Charlie Austin: Swindon re-sign ex-Burnley, QPR, Southampton & West Brom striker
- Published
Charlie Austin has scored 157 league goals in English football with his five clubs
Swindon Town have re-signed striker Charlie Austin on a free transfer.
The 33-year-old ex-Burnley, Queens Park Rangers, Southampton & West Bromwich Albion goal poacher has returned to the County Ground almost 12 years after leaving the Robins for Turf Moor.
Since leaving QPR for a second time at the end of the 2021-22 season, Austin has been playing down under with Robbie Fowler's former club Brisbane Roar.
But he agreed a mutual termination of his contract earlier this month.
That leaves him free to make the move from the Australian A League back to Wiltshire, subject both to English Football League approval and international clearance - and for now he has agreed a deal to the end of the season.
'I'm a different person to 12 years ago'
Austin told BBC Wiltshire: "It's a new chapter for me. I'm a different person to the one they signed all those years ago.
"When I first came through the doors, I was like a rabbit in the headlights but I'm now a lot more experienced. I've been fortunate enough to have travelled, to have seen the world, seen the game and come up against some of the word's best players."
Scott Lindsey's Swindon are currently fifth in League Two, five points shy of an automatic promotion place - and Austin will be returning to English football at a level two tiers below the one he left, despite reportedly receiving better offers higher up the league pyramid.
"I did have other offers elsewhere," he said. "But this is the one where I wanted to be. And, when I spoke to the chairman, I quickly realised we were singing off the same page.
"He told me the direction which the club want to go in, to get back to, and I want to be a part of it.
"I still live locally, even though I have just come back from the other side of the world. And I'm just delighted to be back. Not many people get the chance to come back to where they started."
Charlie Austin helped take Swindon to the League One play-off final in 2010, when they were beaten by Millwall at Wembley
Austin's goal stats
Austin has scored 157 league goals in English football with his five clubs.
He started off with 32 in 56 appearances for Swindon, to earn him the first of his four seven-figure moves, becoming Eddie Howe's first signing for Burnley, for £1m in January 2011.
Austin, who had also been a target for Howe at Bournemouth, scored 41 times in 82 games in two seasons with Burnley before moving on to QPR when he was signed by Harry Redknapp for £4m in 2013.
Austin scored 48 goals in 89 appearances in three seaons for the R's, helping the club reach the Premier League via the play-offs in 2014, as well as netting 18 goals in the top flight the following season when they were relegated back to the Championship.
He was then signed by Ronald Koeman in 2016 for Southampton, scoring 20 times in three seasons in all competitions, when he was used mainly from the bench.
The same happened when he was signed by Slaven Bilic at West Brom and Mark Warburton when he returned to QPR. But the goals continued to flow, a combined 23 more at Championship level, before weighing in with two from seven starts in Australia.