This is why Euan Murray joined Hartlepool United - after leaving Kilmarnock as a champion

Those were the words of Scottish Championship champions Kilmarnock when defender Euan Murray announced his departure from the club in the summer, with the 28-year-old soon after joining Paul Hartley’s rebuild at Hartlepool United.

For Pools, this was a significant signing early in the transfer window.

With Gary Liddle confirming his emotional exit from the club, and last year's young player of the season, Timi Odusina, at a stand-off with his contract negotiations, before an eventual exit to Bradford City, Murray represented something of a necessity for Pools.

But from the outside, the decision from Murray to swap a crack at the Scottish Premiership with Kilmarnock for a relatively unknown project at the Suit Direct Stadium, given the turnover of players required, might have seemed a little odd.

And that decision may seem a little more strange when you consider how settled Murray was in Scotland.

Outside of a year spent in the National League, split between Barrow and Southport, Murray has resided his career north of the border with the likes of Motherwell, Stenhousemuir, Raith Rovers and Dunfermline before his time with Killie.

Murray skippered Dunfermline during a two-year spell before he became Tommy Wright’s first summer signing at Kilmarnock 12 months ago.

It was a move which suited Murray down to the ground. He lived, as he describes, ‘around the corner’ from Rugby Park and was very much a ‘local boy done good’ story.

Murray was a mainstay in the heart of defence for Killie during the first half of the season, taking on the captaincy in the process.

But his position as one of the first names on the team sheet changed with the arrival of former Aberdeen boss Derek McInnes in early January.

Having featured for the full 90 minutes in 17 of Kilmarnock’s opening 19 championship fixtures, the defender would complete the full game just five times in the league post-January.

Conversations were held with McInnes over the summer about where Murray fit in, as Killie moved back into the top flight in Scotland, with the defender assured over where he would stand.

But at 28, Murray believed it was the right time to challenge himself, revealing he likes to step outside of his comfort zone, with Pools, under Hartley, an appealing proposition to him.

“It was a big decision for me,” Murray admits.

“When I look at it, you can almost think I had everything going for me in the sense that we’d won the league with Kilmarnock. I literally stayed two minutes round the corner from the stadium and things were rosy because of the way the season had finished.

“But the opportunity came up and, in terms of myself at Kilmarnock, I wasn’t exactly sure how things were planned for the season going ahead in the Premier League.

“I felt as though I was at a stage in my career where I had to go and play, and also kick on as well, but I had to weigh it up.

“Don’t get me wrong, I had conversations with the manager at Kilmarnock, and there was a good chance I would play most weeks in the Premier League in Scotland, which is obviously a top league, so it was more the opportunity to come down here.

"I knew that part of coming down here you do get that change, but I would never say that I was bored there. I’ve got a lot of respect to the leagues in Scotland.

“But I felt at my age, with my attributes and strengths, I could come down here and hopefully kick on again.

“It was a bit of a different challenge [in Scotland],” he added.

“I was almost the local boy in the team at Kilmarnock. I didn’t want people to think that of me. I wanted to almost prove myself again and I've always been someone who's willing to step outside my comfort zone and coming down here was definitely doing that.

“But I also knew coming down here was coming down to a really good manager, and a really good coach with Gordon Young, who I talked to before, and I think over the course of the season we’ll definitely see that.”

Despite his game time tailing off slightly towards the end of the season, Murray still played an integral part in helping Kilmarnock back to the top flight in Scotland.

He was part of a winning mentality and culture at Rugby Park and, although the start to the season with Pools has been indifferent, it is something he is keen to bring to the Suit Direct Stadium.

“The morale is good to be fair. It’s not easy for any team to have, I don’t know how many new signings we’ve had now, and a new coaching staff,” says Murray.

“I was at a team last year who won a league and we were thrown together at the start of the season, so it can be done.

“I think the frustrating side of things for supporters, or folk looking from the outside, is that it doesn’t click straight away.

“I don’t think you can ever get 15 or 16 players and then roll onto the park and play like Man City. We'd all love that, but it’s one of these things. There has to be a certain amount of realism in the sense that we are a new group, it is a new staff, it is a new way of playing.

“But I think it is starting to show. I felt like the home game against Wimbledon really showed the way the manager wants to play and, to be fair, I felt on the day we were unlucky not to win.”

Having been acclimatised to winning at Kilmarnock, the shock of two 4-0 defeats on the road with Pools at Walsall and Blackburn Rovers might have been a bruising wake-up call for Murray.

But the defender believes the response has been good, with the key being to learn from those performances going forward as a new-look Pools continue to gel under Hartley.

“You go into every game wanting to win, and I feel the same kind of pain the supporters will feel watching that,” Murray said of those defeats.

“You just need to take it for what it is. You can't accept it, but also we need to learn from it.

“It’s quite a young team, and a lot of boys chucked together over a short space of time, and these things, you don't want to say they can happen, but, ultimately, they can.

“It’s as long as we learn from our mistakes. That's the biggest thing. We can’t repeat and repeat. It’s about being a bit more streetwise and a bit more savvy, even if you’re up against it, just to pull ourselves in for 10-15 minutes and ride the storm.

“It’s learning as a group. Obviously it's different from last season for me, but every club you go to is a different challenge.

“But in terms of morale, it is a really good group of boys.

“I enjoy coming into my work every day and the boys are really buying into what the gaffer and Youngy are trying to do.”