TOMMY Mooney is a stubborn man.

He admits that stubbornness played a big part in his decision to leave a club where he had enjoyed so much success in his first, and ultimately only, season to join their biggest rivals.

However, there was another stubborn man who almost persuaded Mooney to stay at Swindon Town, despite every fibre of the striker’s being telling him that he had been misled and would have been a hypocrite to remain.

That man was Andy King.

Mooney’s story at Town is inextricably linked with King. The sadly-departed, cigar-puffing former boss was the reason the prolific second-tier striker rocked up at the County Ground and they remained friends long after Mooney had gone off down the A420.

King had been in conversation with Mooney throughout the 2002/03 season.

The then 31-year-old had spells on loan with three different clubs, having found himself surplus to requirements at Premier League side Birmingham and the Town boss wanted Mooney to help upcoming young striker Sam Parkin.

It was the potential of the partnership with Parkin that made Mooney ultimately opt for Town over deals to play in Major League Soccer.

Swindon Advertiser:

Tommy Mooney in pre-season training

King offered the experienced striker the option to do his physical work at home, meaning Mooney could stay with his family in Birmingham and train three days-a-week.

At that age Mooney knew his body, King trusted him and knew how to keep a player happy.

Such was Mooney’s rapport with King over that season they were together at Town they became great friends and worked with each other closely up until the 58-year-old died earlier this year.

“It is almost difficult to talk about Andy,” said Mooney. “After a year between our conversations about me joining the club and my arrival he became one of my closest friends.

“It’s quite difficult to talk about him in that respect, but he was brilliant at what he did. His man-management was second-to-none.

“The thing with Andy was whatever he was thinking, he said. Whether that be in the dressing room and that would upset players, or whether that would be in the boardroom and that would upset the directors and in the press conference he would upset supporters. But if it was genuinely what he thought at the time, he would say it.

“A lot of other people would manipulate the media and disguise what their true impressions are. Andy was the opposite to that.

“We fell out on numerous occasions. It was always over silly things, he would fire out at me because I was the senior pro and he worked on the premise that if he worked on me in front of the rest of the lads, the rest of the lads would follow what he wanted. I was old enough to know that.

“Sometimes he would ring me up and say ‘listen I’m going to have a go at you this morning’. I’d be like ‘yeah, no problem’. Other times he would just throw it at me and I might bite back at him. Malcolm Crosby (assistant manager) was the fire-fighter in the dressing room, the peacemaker. It worked for us.”

It also worked for Mooney and Parkin. The pair enjoyed a fruitful partnership under King’s guidance and fired almost immediately.

Swindon Advertiser:

Sam Parkin and Tommy Mooney

“Myself and Sam Parkin hit it off straight away, which is what Andy based the conversation on when we originally spoke about me coming to Swindon,” explains Mooney.

“Sam had scored goals in the previous season and Andy wanted a bit of a mentor, for want of a better word, for him. We hit it off and Andy hoped promotion would be the end game, but he was just aiming for a successful season, really.

“Dropping down to that level, which I hadn’t played at since I was a kid, I was confident I would score goals.

“I got the taste back for scoring goals, which because of the previous season where I’d been at the five clubs on loan, I hadn’t had.

“I think I scored in my second game, Southend in the cup.

“Sam scored early doors and went on to score a few in the first month.

“It wasn’t like clubs I played at before where everybody was local. Pretty much everybody travelled from outside of Swindon, apart from a couple of young players who lived there.

“We weren’t tight and socially a close group.

“We were fighting everything - there was no budget to do anything. We didn’t have lunch together as players. We just used to come together for games and click, because of the camaraderie that Andy and Crozzer (Malcolm Crosby) had brought between us.

“The budget that Andy worked with that year to get us into the play-offs was unbelievable. He was working all the hours that God sent and he was looking after his players. We had a good start, a good finish and in the middle a difficult spell.

“Winning games helps that. When we went through a spell when we weren’t winning games, or when I went 16 games without scoring, it was continuous support from everywhere.

“We did it on a shoestring. We had one physio, one coach and the manager. No fitness coaches or any of that, just a really good dressing room full of lads that got on with things.

“Winning is infectious and that dressing room on a Saturday afternoon was brilliant.”

Mooney and Parkin combined for more than 40 goals that season, but sticky patches in October and March meant King’s side had to settle for a spot in the Division Two play-offs where they faced Brighton and Hove Albion.

For many Town fans, that rainy night at the Withdean holds terrible memories as they came so close to setting up a dream final with Bristol City. Having fought back from a goal down in the first leg to lead in extra time, Swindon eventually lost on penalties.

Swindon Advertiser:

Tommy Mooney misses a penalty against Brighton

“Brighton deserved to go through,” says Mooney, somewhat surprisingly. “We were the better team over the two legs, but we missed a couple of chances in the first leg.

“Some of the younger players were a little bit overawed by it, but eventually we were a minute away from playing in the final at Cardiff against Bristol City.

“We tasted every experience that season. In the end we came up just short and didn’t have enough.

“We were out on our feet going into extra time in the second leg.

“The centre-half who went to Celtic, Adam Virgo, scored in the last minute to take it to extra time. I should have gone back with him, but I couldn’t move my legs and I asked Rory Fallon to do it and Virgo won the header.

“I missed a penalty in the shootout, but I wouldn’t have had the energy to make it back and mark (Virgo). That was my lasting impression of that game.

“I’d played in two Championship play-offs and won the final in both so it was my first experience of losing in the play-offs and it was a horrible, horrible feeling.”

From here, Mooney’s story at Swindon takes a turn. He had been made promises by the club over their plans for the team that formed the basis of why he shook hands on an agreement to sign a new contract at the end of the season.

Having over-achieved to get to the play-offs, which would have brought extra cash into the club, Mooney thought King would be given money to strengthen the squad and build again for next season. He did not.

“The promises were made to me when I joined about what would happen if we did this, or achieved this, or there will be more of a budget to make it a really strong team next year, but Andy was deceived. I don’t blame Andy for any of it,” said an exasperated Mooney.

“We were all deceived and misled, even (with) the success that we had getting to the play-offs, the club didn’t want to spend any more money and bring better players in and keep the better players that were there.

“The chairman (Willie Carson) and the directors gave Sam Parkin a new contract because they thought they could sell him, otherwise they could have got less money for him in the end.

“We’re talking about a successful partnership in Mooney and Parkin and they’re saying ‘we’ll give Parkin a new contract because we can sell him. We’re not going to get any money for Mooney so the contract we promised him last year we’re not going to give him’.

“Andy and me fell out over it on the telephone, about the things that had been promised. He was apologising about it because there was nothing he could do.

“I remember I was on holiday and I had a phone call that cost me £170. I was on the phone to him for an hour to him saying ‘are they going to do this? Are they going to do that?’

“Andy’s hands were tied, we’d discussed other players we were going to bring in. He couldn’t get those players in because the budget they had promised him at Christmas for the next season.

“He was going to have work with less of a budget than he did when he performed football miracles to get to the play-offs.

“It was a really difficult decision at the time, but I was lied to. I have to be someone who can look somebody in the eye and I wouldn’t have been able to do it.

“I really enjoyed my time there. Myself and the family at the club were treated like royals, but if I shook hands on a contract I would honour it and it wasn’t being reciprocated.”

Swindon Advertiser:

Tommy Mooney and Andy King

Despite the wrangling, Mooney nearly stayed. That £170 telephone call with King nearly persuaded him to abandon his principles for the sake of his manager.

“The fact he almost talked me into staying was testament to how persuasive he was,” adds Mooney.

“I was really close to staying. It was purely on promises that were made to me, not necessarily financial ones, not being kept that I didn’t.

“In the phone call where I’m on the beach and I’m leaving my parents, my wife and my kids to play in the sea while I’m kicking sand about for an hour, he was really close.

“It wasn’t about the terms of the contract, because that was agreed at Christmas.

“It was the fact at the end of that they tried to renege on that and pull the budget we had, on top of selling Sam Parkin. Where’s the incentive for me to stay? Without Sam I wouldn’t have been as successful that season.

“I regret leaving Swindon. With hindsight I was quite stubborn and stuck to things that I said from the outset.

“If I hadn’t been so stubborn who knows, I might have been at Swindon for a couple of years longer.”

Mooney’s regrets over his next destination are well-known. He does not care for Oxford in the same way he cares for Swindon and by the end of his time there he was desperate to leave.

Heading to the Kassam was not a decision he took lightly, but the reaction of Swindon fans to him leaving the club and the way those at the County Ground portrayed his departure made it easier.

“Upsetting the fans did come under consideration,” he said. “The club were very clever and made it out the decision was about money – it was, just not for me.

“Stupidly, after I’d been bad-mouthed in the press by certain people, I read a few message boards and they were all saying we don’t need him, we can do this we can do that and saying some horrible things about me.

“I thought ‘if that’s what you really feel about me I shouldn’t feel bad about signing for Oxford’.”

Now, though, he feels those wounds have healed.

“I like going back to Swindon. I went to a game last year because of my role at Villa (he is their loan manager) and Mark Cooper is an old friend," he said.

“There are some lovely people there. From the lady outside who sells the programmes, who gives me a big hug every time, to the club staff, it’s lovely.

“I think everybody understands there was nothing malicious in me going to Oxford, it was just one of those things.”