Harry Darling | When I looked back at last season, I knew I needed to step up

As Harry Darling embarks on his second season with Swansea City, the centre-half talks about his determination to improve following a summer reflecting on his first season in SA1, reveals how growing pains nearly derailed his football dream, and the reason why he's always been able to chip in with his fair share of goals from defence.

Harry Darling once had aspirations to be an all-rounder as a talented young cricketer, now he is hoping the lessons learned from his first season at Swansea City will allow him to be a more rounded figure on and off the field.

Centre-back Darling, 24, joined the Swans from MK Dons in the summer of 2022, and made 33 appearances in total, including finishing the campaign in the unfamiliar role of right-back.

He chipped in with four goals along the way, including a stunning debut strike at Rotherham as he adapted to life in the Championship following his impressive showings in League One.

But Darling was far from satisfied with his first campaign in SA1, and honestly admits he may have underestimated the step up in levels, as well as the impact of living away from home for the first time.

After a summer of reflection, the Cambridge United academy product has returned for the new campaign determined to make a step forward and take on more responsibility.

And his outstanding recent run of form suggests that self-awareness and critical approach is paying dividends.

Darling has won 70 per cent of all his aerial duels this season, he has won 50 per cent of all tackles and registered 12 blocks, the latter putting him joint-top of the charts for the Swans.

“I think last year was a big learning curve for me, but now I have had a year with the club and I need to step on from here,” he said.

“I am really settled here and I just want to be a big part of things on and off the pitch as a character and a player.

“I am still young, but if you look at what is still a youthful squad, it’s not like I am a kid. I just want to be more of a leader here and take on more responsibility.

“I will be honest and say I was a bit surprised by the jump last season, and I have had to tell myself some home truths and admit I probably took it for granted that the step up would be what I had expected it to be.

“As I look back at it, with that year of experience of the Championship, I realise I had some misconceptions about it and I’ve had to – and I want to – really challenge myself.

“I am determined to really push myself, because there were a lot of things to take on board.

“The physicality of the league and the speed of it were two things you notice straight away, and off the field it was the first time I had moved away from home.

“You settle into a new area, and that comes with its own challenges. My girlfriend and I have been really fortunate in that we absolutely love Swansea and have had a very warm welcome from the people here, but it was part of a lot of change and those things can take time.

“It was probably bigger than I thought it would be, but with the year behind me I am just determined to try and be a big part of what we are doing here.”

Growing pains, although of a very different nature, are not anything new to Darling, whose dream of becoming a footballer was nearly derailed by injuries brought on by a growth spurt in his early teens.

As is the case now, a period of reflection proved key to Darling making an important step forward, and ultimately helped him return to the development set-up at Cambridge United, having initially walked away as a result of his frustrations.

However, while being a footballer was always his dream, Darling did display an aptitude for another sport, too.

“It has always been football, I have loved it from the first time I can remember just kicking a ball around,” recalls Darling.

“I was always a sporty person, I played other sports, I played cricket for a long time, it was mainly football and cricket as the seasons did not overlap too much. But there were others I tried as well.

“I played cricket at county level for Cambridgeshire, and in football I played for my local team Bottisham, and from there I got picked up by Cambridge when I was 12.

“But, at that time I had a lot of injuries, and I ended up leaving Cambridge because I was just frustrated and I wasn’t enjoying football.

“I was about 14 when I left, I had growing pains, and I just did not play and for that reason I found myself hating football.

“I went to play for Newmarket and I got the bug again, and I got lucky, but at that time I was not in a condition to play well and myself justice and even at that age you are aware of those things.”

But put it to Darling that a career with a bat and ball could have been an option, and he’s not sure he was ever likely to be a swashbuckling professional in the Ben Stokes mould.

“I was an all-rounder for a number of years, and then as I got older I sort of got moved into being a fast bowler,” he says.

“I played district and county at youth level, and I still enjoy cricket, I always watch it when it is on.

“I played alongside a guy called Max Holden, who is at Middlesex now. Michael Pepper at Essex as well, there are a couple more too. I don’t think I would ever have been able to make it as a cricketer myself.

“I was decent, but I don’t think I would have got to that level. My father played and my brother and I did as kids.

“I still love watching it, and the big thing for me in life – whatever it is you are doing – is to enjoy it.

“You have got to work hard and give it your all, but you should enjoy doing that. I feel I am at my best when I am enjoying myself, and I think if you look at any sport, the teams that do well are the ones who enjoy what they are doing.”

Darling’s return to football with Cambridge gave him another opportunity he vowed to make the most of but, as the defender explains, it was still not a straightforward process, with one particular in-house friendly proving an important moment in his fledgling career.

“I initially went back to Cambridge on what is called a shadow scholarship. So, it is a scholarship, but you do more of the educational side of it, where as the guys on full scholarship did more on the football side,” says Darling.

“They set up a friendly where the shadow scholars played the full scholars, and I had a really good game and from there they offered me a full scholarship.

“It was a different way to get into it, but it worked out for me.

“I went back in and there were some really big influences on my career at that time. Mark Bonner, who is the first-team manager at Cambridge now, was my youth-team coach.

“He really helped me, he was one of the biggest people in my career, to be fair. He really, really believed in me, had a lot of faith in me. He played me when he got the job at senior level, and he had supported me when I wanted to go on loan.”

Those loan spells included stints at Bishop’s Stortford, Hampton & Richmond Borough, Royston Town, East Thurrock United and Hemel Hempstead.

They were character building for a teenage centre-half, but Darling loved the chance play senior football and embraced the rough and tumble nature of it.

“I absolutely loved going on those loan spells, I always wanted to play men’s football as soon as I could,” he says.

“Men’s football is all about results, and I knew I wanted to experience that and be a part of it.

“So, I always pushed for those loan spells. I enjoyed all of them, it certainly turned me from a boy into a man.

“There were things on and off the field that I had not experienced or been exposed to before, and it was a real eye opener.

“I loved all the clubs I went to, and I feel like those moves were important for my development.”

From Cambridge, Darling would move to MK Dons in January of 2021 and he made an instant impression.

He won the club’s young player of the season award for the 2020-21 campaign despite only being with them for half of the season.

Darling backed that up with a series of superb showings as MK Dons reached the play-offs under Liam Manning, impressing with his ability on the ball and incredibly netting 10 goals from centre-back.

Darling believes the time at Stadium MK gave him the chance to show a different side to his game, but loves the responsibility a defender has with and without the ball.

“I always saw myself as a ball-playing centre-back, but obviously there were times at Cambridge or on loan where there was not always an opportunity to show that,” he says.

“But going to MK it was a lot different, there was a real emphasis on playing with the ball and it brought out that side of my game. I knew it was there, but it had not really come out and my time there was really big for me.

“I think the way the game is now, you still have to have those fundamental elements of defending. I don’t think it will ever change, you are going to have to make tackles, you are going to have to win headers and you are going to have to put your body on the line.

“But being able to be confident and comfortable on the ball is important in the modern game.

“It’s always good if I can chip in with goals too, believe it or not I was actually a striker as a kid, and not many people know that.

“Being at Cambridge actually turned me into a centre-back. They signed me up after watching me play as a striker. I scored plenty of goals before I got my scholarship and then went through a spell where I didn’t score many.

“But at MK I really started to chip in with them again, and I’ve carried that into Swansea.

“The job will always be to defend, but if I can help the team with goals at the other end of the pitch, I absolutely want to.”

Darling proved that latter point about helping his team when he unexpectedly featured at right-back over the closing months of the season.

He admits the move came out of the blue, but it was one he was happy to embrace.

“Do you know what? I did enjoy it in the end,” he says with a smile.

“I’m not sure I had a real idea of what to expect from it, but in the end I really enjoyed it. It meant I was in the team and I was out there on the pitch, which is where I want to be, and I learned a lot from doing it.

“I know I can play there now if I am needed, and it’s given me a better understanding of another position.

“It did come out of the blue. It was for the Millwall away game, I had no real advance warning, no-one had told me it was a possibility.

“The team went up on the board and it felt like most of the room turned around to look at me to see how I would react. Your first thought is ‘what am I doing there?’ but I did end up enjoying it and I think it did me a lot of good.”

And what of the new season? Darling acknowledges it was a challenging start, but has been proud of the way the Swans have responded and bounced back.

“I think if you look at the games this season we have had spells in games where you have been able to see patterns coming out in our play and that has grown as the games have gone by” he said.

“Of course, we would have liked to have had a better start, we don’t want to lose and we certainly don’t like losing. It’s a horrible feeling.

“But everyone has stuck together, continued to work hard for each other, put our bodies on the line for each other and I think you can see that in this recent run of results.

"There's plenty more hard work ahead, but we have a real platform to build on."