Exeter City were big winners from bizarre Swansea City, Brighton deal despite free transfer | OneFootball

Ryan Harley's transfer to Swansea City from Exeter City in 2011 was controversial but, despite heading to Brighton months later, he soon returned home

Ryan Harley's transfer to Swansea City in January 2011 has to go down as one of the weirdest moves of the Paul Tisdale era.

The mercurial playmaker was sensational for Exeter City in their rise from non-league to League One from 2007 to 2011, and it was no surprise he eventually left the club on an upward trajectory.

Except, well, he didn't exactly leave. Not at first, anyway.

Harley was in the last few months of his contract at St James Park and was part of Paul Tisdale's big gamble to forgo financial stability through selling his best players to take a shot at the play-offs in the third tier.

The Grecians ultimately fell short of that and paid the price with relegation back to League Two in the 2011/12 season. It would be a decade before Matt Taylor's side would eventually gain promotion.

But, back to Harley's 2011 move, and the whole saga was bizarre from start to finish.

Ryan Harley never played for Swansea

The midfielder was approaching the end of his contract and, on the 21st of January, it was announced that he was joining Championship side Swansea for free but would be loaned back to the Grecians until the end of the season.

There was much disagreement among the fanbase at the time, with some saying he should have been sold properly, and that the club should have taken what money they could get, while others thought keeping him until the end of the season was the right thing to do.

After all, Harley had been a pivotal part of City's side for four years, scoring 25 goals in 97 appearances before officially heading to south Wales.

However, he would go on to make zero appearances for the Swans despite signing a three-and-a-half year contract.

The problem for the Bristol-born playmaker was that in the summer of 2011 the Swans gained promotion to the Premier League and whatever plans they had for him suddenly changed.

Harley's Brighton move didn't work out

So that summer, he joined Brighton for an undisclosed fee, just months after City had rejected a cash offer from the Seagulls for him.

"I was on the verge of coming here in January and maybe I should have done that," Harley said at the time.

"The manager at Swansea [Brendan Rodgers] had his team set early on in pre-season.

"I didn't want to wait around for a chance that might take a while to come. I'm keen to play."

While Harley was fantastic for the Grecians he was never Premier League quality, but at least he did get some games for his new club in the second tier, though he was hardly a regular.

In total, he made 21 appearances for the now established Premier League side, scoring two goals along the way.

That frustration with not playing saw him loaned out to MK Dons before he joined Swindon Town permanently in 2013, with both moves having fairly limited success.

But the love story was finally complete in the November of 2014 when Harley returned home to St James Park on loan with a view to joining permanently in January 2015.

Harley's career has gone full circle

While he struggled to make a major impact at the four clubs in-between leaving Exeter, Tisdale liked to build his teams around the red-haired attacking midfielder and he, again, flourished back in the south west.

He'd make a further 112 league appearances for the Grecians in the following two-and-a-half years, scoring 18 goals along the way.

All in all Harley made 262 appearances in all competitions for City, netting 50 times and setting up 38. Not bad for a player plucked from Weston-super-Mare in the Conference South.

He did sully the water a little by following Paul Tisdale to MK Dons after the manager and club's acrimonious split in the summer of 2018, but Harley had given City fans enough great memories along the way that it's pretty much been forgiven and forgotten.

Among his City highlights included that goal against Torquay United, back-to-back promotions, scoring against Huddersfield Town on the final day to keep City in League One in 2010, as well as a famous brace in the rain at home to Leeds United, a double down at Home Park and some vital play-off goals as well.

Harley finally found his way home to Exeter, but he's trod a path away from the club since retiring and did a great job as Luke Williams' assistant at Notts County as they found their way back into the EFL.

When Williams left County, Harley went with him to - guess where - Swansea City. It's a funny old game.