Currently sat 14th in League Two, Swindon Town have had a troubled season so far, however despite their poor form, ex-loanee Murphy Mahoney has expressed his delight about his time with the club.
“I think in the past, the loans that I went on were short, and I’ve been itching to get back out on loan and play properly and consistently at the highest level I could.
“It was brilliant especially to go to Swindon, they have such a massive club with great history and a massive fan base.”
Mahoney quickly established himself as the first-choice keeper for Swindon, producing many incredible saves, he described his journey toward becoming a professional goalkeeper.
“To be fair, I always wanted to play outfield for my school and my grassroots team.
“My brother though was older than me and he used to put me in goal in the garden and just smash the ball at me so because of that, I became quite good at shot-stopping.
“From there, my grassroots team had a tournament, and our goalie didn’t show up, so one game I went in goal and did alright.
“I happened to get scouted for reading started to enjoy playing in goal and then got scouted by Wigan.
“I went down there for a training session then ended up signing on the day so I have been a goalkeeper ever since really.”
Mahoney has now gone back to his parent club QPR after sustaining a serious injury at Town earlier this season which he is currently trying to recover from.
“It’s looking like a long one, it’s four months post-operation they are saying until I’m able to come back to training and playing.
“I had the operation on the sixth of January and at the moment I have a brace on which is keeping my leg locked so I can’t fully extend my leg.
“The next stages I think will be getting the brace off and walking without crutches and I think as soon as the hamstring has healed, I’m going for a scan to see if it has healed properly and then once that has healed I can properly start rehabilitation and I think it will be about three months from then.
“I’m gutted that my loan finished early and that I’m injured for this period of time but I think it came at the right time because I’m not having to rush back to playing.”
Mahoney became a fan favourite at the Robins and Town fans were sad to see such a good player leave the club and the keeper had a lot of praise for the loyal supporters.
“The way that the majority of the fans got behind me this season for my first proper loan, you see them around Swindon and they’re so positive so I think they are brilliant fans to be honest.
“I think they’re brilliant, obviously they have got high expectations of the team and so they should because in my opinion with the fanbase and the history, it’s not a League Two club it should be up there so yeah they have high expectations but they’re the best fans in the league in my opinion, they travel in numbers, they’re always at home games so yeah I think they are brilliant.”
Mahoney will no doubt be a miss to the Swindon Town fans however his time at the club left people highly impressed showing that he is a keeper who will be playing regularly in the football league for time to come.
