New Cheltenham Town signing Johnny Mullins has a pretty impressive footballing CV and he’s hoping there are a few more pages to add yet.

And if there are – and there’s no reason to think there won’t be – don’t be surprised if he actually writes them himself because the 32-year-old has a degree in professional sports writing and broadcasting.

Moving into the media is something Mullins is very interested in when he eventually hangs up his boots and it’s something you can imagine he’d be very good at because – in the nicest possible way – he’s a very good talker.

“I’ve been involved in football since I was six,” he said. “It’s my life.”

And while he easy to talk to he’s also a very good footballer as three promotions to League One and more than 500 games would testify.

The central defender has signed a two-year contract with Cheltenham and would like nothing more than to make it a fab four as far as winning promotion is concerned.

“I’ve been fortunate to win promotion with Rotherham, Oxford and Luton,” said Mullins, “and I’ve come to Cheltenham to be successful again.

“If you get the right group of players and I think we have, and you get the right manager and I think we have, then you have every chance.

“We’ll need to start well but I hope to be successful here.”

Mullins is on the small side for a central defender – he’s 5ft 11in – but he’s been a succession of managers’ regular pick in the position for the past decade.

“I started off in central midfield and then moved to right-back,” explained Mullins. “I’ve been a central defender for the past 10 years. I enjoy the position, it’s a challenge.”

So what sort of player is he?

“I like to play out from the back if I can but first and foremost I’m a defender,” he said. “I like to keep clean sheets. Defending is my priority and I love clean sheets.”

He also likes scoring goals.

“Yes I do,” he said. “I like to get forward at set-pieces and cause some damage. I like to create havoc if I can, get my head on the ball or volley it.”

He’s scored over 30 goals in his career – including a couple against Cheltenham – which works out at about three a season.

That’s not a bad effort for someone in his position and while Mullins is justifiably proud of the number of games he has played over the years he feels there are a good many more to come.

“I feel really good,” he said. “I don’t want to put a cap on the number of games I want to play, I just want to keep on playing for as long as I can.”

The Londoner had an excellent football upbringing, being part of the academies at both Arsenal and Chelsea before moving on to Reading and then Kidderminster, for whom he made his debut in 2004/05.

The married father of two young girls lives in Kidderminster and says the commute to Cheltenham is “a walk in the park” compared to the previous two seasons when he was with Luton.

“I’m really pleased to be here,” he said, “everybody has been very welcoming. They are a good club.”

Indeed they are and Mullins, who likes to play golf, would dearly love to perform well enough to earn himself another contract in two years’ time.

Appropriately enough for an enthusiastic golfer, his record suggests that he doesn’t produce many below-par displays on a football field, something that may not be quite so true about his golf.

So what does Mullins the golfer play off?

“Optimistically I’d say 14, but on a bad day anything upwards of 55,” he laughed.

The journalist in him – he got his degree at Staffordshire University in 2008 – would probably say about his golf that ‘he could do better!’.

That’s not the case with his football though as Cheltenham Town fans will surely see for themselves this season.