As well as belonging to the strong contingent of Australians to have represented Swindon, alongside Daniele Invincibile and Massimo Luongo, he is also remembered for one sumptuous strike against Barnet. His only league goal for the club, but it doesn’t get an awful lot better.

But before he was banging them in at the County Ground, he was growing up in a small town on the Gold Coast, bucking the trend by enjoying football.

“Believe it or not, my old man played football,” he said. “He started off in rugby league, and then he had a few English and Scottish mates that came over, and they got him into football, and it sort of just flowed from there. I lived in a country town in Coffs Harbour, so it was like a surfer town. Football was definitely probably about the fifth or sixth sport that we played, but it was something that I just loved and did. An ideal childhood day was going fishing, going surfing, and playing football.

“They were my everyday activities, and then eventually moved to one of the big cities, Sydney, and then went to Brisbane, and then sort of was playing senior football at 15 years old. So, I got identified pretty early, and then started making my journey over to the UK and went over a few times.”

Coming through at the Queensland Academy of Sport, Brownlie was quickly making waves on the pitch at Brisbane Strikers, Brisbane Lions, and a host of other teams, before making it with Brisbane Roar.

Then, in 2006, he was presented with the opportunity to fulfil a lifelong dream of moving to England to play football. Not only that, but to play for two childhood idols in Dennis Wise and Gus Poyet.

“I was doing really well in Australia,” he said. “One of my agents knew the guys at Swindon and said, ‘Yeah, come over and have a look.’ Wisey was there, and I think I played four or five games and scored a few fair few goals. Wisey said, ‘Yeah, you fit the bill,’ and I came on board.

“We went to Ibiza as part of the preseason, and we won the preseason tournament over there. That was definitely an eye-opener and a fun time to be a part of the team. That was actually a really good trip for team bonding; the weather was really good, and we trained at altitude, and when we trained, it was quite intense. We would train in the mornings, get absolutely flogged, go for a swim and recover, and then play games in the evenings on astroturf.

“We had rules of having to be in at a certain time, but we still got to go around and have some free time, and then on the last night, Gus and Wisey encouraged us all to stay out and they packed our bags for us on the last night. That was a good time had by all.”

Andy Monkhouse was one of the players Brownlie connected with at Swindon Town (Image: Adver Archive)

Having impressed on that trip, and making fast friends with Curtis Weston, Andy Monkhouse, and Jack Smith, Brownlie was soon snapped up. Despite being a man with two young children and a third on the way on the other side of the world, there was not much of a decision to be made.

“It was probably my stubbornness,” he said. “But moving to England to play was always something that I wanted to do. I wanted to settle and play in the UK, even having a small family. Luckily, my wife was like, ‘This has always been a dream of yours,’ so the whole family jumped on a plan to be with me. They knew my heart was set on it. We actually loved Swindon, I know that opinions differ, but we loved it.”

With Brownlie generally an option from the bench, Town embarked on the second-best start in club history, winning their opening six matches of the League Two season.

Wise and Poyet were quickly establishing themselves alongside Swindon’s previous famous ex-players making their way in management.

Dennis Wise was a childhood idol for Royce Brownlie (Image: Adver Archive)

For the young Australian, it was a dream playing under them, and the team quickly fell into line with their high standards.

“Having Gus and Dennis as managers was amazing,” he said. “They were idols of mine. I was sitting in Australia watching them as I grew up. Their standards and their ability to not just tell you, but show you, were on another level. Gus was a technician; he could do anything and more with the football, and then Wisey would run with the fastest in the team in a kilometre run and then run with the slowest and just push you. Between the two of them, they were the perfect puzzle. And then throw in Paul Ince when he came down, that experience was tremendous.

“I remember we drew a game 1-1 and Dennis came in and kick bottles and lost his marbles. He turned around and, with a smile on his face, said, ‘I am so annoyed, purely because you played so well.’ We used to call him the smiling assassin, because even when he was angry, he had a smile on his face.

“The one thing that we had was that we were a squad. Every single one of us was fighting for a position every week, but it was all in good spirits. If you lost your position to one of the boys, you were all waiting for that next opportunity.”

When handed the opportunity to thrive, Brownlie took it. Introduced with 11 minutes to play of the first home game of the season and Swindon level with Barnet, the game needed a moment of inspiration.

After an initial corner in the final minute was headed out, Christian Roberts kept the ball in on the far side and laid it back to Brownlie 30 yards from goal.

“I definitely connected with that really well,” he said. “It has stayed in the memory bank. It is one of those things when you block everything out, all the noise, and just hit it. As you lift your head, you realise that you’ve hit it better than you thought and you can see it rocketing into the back of the net. It was an absolutely sensational feeling, but the crowd was amazing. I remember when we first went on the pitch, they had the Uruguayan flag for Gus, and that whole day was just pretty special.”

Brownlie was a regular contributor under Wise, but when he left in late October, things changed for him. Paul Sturrock arrived and brought with him a number of his own players, and there was no longer a role for him. A loan to Chester City followed, but the English dream was at its end.

Paul Sturrock brought about the end of Brownlie's time at Swindon Town (Image: Adver Archive)

“Them leaving definitely halted my time at Swindon, purely because in my contract,” he said. “If I played one more game, then I got a renewal. He just said, ‘Unfortunately, I am not going to give you that one game.’ That is where my time came to an end, and if Gus and Dennis were still there, then I probably could have stayed longer, and I would have loved that. But that’s football.

“The loan was difficult, because I was travelling a lot, and Rylan had just been born at that time, so going back and forth from Swindon to Chester, playing, training, and being with the family was tough. So when I got an offer to come back to the A-League, having three children under the age of three, we decided it probably suited the family better.”

Reflecting on his time at Swindon all these years later, alongside ‘The Royce Rocket’ against Barnet, it was actually a red card against Brentford in the League Cup which stands out.

“Getting my first red card was another interesting one. I was clapping the crowd, and the referee was a bit of an idiot, and I got a red card for inciting a riot. I have never heard of that before.”