It is fair to say that when Flynn Downes arrived at Swansea in the summer of 2021, he did not expect to find leaving the Welsh club only a year later so difficult.
“I was a bit cautious about going,” he says, before adding, sheepishly: “To be honest, I’d heard Swansea was a bit of a s***hole.”
Things, though, had turned sour at Ipswich, the club Downes joined aged seven, and his development was stalling after being packed off to train with the Under-23s by new manager Paul Cook, with whom he “just didn’t see eye-to-eye”. He needed a way out and found it, by crossing the country and then the Severn, too.
“It was the total opposite to what I’d expected,” Downes tells Standard Sport. “What a lovely place. The people were lovely, the club were so good.
I still can’t get over that I’m here, it’s mad.
“I loved it down there and, I’ll be honest, I wanted to stay. I’d gone from a year at Ipswich where I hated it to literally loving it, so I was all for staying. Then I came back for pre-season and from there I kind of knew I wasn’t going to…”
Long-time admirers Crystal Palace had made a bid and the Championship team had decided to sell. Downes, a year earlier exiled at a League One club, was now heading for the Premier League, but doing so with mixed emotions — until a late twist.
“I went to sleep thinking I was going to do a medical at Crystal Palace,” he says. “I woke up the next morning, went into Swansea, walked into the gaffer’s office and he was like: ‘Look, West Ham have been in contact’.”
Born and raised in Essex, Downes grew up a West Ham fan, his father embarking on the two-hour round trip from Brentwood to Ipswich three times a week for the sake of his son’s footballing dream, which has come full circle more swiftly than either could have imagined.
“It just feels surreal, really,” Downes says. “I still can’t get over that I’m here, it’s mad.”
It is difficult not to feel chuffed for the 23-year-old, a likeable, self-deprecating character. Of the fact that no player in England’s top four leagues had a higher pass-completion rate last season, for instance, he insists it “helps when all you do is go backwards and sideways”.
But beyond the jokes and the sense of wonderment, there is also a conviction that his dream move is the right one, sold by David Moyes’s vision for West Ham and the influence his new boss has had on players such as Jarrod Bowen, who made his England debut this summer.
“Don’t get me wrong, it’s my dream to play here but it’s my career and I’ve got to do what’s best for me,” he says. “If I came here and didn’t think it suited then I wouldn’t have come.”
Downes has already had a taste of international football, playing for England’s age-group sides alongside Jadon Sancho, Phil Foden, Mason Mount and Reece James while still a teenager at Ipswich.
“When you’re not at one of those big clubs you have an outside opinion of what it’s like,” he says. “That they’ll all think they’re the b******* and what not. But it wasn’t like that at all, everyone was good as gold.
“All I had to do was get the ball, give it to them, let them do their thing. It was lovely! But no, it was great to play with them, to see that level.”
These days, Downes needs only look across the dressing room to new team-mate Declan Rice to see the standard, describing the England regular as “an absolute joke”.
“Even in training, I just love training on his team,” he adds. “I’m just trying to learn from him. He’s on a different planet.”
International recognition at senior level remains a way off, but another European adventure could be just around the corner for the Hammers, who face Danish side Viborg tonight in the first leg of their Europa Conference League play-off.
“When I came in here and spoke to Dec, he said: ‘You wait until we get those European nights going’,” Downes says. “I can’t wait — it’ll be a dream come true to play European football.”
Much like just about everything else that has happened this summer.
