With a smile, Toby Steward reflects back to his early days of football and trying his best to hold the line from his preferred position of left-back.
Even the man himself was big enough to quickly come to the realisation that playing outfield was not going to pay the bills long-term.
So when an opportunity arose to take his place between the posts, he grabbed the chance with both hands. And he’s never looked back.
Toby laughed: “When I was a kid, my dad got me into football. Sunday league stuff. I used to play outfield and was a left-back.
“I was terrible and probably only played in the team because my dad was a coach. I was definitely not good enough to make a career out of playing left-back.
“One day the ‘keeper got injured and I went in because I was tall. It went pretty well and, from there, I got into it more.
“I ended up getting scouted at training I was going to and then got a trial with Portsmouth. I haven’t really looked back since.”
Toby has enjoyed his journey at Pompey and, in more recent years, has picked up valuable loan experience at Crawley and at English non-league level.
“I was nine or 10 when I first went to Portsmouth,” he explained. “It has been a really nice journey so far. There are of course ups and downs, even times when I wasn’t the best in the team and was maybe close to getting released.
“But I have always had people who believed in me and I have worked really hard to get the rewards from it. You definitely need a strong mentality to be a goalkeeper. Every goalkeeper can make nice saves but it is also about your mentality, your confidence and how you react to mistakes.
“You always celebrate at the end of the game if you get the result you want, but then, immediately, attention turns to next week.
“You can’t dwell on the saves that you have made. You need to remain level-headed all of the time.”
Toby has picked up plenty of minutes with us here at Saints and he has enjoyed getting involved with the community and the city – as have his parents Wendy and Gary!
He said: “It has been class overall. The city actually reminds me a little of Portsmouth. It’s a very football-minded city.
“I’ve met so many people who support the club and Perth is just a great place in general. I’ve shown my parents around and do a lot with my flat-mate Louis (Lloyd).
“There are a lot of friendly people up here and everyone at the club makes it a really nice place to be.”
He continued: “My mum and dad love it too. They follow me everywhere and love coming up to McDiarmid Park to meet new people.
“The Saints support is really friendly with them as well – and that makes them want to come up here even more.”
Toby is sponsored by Elaine Robertson and Fraser Donnachie.
