Former Blackburn Rovers defender wishes he had signed for Chesterfield sooner

The experienced defender opted to sign a fresh deal at Championship side Blackburn Rovers before making the move to the Spireites in January on a free transfer. The 38-year-old lives locally so when the chance came to move back closer to home at the start of the year he was keen to grab it with both hands second time around.

McFadzean was a popular figure at Ewood Park after impressing last season but he only made one appearance in the league this campaign.

He said: “I should have probably signed here at the start of the season. It is probably one of the only decisions I have got wrong in my career. I am buzzing to be here. It is a really good club and really good people. I am loving it.”

The former Coventry City, Burton Albion, Crawley Town and Alfreton man signed a short-term contract and is one of several players who are trying to earn themselves an extended deal. “That is what I am driving for,” he continued. “We will see what happens.”

One of McFadzean’s big motivations to keep playing is so his young son can get to see him play live.

He explained: “He has never seen me play football, he watched me last week and my missus said he sat in front of the tele all the way through. He didn’t come today because he had an Easter egg hunt so hopefully he gets to see me play again.”

The centre-back showed his quality early on after signing but suffered a knee injury at the end of January. It was expected that he would be ruled out for the season but he put the hard graft in to return much quicker than expected and he has since started both games against Gillingham and Fleetwood Town.

"I would not say I am fully fit but I am ready to play,” he said. “I have been out for two-and-a-half months and I have played two games in a week so I am happy with that. May that continue. It was frustrating getting a knee injury in just my second game.”

Chesterfield beat Fleetwood 3-0 on Saturday. The victory keeps their play-off hopes alive as they sit four points off the top seven with four games remaining.

McFadzean explained: “We needed it. We have still got a slight chance of getting in the play-offs so we need to keep winning and hopefully people slip-up. We have got to take one game at a time, we have got to keep building, we have got to take care of ourselves and not worry about anybody else. If we don’t get a result then it doesn’t really matter does it? We will just concentrate on these last few games and hopefully we can get where we want to be. We want to carry on this season.”

After a goalless first-half, the Blues struck three times in the second 45 through Ryan Colclough, Ash Palmer and Paddy Madden.

He added: "They (Fleetwood) just sat back which many teams do here so we had to keep patient and play our game and hope that chances came and you saw in the second-half it opened up a little bit more and we got our chances and we took them. The manager just said to keep doing what you are doing and be patient because they will tire. We knew we would get chances eventually and we had to bide our time and keep playing our stuff.”