At first, John Marquis did not really warm to the idea of moving to Doncaster. “I was umming and ahhing, I wasn’t sure,” he says. “But my agent kept saying: ‘Just go up and have a chat, see what they’ve got to say’.”
That was nearly three years ago and it is no exaggeration to say he is now fully immersed in a club which has transformed his life and career. “I love it here. It just shows you’ve got to keep your mind open,” says the free-scoring No 9, of whom Crystal Palace would be wise to be wary during Sunday’s FA Cup fifth-round tie at the Keepmoat Stadium. “Darren Ferguson was the manager back then. As soon as I left the room after meeting him, I knew I wanted to join Doncaster. I’m really settled here now, so I’ve got a lot to thank Darren for.”
Although Marquis spent the previous seven years as a Millwall player, nine loan moves took the south Londoner from Staines to Northampton and a few places in between. He craved stability, routine and familiarity.
When Grant McCann replaced Ferguson last summer the striker felt a stab of fear that a return to the open road might beckon but instead the 26-year-old has scored 22 goals this season and hopes to propel Doncaster into the League One playoffs.
“I’ve clicked really well with Grant,” he says, leaning back in his chair in a corner of a large, otherwise deserted function room at the Keepmoat. “When you’ve had a really good relationship with a manager and he leaves you do worry but I’m scoring more goals, we’re challenging for promotion and this club’s in the fifth round for the first time in 63 years.
“I’ve taken to Doncaster very well. It was a fresh challenge for me, on and off the pitch. I wanted to get away from where I was living and just concentrate properly on football. I had loads of friends in south London and I was going out socialising a lot but I decided I wanted to get the best out of myself.”
If a somewhat quieter South Yorkshire lifestyle with his wife and their one-year-old daughter marks a step change from that past, Marquis’s game has evolved considerably since his goals guided Ferguson’s Doncaster to promotion from League Two.
“Grant’s changed the way we play a little bit, I’m normally up front on my own now with two wide men and I’ve kicked on again,” he says. “Grant’s simplified my game, he’s made it easier for me to concentrate on getting goals rather than all the other bits I was doing before.
“At times last season I’d maybe drop too deep to find the ball and I wasn’t an outlet for the team. I was maybe working too hard in ineffective areas and ending up being wasteful. Grant’s told me to concentrate on the areas where I can affect the game most, to keep making runs behind defenders, where they don’t like it.”
Marquis may lack a little pace but McCann cannot stop praising his movement, not to mention the sort of edge honed in a hard school at the Den. Possibly the only thing that fazes him are wasps. “At Millwall you’re taught to be tough-skinned from a young age,” says the striker, who is so severely allergic to stings he has to carry an EpiPen at all times. “It was banged into me from a very young age that things wouldn’t be perfect, that there’d be ups and downs.
“I learned a lot from Millwall’s senior players; they treated everyone the same and you had to gain their respect. It was quite daunting and quite tough but it, and the loans, matured me. There’s a lot of financial pressure on lower-division players. People need to pay the mortgage, so every game means something. I learned that you can’t take a day off.”
The young Marquis diversified, briefly, into modelling, promoting Rio Ferdinand’s clothing range. “I did a couple of shoots, hats, T-shirts, stuff like that. It was fun, a good experience and I still speak to Rio now and then but it’s behind me now, I prefer being on the pitch.”
Off it, he follows in the footsteps of his hero, Alan Shearer, by indulging a penchant for practical jokes. “I suppose I’ve always been a bit of a class clown,” he reflects. “I just want to make sure everyone’s having fun, having a giggle. I don’t want to give too much away but my jokes involve cars, clothes, jumping out at people from hiding places, that sort of stuff.
“Some people take it better than others, some can laugh it off, some get a bit upset. But it’s all in a good spirit, no one gets hurt and it’s very good for team morale.”
On January’s transfer deadline day Sunderland offered £2m for Marquis but the response was unequivocal: “Grant was absolutely adamant I wasn’t for sale, for any price. That was fine by me.”
That left him to look forward to Doncaster’s biggest FA Cup tie since 1956. “I’ve got a few Palace-supporting friends coming up but I won’t be waving at them,” he says. “We’ll probably need to be at our best and Palace to have an off-day but, especially with no replay, anything can happen.”