Colchester United secured a much-needed League Two win at Cheltenham Town in midweek.

It was the former Ipswich Town and Crystal Palace midfielder’s first experience of playing in the bottom rung of the Football League and for someone who has now tasted life in all four levels, it was a bit of an eye-opener.

However, he said he is now back to full fitness and is hoping that he can now help Colchester climb back up as part of keeping his own career path on an upward trajectory - starting against Crewe Alexandra at the Weston Homes Community Stadium today.

“I missed being with the lads and you can get in a bit of a rut when you’re not playing,” said Garvan, who played in the Premier League for Palace as recently as August 2013.

“You realise how much you miss it when you do go back in.

“It’s football and you get injuries; it’s part of the job so you can’t really complain about it.

“You just have to try to get yourself back in as quick as you can and hope that you do get good results and enjoy it when you do play.

“That’s my mentality anyway.

“I want to progress my career as I’m only 28 and I want to get back up the leagues.

“I’ve seen other players have a bit of a rollercoaster up and down and I’m hoping it’s the same for me. Playing in that game against Cheltenham was a bit of an eye-opener because everything was a battle throughout most of the game.

“There wasn’t a lot of good football in the game but sometimes you have to do that.

“We got the right result and as confidence builds then the players will think a bit differently but we have to get results on the board at the moment.”

Following the game against Crewe, the U’s face a two-week break before heading to Mansfield on December 10 and Garvan knows how important it is for them to take a positive result into that hiatus.

He added: “We have one game now before two weeks off and if we can win that game it will be a lot more positive.

“We could go up six places if we win and we’ll be looking at mid-table.

“That will be much more positive and we need to go on a run now.

“It’s a strange league, but we want to be in the play-offs and not looking up at teams up there.

“The lads are in a good place after the win (at Cheltenham) and hopefully we can get a bit more momentum now.

“It had been a while since we’d won a game, but to only be a few points off the play-offs is surprising and that’s credit to how well we did start the season.

“Hopefully we can get on a run now and get ourselves right back in the mix.”

“It was great to be back; I didn’t really expect to play 90 minutes but the game went well.

“We kept a clean sheet and we won so that was job done.

“I don’t really know how it came about as I don’t think I was originally supposed to be involved but I went straight back in.

“I haven’t played too many reserve games so it was a bit of a surprise but I’m happy to be back.

“If I’m being honest, I’d say I was a bit off it, but hopefully over the next couple of games I can pick up the pace a bit more and continue to help us winning games.

“The recovery is quite hard, but come Saturday I’ll be fine and I think I’ll be better prepared and sharper."