A SWINDON Town fan from Basingstoke was knocked out by a stray shot and missed seeing her nephew be the team’s mascot.

Sophie Lewis, 22, from Wagner Close, in Brighton Hill, was at Swindon Town’s match against Barnsley, at the County Ground, on Saturday with her partner Dean Sprules to cheer on seven-year-old Kieran.

Unfortunately, Sophie was hit on the head by a wayward shot from striker Jemaine Hylton in the pre-match warm-up.

“I was just popping out to find the loos before the game started and all I remember was walking along and then waking up on the floor crying. I was in so much pain when I came round I thought I’d been bottled,” said Sophie.

“It shook me up and I have a great big lump on the side of my head and another lump from where I hit a pole on the way down before landing on the concrete.”

Sophie, who was attending her first match, was taken for a check up at the stadium and missed the first half.

She was incredibly disappointed to miss Kieran’s moment of glory on the pitch with his Swindon Town heroes.

“The reason we went was because my other half is a huge Swindon Town fan and we both wanted to see Kieran’s happy face,” said Sophie, who managed to watch the second half of the game which Swindon won 2-0.

“The nurses and the doctor were great to me. They wanted me to stay with them for the whole game, but I could hear the chanting and the atmosphere sounded great so I wanted to get back out in the stand.”

Jermaine, 21, who signed for the Robins from non-league Redditch United, in January, tweeted Sophie after the match to apologise.

“I'm really sorry about hitting you with ball earlier, I felt awful,” he said.

“I'm gonna have to work on my shooting.”

Sophie said: “It was really nice that Jermaine Hylton messaged me on Twitter and apologised. Apparently he came over at the time too but I don’t remember that.”

Steve Hale, the club’s head of goalkeeping, also got in touch with Sophie on Twitter to offer Sophie free tickets to a forthcoming home match.

He said: “Contact me a couple of days before the next home game and I'll sort tickets for you and your nephew.”

Sophie thought it was a lovely gesture and will be taking the club up on their offer.

“It would be nice to go again and see a full game but I don’t want to sit anywhere near the goal next time.”