TWELVE months have passed since Richard Garcia packed up his belongings for a big move back home to the opposite side of the world.
In ending a five-year association with Hull City, the boy was finally taken from East Yorkshire. But not East Yorkshire from the boy.
While the Tigers fought for promotion to the Premier League three long weeks ago, Garcia was tracking every final-day move 12,000 miles away in Australia.
The joyous end result saw others following in those footsteps made famous five years before, and Garcia was only too happy to welcome new faces into the corridors of City's history.
"I'd been keeping a close eye on the team all season and I was worried they'd slipped up right at the end," said Garcia, from his family home in Perth this week.
"I'm sure they probably gave the whole fan-base a scare in those last few weeks.
"It was a crazy final day but all that matters is that they got there, so it's fantastic for the city, the club and the fans.
"You have to give Steve Bruce credit. He brought in a good mix of youth and experience.
"There was a good platform to build from there and not too much wrong, but to win automatic promotion out of the Championship is never easy. I was delighted for them."
Garcia's appreciation for his former club is clear and five years on the KC roller-coaster, including promotion to the Premier League in 2008, has left its mark.
Five of the Tigers' starting XI on that dramatic final day were former team-mates of Garcia and had fate been more of a friend, the 31-year-old could even have been part of the celebrations all over again.
Garcia was a casualty of last May's upheaval when following former boss Nick Barmby out of the back door, released on a free transfer a fortnight before Bruce's appointment.
That brought about a fresh start and a move to A-League side Melbourne Heart last summer, leaving the one-time City winger watching his former club from afar.
But absence has made the heart grow fonder.
"As much as I've enjoyed my football here, which has been good, I have missed it in England," added Garcia, who made 128 appearances for the Tigers between 2007 and 2012.
"I might be Australian but I was brought up in English football, with all that hustle and bustle.
"Over here you'll find the season finishes at the end of March and even then it's only 20 something games.
"In England it can be Saturday, Tuesday and Saturday a lot of the year and that was something I always used to enjoy."
A fresh start with Melbourne Heart took Garcia and his family back to the shores of his birth for the first sustained period since leaving to join West Ham as a 15-year-old in 1996.
The antipodean adventure has yielded mixed results. Although Garcia was the star of the show, crowned the Heart's Player of the Season with six goals in his 24 appearances, a disappointing campaign finished with his team second bottom of the A-League.
Directly above the Heart outside the A-League play-offs were Newcastle Jets, spearheaded by Emile Heskey and Michael Bridges, and Alessandro Del Peiro's Sydney FC. The competition was won last month by Central Coast Mariners, now home to former Sheffield United midfielder Nick Montgomery.
Garcia said: "It was a good season for me personally, but it wasn't the team's greatest year."
So how do the standards compare?
"The better teams over here would probably do well in the Championship, maybe mid-table, but the lesser teams in the A-League would probably be either around the bottom of the Championship or the top of League One," he said.
"The competition is developing and if you looked at the best XI's for each team I'm sure they could probably hold their own in the Championship.
"Beyond that it can be tough because of the size of the squads you have, and also the younger guys coming through can find it difficult. They're maybe a little bit too raw."
Garcia now finds himself at another cross-roads in his career. A one-year deal with Melbourne Heart is soon to expire and though negotiations over an extension are ongoing, he makes no secret of assessing all options.
A wish to climb back into the Australian national side is still at the centre of his ambitions. Although he played in the 2013 East Asian Cup before Christmas, he does not expect to be in the reckoning for the upcoming World Cup qualifiers.
It was with City that Garcia became the club's first representative at a World Cup finals in South Africa three years ago and he refuses to give up hope of going to Brazil next summer.
"At the moment I'm just looking at my options," he added.
"I'm waiting on a few things but that should probably become clearer in the next three weeks.
"I'm still in negotiations with Melbourne Heart and there's another couple of A-League teams as well.
"There's also options in the Middle East and in Asia.
"I've got to consider everything for the good of my career. Ideally I'd like to play in a league that runs all year round.
"To get the best out of yourself you need to be playing as much competitive football as possible and this might be my last chance to make a World Cup squad."
