Regular followers of Fulham’s Development squad will no doubt be familiar with Wayne Brown. Over the past few season, the central midfielder was consistently impressing for Billy McKinlay’s side, getting more than his fair share of goals from midfield along with a healthy number of assists.
Earlier this year, Brown was offered the chance to experience a taste of continental football with a loan move to Finland’s TPS Turku. Having already made his Fulham debut at Old Trafford, the midfielder was eager to get more competitive experience under his belt.
The move ultimately proved to be a huge success, Brown scored on his debut and went on to become a firm favourite with the TPS fans - ending the season with an impressive nine goals and eight assists.
He also collected a number of awards including the Veikkausliiga’s Player of the Year, the Rookie of the Year, the League’s Midfielder of the Year, he earned a place in the All-Star team, won the Finnish Fair Play award and collected an award for putting in the most Man of the Match performances over the course of the season.
Looking back on his move, Brown was in no doubt that he benefited from his time in Finland.
“It’s helped me in a lot of ways to be honest, but the biggest improvement has been my confidence,” he said “That was the thing I noticed more clearly, and something that playing in front of up to 10,000 supporters will do for you.
“Scoring a few goals helped too, as did just playing competitively on a regular basis. It also helped me to mature as a person. I was living on my own and away from my family for the first time, so I had no choice but to stand on my own in the real world. It was just a great experience.
“I was delighted with the amount of goals I managed to score and I also chipped in with a number of assists too which was good. And that’s what I base my game on, scoring and making goals so looking at it like that it’s been very rewarding.
“It was great to score on my debut because it showed the club and the fans what I was all about. The goal that stands out for me though was an injury-time winning penalty against Tampere United with my brother in the crowd.”
Now back at Fulham, Brown is looking break the First Team squad and add to his Whites appearance tally.
“Once you play that first game, all you want to do is add to that,” he said. “I would love to establish myself in Roy Hodgson’s First Team plans because I’ve grown up at this Club, since I was 14 in fact. I made a big step up last season and the aim has to be to improve on that.”
Read more about Wayne’s story in issue 30 of Fultime magazine, in the Club Shop now.
