WES Foderingham will never forget the pain that Roy Hodgson inflicted when making it clear there was no future for him at his first senior club, Fulham.
It is a pain that continues to drive him to this day, feeding his ambition to leave a far more positive impression upon his former manager now he is in charge of the England national side.
Foderingham made no bones about the fact he hopes to be playing Champions League football at Rangers within the period covered by the three-year deal he signed on Friday.
If that wasn't quite ambitious enough, his desire to earn inter- national recognition has been made equally clear. The 24-year-old Londoner will never forget the day five years ago when Hodgson told him he was not ready to make the grade at Craven Cottage, but that has not blunted his desire to earn the right to a reunion with him at a much higher level in the not-too-distant future.
"Roy had a chat with me and then I had a final chat with Mike Kelly, who was the goalkeeping coach," recalled Foderingham. "Every manager has to make their choices and I have no bad words to say about Roy.
"He explained that there was Mark Schwarzer and Pascal Zuberbuhler in front of me with David Stockdale coming up as well. He just said: 'Look, you are going to get no chance of football here. You will just be here for the training, so the right thing to do is to go and get some football'.
"Obviously, I was gutted. You lose a bit of confidence. That is why you see a lot of young people fall out of the game. It is just a case of how you bounce back from the disappointment, but it was a bit of a mental struggle for me. It is hard to take when you are at that age and have been playing at youth level for England. Everything is going well and, suddenly, a door gets slammed in your face.
"There are only a select few who will come straight out of youth team football and go straight into the Premier League, though. The transition is massive and most boys have to go out to the lower leagues.
"You can never give up on England, though. You have always got to aspire to be the best you can be and that is the top level. I don't know what level I can get to. I don't know just how much potential there is left in me. I have to work hard and see where that takes me."
Foderingham's career has already taken him to some unusual places. Fulham farmed him out to Conference side Bromley and he went back there after being picked up by Crystal Palace. Boreham Wood and Histon would also feature on his magical mystery tour of non-league football before a loan spell at Swindon Town led to a permanent transfer in 2012.
"The main thing for a young goalkeeper is to play games, get the mistakes out of your system," Foderingham said. "I played 60-odd non-league matches before I had even played a game for Swindon and that stood me in good stead.
"Histon were already relegated when I went there. It was an experience, but it is all character building. You are not going to get much protection down there but, listen, every young keeper needs a bit of toughening up.
"I want to be playing at big clubs in front of 40,000, so seeing the facilities here at Rangers is pleasing because it shows I have progressed. Back there, I would have been playing in front of a few hundred people, training on 3G twice a week. I was still contracted to Palace, though, so I wasn't washing my own strip.
"I am happy how I have done. In addition to those non-league games, I have played just shy of 200 Football League games, which is a lot of football for a 24-year-old. I have been lucky to have that experience.
"I have played in front of one man and his dog, so I know what it is like to be down there and steadily make your way back up."
He is also looking towards a former Celtic player as a source of inspiration. Fraser Forster had been regarded as surplus to requirements when he left Newcastle United to move permanently to the east end of Glasgow after two seasons of loan deals.
Within two years, Forster had starred in the Champions League against Barcelona, earned a £10-million transfer to Southampton and travelled to the World Cup finals as part of the England squad.
"I am at a similar age to him when he came up to the SPL," said Foderingham. "He found his way, had some fantastic seasons up here and rightfully got into the England squad. He has done fantastically well."
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