Cameron Dawson: Man with the scars healing his Rotherham United wounds of last season

Actually, they're the scars of battle, unwittingly inflicted by the studs of a teammate in the heat of a League One contest last term as the pair defended the Millers' net.

The goalkeeper thinks back to the late-April moment at home to Mansfield Town when the lunging Hakeem Odoffin caught him high and ended his season two weeks early.

“Yeah, that was a long night in Rotherham Hospital,” he ruefully grins. “I wouldn't recommend it.”

The 30-year-old had just found favour under new manager Matt Hamshaw after sharing the jersey with Dillon Phillips while the man who signed him, Steve Evans, was in charge.

He's been hoping for a lot more than 21 outings and a bit-part role when he rejected a contract offer to remain with Sheffield Wednesday and decided to seek more game time the division below across the Parkway.

Odoffin inadvertently tearing several inches of his flesh summed up his debut year at AESSEAL New York Stadium.

The 2025/26 campaign is turning out to be somewhat different. Dawson is the club's undisputed number one and when he starts at Reading on Saturday he will have already matched his 2024/25 number of appearances.

“I think that any goalkeeper you ever speak to will want to know that they're playing, they'll want to have that consistency and that feeling like they're the man who's going to win points for the team,” he says.

“That's what I've had this season and, yeah, I'm just loving being a part of it and, week on week, grinding out games and performances. Hopefully, we can keep climbing up that table.”

Hamshaw has been more than content with the man he inherited between the sticks, describing the shot-stopper's contribution on and off the pitch as “fantastic”.

As for the player himself …

“Yeah, I've been pretty happy – pretty steady, pretty solid,” he says. “Obviously, we had a tough start to the season. Goals went in the net. Goals are going to go in the net. It's incredibly tough when the team's struggling.

“But I felt pretty steady throughout all of that, there were definitely no ups or downs from me. It was about staying very level and just working on the job at hand. That's what I try to do, that's what I'll try to do going forward.

“You don't see the best goalkeepers in the world make save on save week on week. You'll naturally have games where you're busier and you make those saves and sometimes you'll have a game where you don't feel you've done a lot wrong but you've walked away with a 2-0 defeat or something like that.

“That's just the nature of the job. Thankfully, now I'm at an age and a level of experience where I can sort of process everything and move on pretty quickly.”

We're chatting at Roundwood on a Thursday afternoon and Dawson is still in his shorts as he slips into the interview room after training – hence why Odoffin's double-strand signature is on show.

He's a regular attendee – always good company, always articulate, always interesting enough to provide a headline. The media like it when it's his name on the weekly list.

Rotherham have turned their season around. Once, they were 23rd in the table as Hamshaw's reset was held up by injuries and other factors. Today, they're 11th and seeking to go higher, despite the casualty count rising to eye-watering levels again.

Northampton away – a 2-1 Millers victory and a first win on their travels – signified the start of the upturn, and the keeper had sensed it was coming.

“Yeah, I think the corner came a bit before that, if I'm honest,” he says. “We started to feel like we were getting somewhere.

“Momentum's massive in football. When you're in a bit of a rut, it's tough and you need to get yourselves out of it. Then, when you do, the confidence comes back. Suddenly, you can see the light, and the performances and results start coming. We want to ride that momentum and see how far we can go.”

After the Northampton clash, captain Joe Rafferty – a notoriously passionate figure in the dressing room – raised eyebrows when he insinuated that the players hadn't given up on making the top six.

Dawson is too wily to follow suit yet is cautiously optimistic about what is beginning to build.

“It's not like Raf to get wound up after a game!” he smiles. “I'll go down a slightly different route and not put a play-off tag on us just yet.

“But we believe in the quality of players we've got, we believe in what we can do and what the coaches and managers are trying to get us to do. Hopefully, if we keep winning games, in another month or two, we can sort of put ourselves in that picture.”

Four clean sheets in the last five third-tier fixtures show that the keeper is playing his part.

We stop for a second to admire Odoffin's footwork. The cuts had been so deep that they'd gone down to the bone.

The physical scars will always remain. But Dawson is doing a good job of making sure the emotional ones of last season are gone forever.