Cheltenham have announced the appointment of Wade Elliott as their new head coach on a two-year contract.

After two seasons as first-team coach with the Robins, the 43-year old takes over from former manager Michael Duff who departed for Championship outfit Barnsley earlier this month.

Elliott was a midfielder for Bournemouth, Burnley, Birmingham and Bristol City before moving into coaching, and has worked with Bristol City and Stoke’s under-23 teams.

Cheltenham chairman David Bloxham told the club website: “It’s been a very intense couple of weeks but we believe we have arrived at the correct decision for Cheltenham at this moment in time.

“The Board set out with a clear criteria for the type of coach we wanted and one of the key requirements was to try and continue the excellent progress we have experienced over the last three years.

“I would like to thank my fellow director Paul Godfrey and our director of football Micky Moore for putting together a comprehensive selection process and we spoke to a number of outstanding candidates for the role.

“In the end we believed that Wade’s knowledge and understanding of the club, its staff and players made him uniquely placed to take us forward.”