Norman John Trollope, MBE, served Swindon for twenty years as a player (770 appearances), manager and coach. He holds the record number of appearances for one club for which he was awarded the MBE.

He finally retired from the Swindon playing staff at the end of the 1980/81 season, and replaced Bobby Smith as the club's manager early in the following season. He left in 1983 having seen Swindon relegated to Division Four. This wasn't the end of Trollope's times at Swindon - he was appointed assistant manager to Lou Macari during Easter 1985, and he took charge of the youth team under Ossie Ardiles, Glenn Hoddle, John Gorman and Steve McMahon. After a spell working with Wolves, he returned to Swindon in July 2008 to take up the role of Under 15's coach in the Centre of Excellence.

When his son Paul became coach at Norwich, John became part of Ewen Chester's scouting team in the summer of 2012. He will look after the South West of England.

He left Norwich in 2014.

In August 2021 Swindon named one of their stands after him - "The Arkell's John Trollope Stand"