Charlie Austin’s time with Swindon Town has come to an end, so let’s look back at how it all began and how he was brought to the club in the first place.

The striker joined Town in October 2009 after tearing it up at Poole Town, which had drawn interest from many clubs, including AFC Bournemouth who had been prevented from signing him due to a transfer embargo.

With Town still looking to replace Simon Cox, who had joined West Bromwich Albion the previous summer after hitting 32 goals across all competitions, they moved for Austin after a successful trial period with the club.

Austin and Town never looked back as he struck up an instant partnership with Billy Paynter and he netted 20 goals that season with Paynter getting 26 as they fired Town all the way to the League One Playoff Final.

Former Swindon chairman Andrew Fitton spoke gave the whole picture of the long process that led to Swindon eventually bringing Austin to the club and the many things which that involved.

The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald:

He said: “I had known Charlie for a long time as I had had him at Hungerford Town, I had even had him at a village club when he was 16. The reason Charlie Austin arrived was me bringing him in, not Danny [Wilson]. He wasn’t a great one for going out and watching players, basically, it just wasn’t his thing.

“When Maurice Malpas was in charge, I asked him to look at three players: one was called Charlie Austin, one was called Jamie and I can’t remember his surname, and the third one was called Bradley Ward and they were all from Non-League.

“Bradley Ward should have played football at the highest level, he didn’t end up coming in because he had decided by that time that he didn’t want to play professional football, which was a great shame.

“In came Charlie and Jamie and they were in for a week and it was decided that they were good players but not good enough and so off they went.

“A year later, I have a scout come to me saying ‘We have found this player and he is absolutely fantastic, banging in goals for fun down on the South Coast.’ So I asked his name and they said ‘Charlie Austin’. So, I said ‘You didn’t find him at all, you had him here a year ago and turned him down.’

The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald:

“Of course, there was a bit of embarrassment because that was true, but we decided that we wanted Charlie now, even though we could have had him for nothing a year earlier.

"I had to organise how to get him, which is a great story that I won’t tell you, but it involved getting him into his grandfather’s house and locking the door because we knew that there were others trying to sign him at the time.

“We did have a bit of an inside track because he had played for me at Hungerford. I had the people from Poole ringing me up and saying ‘Have you got Charlie Austin? He’s meant to be playing a game tonight.’ And I had to say to them ‘He’s leaving.’

“But we did a deal with them which the people at Poole will tell you did a good deal for them because it built them a new stand. We didn’t pay them very much for him but we paid them some payments based on performance and they collected a quarter of a million for him in total.”