Twentyman was the club captain, a senior professional and one of the key figures in a Rovers side that had enjoyed a remarkable rise under Gerry Francis.
Francis had departed in 1991, leaving the manager's job vacant. Twentyman wanted it. He even applied for the position.
But his conversation with Dunford produced one of the strangest managerial moments of his career.
“I actually applied for it,” Twentyman tells Football Presse. “A bit crazy, but I did apply for it.”
He had every reason to believe he was a serious candidate.
“I was club captain. I played over three seasons without missing a game, which if you think of that in the modern era, that's nigh on impossible.
“Three seasons without missing a game. It's crazy.”
Twentyman had also worked closely with Francis and believed he could continue what his manager had built.
“I knew Gerry's methods and I thought, ‘I can do this’. I would have just carried on doing the stuff that Gerry did because it was tried and tested.
“If it ain't broke, you don't fix it.”
Instead, Rovers appointed Martin Dobson — and Twentyman did not even receive an interview.
“In fact, it was crazy because when they appointed Martin Dobson, I actually got a letter telling me I'd been unsuccessful with my application.
“I actually got a letter. I'm the club captain. It was bizarre, really.”
There was another conversation, though, that Twentyman remembers with considerably more amusement.
He had gone to see Dunford, who was running the football club while also involved in his family's dairy business. Twentyman's immediate objective was not the manager's job. It was a pay rise.
“I had played three successive seasons without missing a game, and the third of those three seasons was in the Championship, which was the second tier of English football.
“I thought, ‘I deserve a few extra bob and a bit more money in my pay packet for being at the next level.’”
The meeting took place at the family dairy.
“I got into the boardroom and I've got this whacking big wooden table and he's at one end and I'm about 12, 14 feet at this end.
“All I'm really interested in is getting a pay rise.”
But Dunford turned the conversation towards the managerial vacancy.
“He goes, ‘Well, what do you think about the vacancy at the football club then?’
“And I'm thinking, ‘Oh, here we go then.’ He's going to say to me, ‘Do you fancy it? I'd like you to do it.’
“I'm his club captain, I'm his senior professional. Here we go then.”
Twentyman carefully explained what he thought Rovers needed.
“I said, ‘To be honest, Geoff, I think the ideal person is someone who has been at the club a while, knows how the club works, understands the kind of difficulties of Rovers, shared ground at Twerton Park, they train at Chocolate Factory.
“‘I need someone with the club mentality, thinking like me.’”
Then came the punchline.
“I kind of thought, ‘Well, it's a bit of a loaded question.’
“And he looks at me and I'm expecting him to say, ‘Would you be interested?’
“And he went, ‘I'd like to do the job myself, but I'm too busy with the dairy.’”
Twentyman had to keep his composure.
“I had my game poker face on because I thought I can't start laughing because I might not get my rise if he sees I'm laughing at him.
“And I just went, ‘Oh, yeah, yeah, I get that, Geoff,’ like that, thinking, ‘Oh my God.’”
The conversation nevertheless achieved one of Twentyman's objectives.
“He agreed to my pay rise.
“So I left the boardroom thinking, ‘Well, I know I'm not going to be the next manager of Bristol Rovers, but I also know Geoff Dunford isn't either.’”
The story still makes him laugh.
“It was like, ‘Oh my God, it was crazy.’”
Twentyman's managerial ambitions did not disappear, however. Five years later, he returned to Rovers as Ian Holloway's assistant manager.
That appointment came about almost accidentally.
Holloway, Twentyman's former team-mate and close friend, had been offered the Rovers job and called him for advice.
“I'm in the BBC newsroom, so I'm now working for the BBC. And it's before mobile phones, so I'm on a landline and there's journalists all around me.
“And he goes, ‘Matty’ — that was my nickname — ‘I need some advice.’
“He said, ‘Rovers have been in touch. They want me to take over next year as player-manager. What do you think?’
“And I said, ‘Take the job.’ Just said it like that. ‘Take the job.’”
Holloway wanted somebody he trusted alongside him.
“There was like a pause and then we both giggled and he went, ‘You wouldn't, would you?’
“I said, ‘I wouldn't what?’
“He went, ‘Be my assistant.’
“I said, ‘Well, you haven't asked me.’
“He said, ‘Will you be my assistant?’
“I went, ‘Yeah.’
“He went, ‘What, you will?’
“I said, ‘Yeah.’”
Twentyman duly left the BBC for a season.
But the experience confirmed something he had not fully appreciated when applying for the top job in 1991.
“I was glad I did it, but it wasn't for me.
“I'd gone from leading a team in the BBC and making decisions. And an assistant manager, you're a bit betwixt and between.
“You're not making the big calls, you're not giving out the big rollickings.”
After a year, he returned to broadcasting.
“I was always able to compare being a broadcaster to being an assistant manager. For me, I decided to go back after the year.
“It was a good experience. I'm glad I did it because you only live once, and I was true to myself.”
But there remains a trace of unfinished business about that application in 1991.
“Back in '91, I genuinely wish I'd got the job because it was what I wanted to do at the time.
“And I think I'd have done okay, actually.”
For a man who spent 252 league games at the heart of the Rovers defence, eventually became one of Bristol's most recognisable broadcasters and later returned to the club as a manager's assistant, it remains one of football's great what-ifs.
And, thanks to one extraordinary conversation in a dairy boardroom, one of its funniest stories too.
Geoff Twentyman is author of "Top Man: The Geoff Twentyman Story" from Pitch Publishing - which is available here.
