BY HIS own admission, it took Oliver Risser six months to get up to speed with life in English football.

The Namibian international, who penned a two-year deal with Swindon after impressing on trial last summer, struggled to hold down a place in manager Paolo Di Canio’s matchday XI in the opening months of the campaign and relinquished the club captaincy to Paul Caddis in October after suffering a groin injury.

From the turn of the year, however, the 31-year-old has been a key member of a Town side that romped to the League Two title, and the midfielder ended the campaign with 40 appearances and four goals to his name.

After a difficult start to his career in Wiltshire, Risser reflected on how he had to battle to prove to himself, the management and the fans that he had it in him to succeed in the Football League.

“At the beginning it was really tough due to many reasons. I only started honestly in December. That’s when Oliver Risser came about at Swindon Town FC,” he told the Advertiser.

“Of course I wanted to do this from the beginning, but sometimes life has its different ways and you just have to accept it and do the best from it. It’s not how you get a defeat, it’s how you get up and keep on going.”

Now, with an assault on League One to look forward to, Risser is determined to remain a Robin.

“It’s just amazing, the passion of the fans and that’s why I want to stay here. It’s just amazing,” he said.

“The things that have happened here at Swindon are just great.

“We had a great season. The FA Cup run was fantastic, then the JPT final at Wembley, we’re obviously champions of League Two – it was a great season.”

And after such a memorable term, what are the goals for next year? Well, Risser certainly has his sights set pretty high.

He said: “We’ve played some decent football and obviously next year we want to go and win the JPT cup final, maybe get another round further in the FA Cup would be nice and why not win the title again?

“It’s not going to be easy, obviously, because the quality of players and the teams is going to be higher. It’s going to be tough, but it’s been done already before so why not?”