Having been part of an impressive Coventry City side for the last five years, many supporters will be familiar with new arrival Matty Godden. But there is one man at Charlton who knows the striker better than most – his former boss at Ebbsfleet United, Steve Brown.
When Brown first became aware of Godden, it came somewhat out of the blue.
“To be honest with you, I got a piece of paper one day from somebody that worked at Ebbsfleet saying, ‘look, Matty Godden has been in touch with me. He’s currently at Scunthorpe wants to come back down south. Would you be interested?’ And that’s the first time I heard about Matty. I did a little bit of digging, and he’d been out with an injury the season before.”
Godden’s desire to get back to full fitness provided Brown with an opportunity to bring in a player who had been playing at a much higher level previously.
“You take advantage of that as a manager, and you kind of overlook the season previously, because you think, ‘if I get him, he could make a massive difference to us as a team.’
“He was double keen to come down,” Brown continues. “When you speak to somebody personally, you get a good feel for what they are like as a human being and as a person.
“So, once we had a conversation, it was just a case of can we get the numbers where they need to be? Matty was extremely accommodating, because you’re talking about dropping three levels. He showed the desire, you know, in more ways than one to want to make the move.”
Brown vividly recalls his first training session with the striker. “We had our first training session of pre-season, and we go into our first football session. The first bit of movement from Matty up front, I just turned to Steve Gritt and I went, ‘what on earth is this kid doing at this level?’
“You know straight away that you’ve got a player that’s playing well below the level he should be at, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a huge risk for Matty, because if you come down to National League South from League One and it doesn’t work, then you’re stuck.
“You must tip your cap to anybody that’s willing to back their own skill and goalscoring ability to drop three levels, because if it doesn’t work, you’re never getting back into league football. So fair play to Matty for doing that, and he backed it up with a couple of cracking seasons.”
In particular, Brown was impressed with Godden’s ability to find space. “He had very good movement to get away from a defender, whether that be long to short, short to long, or losing a defender in the box.
“He’s not massively physical, so it’s not like he can bully a centre-half, but he uses his body well.”
But one of the Godden’s standout characteristics, according to Brown, is his professionalism and character. “He brings a quality as a person to the dressing room. You need the majority to be good, professional people and good human beings. Matty’s a really humble, quiet, unassuming guy, but when he hits the training ground, he’s got a real work ethic and a professionalism about him.”
Brown emphasises the importance of experienced players like Godden in shaping the future of younger teammates. “When you’ve got some young players coming through, and they conduct themselves in a manner that’s extremely professional, it can only do wonders for a manager in the dressing room.
“I’m pleased for him that he climbed back up the leagues because he’s the sort of guy that you want good things to happen to.”
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