Adam Roscrow is determined to grasp his big opportunity of playing professional football after deciding that AFC Wimbledon was his best option after leaving university.
The 24-year-old is far from daunted by the prospect of swapping the Welsh Premier League for League One and conversations with Wally Downes convinced him that Wimbledon was the place to do it.
“I cannot wait to get started,” said Adam. A big thing for me is being somewhere that I will improve. I want to be in an environment where I will improve and from the conversations with Wally I feel that this is somewhere it will happen. One of the first questions the manager asked me was what I felt were my best attributes. He had seen me play and agreed with what I had to say. The manager wanted to know what I thought were the best aspects of my game so that we were on the same wavelength.
“I’m fairly quick, so I try to use my pace to go past people. I think scoring goals is an attribute that I’ve always had. They are not necessarily pretty goals, but I tend to score a fair few of them. It feels amazing, a little bit surreal, but I think it will certainly sink in during the next few days. Luckily for me, pre-season starts in a few days so it’s a short turnaround, and I’m really looking forward to it.
“I know a little bit about the history of the club, including winning the FA Cup, and more recently I watched the cup games last season, so I know that there was a good cup run. I was also aware of the Great Escape, which shows the character of the team and the club. A big draw is that the fans seem to really get behind the team. If you’ve got 5,000 fans supporting you at a home game it certainly goes a long way to helping you to perform on the pitch.”
Having risen from playing local men’s football for Llanwit Major and helped Cardiff Met progress through the leagues, the AFC Wimbledon story certainly resonates with the forward.
“The main interest in me has been from Wimbledon and it went through fairly quickly," added Adam. "Since there was interest I’ve done a bit of research to look where the club has come from. The club has had its setbacks, had to build itself up, and I think that resonates with my background. I’ve come from way down the Welsh leagues with Cardiff Met, achieved promotions, and we built on that by getting into Europe.
“It’s come at the right time for me. I finished all of my studies and I’m graduating in the next few weeks. I think it’s the right timing and for a manager who understands the way that I play. I could have been playing in Europe, but it’s a decision I made, and I think it’s going to be the right one.”
Click on the link below to watch the full interview with Adam.