David McGoldrick has revealed how he had to take drastic action to rescue a career that seemed to be going nowhere fast just a few short years ago.
The Town striker, whose 27th birthday will coincide with next week’s trip to Charlton, was at the crossroads when he found it difficult to hold down a regular place at hometown club Nottingham Forest, who paid £1 million to sign him from Southampton in June 2009.
By the time his Forest contract expired last year McGoldrick had only managed 31 league starts during four years on the City Ground payroll and been loaned to Sheffield Wednesday, Coventry and then Town.
He recalled: "I remember the day I got a call from my agent to say a certain club wanted me. I won’t name them but they were at a much lower level than I am now. That told me I had to get myself going or I might never get back to a decent level again.
"I didn’t think I was playing to my potential and I knew I had to really knuckle down. Football is what I’ve always wanted to do and the older I was getting, the faster it was slipping away.
"I felt there was nothing else for it but to knuckle down and I felt I did that. I got my love back for the game and I got my confidence back too. I’m really enjoying it now.
"Anyone can drift out of the game. Right now there are a lot of very good players who are out of contract at the minute and without clubs. It’s not easy out there and I could have been one of them.
"I still could be in a few years because no one knows and you have to play for the present, which is what I’m doing at the minute.
"Things can change quite quickly in football but I have always believed in my ability. Even when things were not going well for me at Forest I had faith in myself and that things would improve.
"Something clicked at one stage of my career, before I went to Coventry, and I knew things were turning.
"I worked hard one summer and came back for the pre-season really fit and fresh, raring to go. I had been out for three or four months with a stress fracture in my back and that’s when I really realised how much I loved football and that I had to knuckle down.
"From then on things got better and I’m really grateful to be where I am at the minute.”