CHARLIE Austin has to go down as the best signing during Andrew Fitton’s reign, if not one of the best in Swindon Town’s history.

The then 20-year-old was plucked from non-league Poole Town by chief scout Ken Ryder, but Fitton already knew about the prolific striker.

“There is the story that I coached Charlie Austin here at Ramsbury, but only for one session,” explained Fitton, with a smile on his face.

“That became a bit of a joke in the club, because when the chief scout came and said we have found this fantastic player, what nobody had remembered was that when I came in as chairman I had asked Maurice (Malpas) to look at two players from Hungerford.

“Charlie Austin and a lad called Jamie Gosling, who is a very cultured midfield player.

“Maurice brought them both down and said ‘maybe, not sure they need a bit of time.’ This was a nice way of telling the chairman he was wrong.

“Then sure enough they were telling me that they had found this great player, and I was like you didn’t find him at all.”

The day Swindon were negotiating to sign Austin, Fitton ensured that nobody else would talk to him by getting the Hungerford Town secretary to keep the player pinned down at his grandfather’s house.

Austin signed and scored on his full debut against Carlisle and the rest is history until it came to selling the forward.

“Essentially I was told that I had to sell Charlie to try and balance the books, and I was even told how much I had to sell him for,” explained Fitton.

“I was incensed by being told ‘you will sell Charlie for £1.6million.’ “So that is what I did. And I don’t want to suggest I sold him cheap for that, it was a real struggle to get somebody to pay £1.6million.

“We had a number of clubs looking at him, he very nearly signed for Ipswich, but he wanted to go to Burnley to meet up with Eddie Howe again.

“Charlie called me from the car on the way up to Burnley to say thank you for manipulating the situation so he could go to Burnley.

“I was sorry to lose him.”