Swansea City academy graduate Kit Margetson has completed a move to Manchester United, a significant step in a career that has seen him tipped for the top at both club and international level. The 20-year-old goalkeeper, who never made a senior appearance for the Swans, spent last season on loan at Cymru Premier side Connah's Quay, where his performances attracted attention from Premier League scouts.
A move that began with a tip-off
The transfer was first hinted at publicly in March, when Mark Allen, a former Manchester City teammate of Kit's father Martyn, mentioned during S4C's coverage of Connah's Quay's defeat to The New Saints that a Manchester United scout was watching the young goalkeeper. Allen, who was at the match, said: "He's competent in what he's doing. He's growing up, and every time I see him play, he's growing up in front of me."
At the time, the claim was not widely taken seriously, including by some insiders at Swansea. However, just a few months later, Margetson is preparing for a new chapter at Old Trafford.
Training in the back garden
Margetson's development was heavily influenced by his father, Martyn, who served as a goalkeeper coach with Swansea's senior side and has held similar roles with Wales and England. During the Covid lockdown, when Kit was 13, the pair trained together daily in the back garden, focusing on longer-range kicking.
"Me and Kit have had some major run-ins," Martyn laughs. "But I knew goalkeeping was going to come full circle. I knew it in lockdown. Goalkeepers were going to be needed to be able to play the ball third line, not just, you know, tippy-tappy stuff playing out from your six-yard box."
Lockdown also coincided with a growth spurt for Kit, who now stands at 6ft 4in. "He came down one day in lockdown and I looked at him and I thought, 'Bloody hell'," Martyn recalled. "There's a bit of science behind it because a lot of kids in that lockdown period, because they were sleeping for so long - you didn't have to wake them up to go to school, for example. A lot of them shot up in lockdown, and Kit was one of them."
Last season, Swansea's goalkeepers Lawrence Vigouroux, Andy Fisher, and Paul Farman were also a huge part of Kit's development, as he trained with the first team daily before going to Connah's Quay to play.
The spell that changed everything
Margetson's loan at Connah's Quay proved pivotal. Head coach John Disney, a friend of Kit's older brother Ben, was impressed from the start. "The first thing that impressed me massively was his distribution with his feet," Disney said. "He was unbelievable. He can play short, he can play long, which is a dying art, I think, in goalkeepers now, especially the younger ones."
Disney also noted Kit's character: "When he first came into the building, obviously he was coming from a Championship club into a part-time Welsh club, but his respect for everyone around the place was impeccable, and that's probably credit to him and his family."
Disney added that he never expected the move to Manchester United: "I always trusted Kit and always knew that we could get something out of him. I never thought it would ever end up in a move to Manchester United, I'll be honest with you!"
The Wales call-up
Margetson has also caught the eye of Wales. He received his first call-up to the under-21s in September and won his first cap under Matty Jones in a 2-0 win over Belarus in March. Goalkeeper coach Alex Ramsay has been impressed by his attitude: "There's obviously no doubt that he has a high level of technical ability both in possession and from a goalkeeping perspective," he said. "But what really stood out to me is the way he carried himself as a character."
Craig Bellamy, the Wales manager, has also been monitoring Kit's progress, having brought him into an EFL training camp earlier in the summer. "You learn a lot and you get a lot as well," Bellamy said at the time. "We've selected one or two we would like to see in certain areas that we're going to need in the next few years. It's been really good to get to see them and you always leave these type of weeks with a lot of optimism for the future."
A future Wales number one?
With current Wales goalkeepers Karl Darlow and Danny Ward aged 35 and 33 respectively, the next generation of goalkeeping talent is a topic of interest. Martyn believes his son fits the bill for Bellamy's style: "Craig has certain principles for what his goalkeepers have to be. They have to be able to handle football with their feet, and Kit certainly fits that bill."
Martyn suggests a loan move may be on the cards, with Premier League 2 and the UEFA Youth League also providing valuable experience. Disney, meanwhile, has no doubt Kit can reach the top: "I think he's got the full dynamic of what a footballer or goalkeeper needs to be a part of a Premier League squad," he said. "But as I said to my owner back in June of last year, I do think Kit Margetson will play for Wales, and he will be Wales' number one someday."
