DEPARTING captain Nathan Thompson believes that the League One play-off final in 2015 summed his career at Swindon Town.

Having battled so hard to come back from a hamstring injury at the end of the 2014-15 campaign, to have the pride of leading his team out at Wembley will live with him forever.

However, what will also never be forgotten is the pain that he felt five minutes into the match against Preston North End as the old war wound flared up.

“That game just epitomised my time at Swindon,” Thompson told the Advertiser. “It was the most incredible feeling leading the team out in front of 60,000 fans at Wembley.

“Being captain of a club and playing at the home of football – there are not many players who can say that they have achieved that.

“Then five minutes later you are being stretchered off the pitch and you lose 4-0. That game in itself had everything.

“It was gut-wrenching; I remember being sat on my sofa that evening when in your head you had envisaged walking up those steps and lifting the trophy.

“All those positive images that you had in your head, but in reality you are sat on the sofa, icing my leg because I tore a hamstring and we lost 4-0.

“It was extremely difficult to accept and it took a long time to get over that.

“All the tests we had done came back clear, there was no signs that the injury would breakdown again.”

Thompson, who joined Portsmouth on a free transfer on Thursday, made his professional debut for Town in 2010 as he came off the bench to replace Scott Cuthbert in a Johnstone’s Paint Trophy match against Torquay.

The then 19-year-old would go on to make 167 appearances for the club he joined as a 12-year-old before being made captain in March 2014.

While Thompson will look back at his time with Swindon with pride, he admits that there was an air of reluctance to his pro debut.

“I remember Scott Cuthbert going down, it was a JPT game against Torquay, with a head injury,” the 26-year-old recalled.

“I was told to get warm, I remember my belly just flipping; if I’m truthfully honest I was a little bit reluctant.

“When I came on the pitch it was, when I look back and reflect on it, it was an incredible achievement.

“When you are only given limited opportunities, that first impression you are looking to give the manager and the fans is so important.

“You are desperate to put in a performance that you can be proud of.

“I remember running around, I was spent after 10 minutes because I was running around like a headless chicken just trying to impress.

JP McGovern popped up on Facebook after the game and he said ‘Nath, you should be very, very proud of yourself, you did really, really well.’ “That meant a lot coming from him considering what he achieved in his career.

“At that point I knew I wanted more of it.”