Looking back over the career of Swindon Town legendary goalkeeper Fraser Digby 30 years after his debut

WHAT do we say about this one apart from the fact that I was 19 and it was 30 years ago.

I have got a few more wrinkles and a lot of water has gone under the bridge since.

That was a great year. I came to Swindon in October and there was a chance that I wasn’t going to sign.

Lou (Macari) brought me in on loan and it was a fantastic experience for me, playing in front of 10,000. We’re talking about the Rotherham game and it was a great debut, 2-0, clean sheet, fantastic.

That season all-in-all was a good one. Ron Atkinson got the sack and Sir Alex Ferguson came in and Lou was able to do a deal with him for me.

It was a good deal for both of the clubs at the time, going further down the line, it probably wasn’t great for me with a 50 per cent sell on.

We were seventh or eighth from bottom and then went on a bit of a run and we had a fantastic three matches against Gillingham in the play-off final.

The game at Selhurst Park, when we beat them 2-0 was a great end to the season.

To cap it all off, excuse the pun, there is an England cap there and that was my first when I went to Cannes.

Even Alex Ferguson phoned up Lou to say how well I had done and that was nice.

THIS season, back in 1990, was really one of highs and lows.

The highs were the fact that Ossie (Ardiles) had come into the club, Lou (Macari) had departed for West Ham – I could have actually gone to West Ham.

I didn’t find out until after I retired that Lou had put in a bid of £1million for me but as it happened, it was turned down by the club and I stayed.

We got through to the play-offs, we got in last minute, and played Blackburn in the semi-finals.

They were two great games against Blackburn and then we went to play Sunderland in the final at Wembley.

This photo is from one of the semi-finals, you’ve got John Gittens in there, you’ve got Colin Calderwood in behind me as well – fortunately I have kept hold of the ball.

That was another fantastic year for us because we gained promotion to the top division, then it all came crashing down weeks later with the financial irregularities.

There are mixed emotions when you look at that picture.

ONE from our year in the Premiership and another change of manager, John Gorman took charge.

The year before we won promotion, we had beaten Leicester in the final and I have got a nice stat that I have never lost at Wembley.

I have been to Wembley with England Schoolboys and Swindon and we never lost, it’s a pity we couldn’t say the same since then. The old Wembley was lucky to us, the new one, not so much.

This was probably my best performance during the Premiership, away at Liverpool.

Unfortunately this one show Mark Wright heading in the equaliser but we were minutes away from beating Liverpool and I had one of those games, apart from the two goals, where everything went fantastically well for me.

I even got a standing ovation from the Kop after the game, which is brilliant. With things like that, it is only when you sit down and think about it and think ‘did that really happen?’ We were there in our Brazilian kits, we looked the part - all the gear, no idea.

I WAS fortunate to spend 12 great years at Swindon. It was a bit of a rollercoaster ride, especially towards the end, but I was granted a testimonial.

Derek Walker, the group director at Skurrays Vauxhall, was a good friend of mine and he became my chairman and he put together some great events with the rest of my committee.

We have got two people in the photograph who are my heroes – Gordon Banks, who made probably the greatest save ever, and Pat Jennings.

I have got a little article that is really nice. He played for Sheffield Schoolboys, the same as me, and was the chairman when he retired and he did an article of his best team he had ever been involved in at Sheffield and he said at 15, I was better than Gordon Banks - I don’t know where it all went wrong.

To be compared with Gordon, he is one of England’s greatest ever goalkeepers, is an honour.

The man at the side of him, Pat Jennings, is probably one of the greatest goalkeepers that have ever lived.

The other gentleman is the one and only Sandy Martin, who is sadly no longer with us. I knew Sandy for many years and he was a fantastic bloke sadly missed by many people.

It’s nice to have the photo of him, alongside two giants.

MY FINAL game for Swindon Town.

All good things come to an end as they say. Steve McMahon was the manager and I think had decided that time was up.

I made the decision that I was going to go – there were a few personal reasons for it.

It was a sad time to leave a club like Swindon after all of those years but I always knew I would come back and I didn’t stay away that long.

Then I got the call from one of my old teammates Terry Fenwick, who was the assistant to Terry Venables at Crystal Palace, and they gave me the opportunity to go there and it was a great experience to go to a club like that.

I always remember, when I went back to play against Swindon with Crystal Palace and QPR, all the players from those clubs would say they couldn’t believe the adulation I got from the fans.

I always had a great rapport with the fans and that is one thing that is a bit sad with football these days, some of the players don’t have that relationship with the fans.

We did. I didn’t care if it was the man who had my signature about 14,000 times outside the stand - this is what football clubs are all about.

That photograph is a sad one because it was the end of an era and when you have been somewhere as long as I have, it is always sad to say goodbye.

I knew that was going to be it and it was nice to be able to say goodbye to the fans.

I look back at all these photographs now and cringe at most of them but that was my life and you think what a fantastic time I had.

I don’t like to be reminded that it was 30 years ago that I made my debut, but I am old now.

We didn’t get anything like the rewards the players get today, I have to graft to keep a life for my family but you look at those and say ‘I enjoyed my life’.

Swindon Town was most of my life and I will always look back with fond memories.