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Ben Smith

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Beschreibung

BEN SMITH: PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALLER. Recognise the name? Of course you don't. That's because most of Smith's years in the game were spent outside the vaunted, big-money environs of the Premier League - and this sporting memoir is all the more entertaining as a result. 1995: an adolescent Ben arrives at the training ground of one of England's biggest clubs to begin his journey and realise his dream of playing top-flight professional football. Aged just sixteen, he shares pre-season sessions at Arsenal with the likes of Dennis Bergkamp and Ian Wright. Surely this is the start of a stellar career? Instead, the next seventeen years saw the bright young star descend the ranks from Highbury to obscurity. With seasons playing for the likes of Reading, Yeovil, Southend, Hereford, Shrewsbury and Weymouth - and a career including three promotions, one relegation and some very memorable FA Cup games - Ben's story is one of a quintessential journeyman footballer. Candidly describing the negotiations, insecurities, injuries, relocations, personal implications and wet Saturday afternoons playing in front of 500 people, Journeyman offers a unique insight into the unvarnished life of a lower-league player - so far removed from the stories of pampered Premiership stars - as well as documenting the many teammates, opponents, managers and coaches who left an indelible mark on Ben's eclectic career. Refreshingly unsentimental and often hilarious, Smith's story is essential reading for all true fans of the not-always-so-beautiful game.

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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

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I would like to dedicate this book to all the family and friends who supported me throughout my career, but particularly my mum and dad, who both sacrificed time and money to help me turn my young footballing dream into a reality.

I also reserve a special mention for my long-suffering girlfriend Emma, who patiently followed me around England for ten years. I have promised her that any profits made from this book will go towards a wedding. I think that is called a win–win situation!

Thanks also to James Barrett, who has been a great support to me throughout the writing and editing process, helping make my thoughts and emotions structured and coherent.

Lastly, thanks to all the people who said I was not good enough; some of you were right but you all gave me the inspiration to try to shove those words back down your throats.

I did not have the football career I dreamt of but, on reflection, seventeen years of making a living from something you enjoy is not bad…

CONTENTS

Title PageDedicationIntroductionChapter 1: The endChapter 2: The beginningChapter 3: In the big timeChapter 4: The decline beginsChapter 5: The decline gathers momentumChapter 6: A renaissance … of sortsChapter 7: A second chanceChapter 8: Back homeChapter 9: Hereford’s number eightChapter 10: We have lift-off!Chapter 11: Making the same mistakesChapter 12: Up the A49Chapter 13: A clash of stylesChapter 14: Re-building on the south coastChapter 15: Getting back to my bestChapter 16: Decisions, decisions…Chapter 17: Unfinished businessChapter 18: Finally getting somewhereChapter 19: A false dawnChapter 20: On the move againChapter 21: What have I done?Chapter 22: ‘Project Promotion’ (Part I)Chapter 23: ‘Who you playing Saturday?’Chapter 24: ‘Project Promotion’ (Part II)Chapter 25: One year too manyChapter 26: Last chanceChapter 27: Counting down the daysChapter 28: What might have beenIndexPlatesCopyright

INTRODUCTION

IHAVE ALWAYS been an avid reader and have read many footballers’ autobiographies. Unfortunately I have found a lot of them to be pretty bland and, more often than not, they do not really tell the public anything they do not already know.

I had a very modest career as a lower-league footballer and you could label me the proverbial ‘journeyman’ as I went from one modest footballing backwater to another, despite starting at the top. I thought my story was pretty unremarkable until, over the last year or so, I wrote a blog about my thoughts and experiences that was well received by the small group of people I interact with via social media.

As a result, I decided to write this candid book about my experiences within the football industry. People who know me well will already be aware that I find it hard to express my feelings openly, but I will use this book as a channel to give an honest and balanced view of my working life and the people I came across during a career punctuated with a few highs and many lows.

Here we go…

Ben Smith

Witham, Essex, 2012

CHAPTER 1

THE END

15 SEPTEMBER 2012

It is a late Sunday evening and I am, without wishing to sound too dramatic, at a crossroads in my life.

My professional football career is officially over.

I’ve known this has been coming because I have endured a drawn-out divorce from the game over the past twelve months. The 2011/12 season was personally an unmitigated disaster.

Last summer I signed a new one-year contract at Crawley Town after a successful season that saw the club crowned Conference Premier champions. Not only that, but we also set a new record for the highest ever points tally (105), plus added joint records for most consecutive games without defeat (thirty-one), fewest defeats over a season (three) and biggest goal difference (sixty-three). I had a good season and secured a £12-a-week pay rise – more about that extravagance later! – but deep down I knew maybe it was time to move on. Crawley had huge financial backing and it was clear the owners would invest heavily to strengthen the playing squad. As one of the elder statesmen within the team, I knew I was ripe for replacement.

As any professional sportsman will tell you, however, total faith in yourown ability is a pre-requisite and I was confident I could have remained a regular member of the first team if given a fair chance to do so.

Unfortunately that scenario did not happen, with some of the reasons down to me and some not … anyway, I digress.

I have always been pretty level-headed and appreciative of how fortunate I’ve been to earn my living from playing football, but the transition from footballer to ‘employee of the real world’ has proven to be more challenging than I could have ever imagined.

I have become a business and ICT teacher. This came about after I volunteered at a local school (the one I had attended as a youth) on my Wednesdays off throughout 2012. The aim of this was to simply gain some work experience. I was working with the school’s football academy because coaching is something I really fancy doing, but unfortunately there wasn’t a full-time role within the academy so I’ve taken this teaching job in the hope a sporting opportunity will come up in the future.

But I constantly feel like a fish out of water. I soon found out the Year 7 pupils know more about ICT than me and the sixth-form students look at me as if to say: ‘What does he know about business?’ They do not vocalise it but I can see it in their eyes – and they’re right.

This is a horrible situation to be in.

I am also used to being a well-respected member of football club dressing rooms whereas I am an ‘unknown quantity’ within the school staff room.

Another reason I took the job is because it’s local. The last thing I want to do is move house again after leading such a nomadic life to date.

I was offered three different roles within the football industry over the summer of 2012. Two were as a coach and one was as a manager. I rejected them all because I still had a burning desire to play and did not feel ready to make the move to the other side of the touchline. That seems pretty ironic now, though, as I could not feel more unprepared every time I stand at the front of my classroom.

But, being fair, my desire to continue playing has begun to dwindle as well. After being part of a club that had been promoted in consecutive years I thought I would be, if not inundated, then at least sought-after by semi-professional clubs.

But I was wrong and that was one of many mistakes I made over the summer.

Billericay Town wanted to pay me £160 per week – the same money it pays to twenty-year-olds who have played only a handful of non-League games at best. When I was twenty I was certainly not getting the wages of experienced professionals. Needless to say, I rejected that particular offer.

I’ve eventually ended up at AFC Sudbury, which means playing in the Ryman Division One North. By the end of last August we were already out of both the FA Cup and FA Trophy competitions. Being honest, I didn’t even realise these tournaments start so early in the season.

Sudbury is a nice club, however, and Chris Tracey (the manager) is a decent guy. I do not personally think he is cut out to be a manager, though: he’s put together a good squad of players for this level of football, but we’re a crap team.

Since I’ve joined I’ve played terribly. It’s strange. I thought playing at this level would be easy for someone of my experience, but I was wrong. I have always had to play with my brain to make up for my lack of pace, but I am not on the same wavelength as some of my teammates. At this level, the things I do well on the pitch can look bad when, for example, my colleagues make the opposite run to the pass I play.

Players also do not show for the ball as much and I end up pirouetting, looking around for options until I get dispossessed. Maybe I should just lump the ball down the pitch like everybody else, but my principles will not allow for that. I think people expect me to go on mazy runs but I’ve never been able to do that at any level.

I also find it hard to comprehend that in 2011 I was playing at OldTrafford, home to Manchester United, in front of 75,000 people, while just eighteen months later I’m playing – quite poorly – against the likes of Ilford and Heybridge Swifts.

It is amazing how quickly a career in football deteriorates. At this moment, I would be happy never to kick a ball again but I know, deep down, things will improve and that I cannot keep playing so badly.

Although it might not sound like it, I do feel I am one of the better-prepared players for the move into the ‘real world’. I have earned a degree (a 2:1 in business management), studied for my UEFA B coaching badge and FA Youth Modules 1 and 2, and have been learning Spanish for the past two years.

This all sounds fine on paper, yet none of it has prepared me for the emptiness I feel at the moment. People tell me things will get easier and I hope they are right. I would give anything to be able to have a few more years back in the safety of a dressing room with my teammates – somewhere I’ve always felt comfortable.

Another problem I have is I find the money I’m earning at Sudbury really useful. I will not be put on the breadline if I don’t get it, but I want to protect my savings. As a teacher I earn just over £21,000 a year, which is half what I earned in 2011 and only a quarter of what I was earning during my best days at Hereford United. This wage alone nowhere near covers my monthly expenses.

The £210 a week after tax that Sudbury pays me makes life a lot easier but, for the first time in a long while, I am not enjoying playing football. I feel like I’m stealing money off the club because my performances are so poor. I will be very surprised if I’m still playing for them by the time I finish writing this book. Some of my time on the pitch has been so inadequate that, at this rate, I will honestly be surprised if I see out this month.

CHAPTER 2

THE BEGINNING

22 SEPTEMBER 2012

I was right: Sudbury did not last. Chris Tracey rang me today and told me a tale of how the ‘chairman’ is going ‘mad’ about needing to cut the playing budget.

I believe that is just football talk and, roughly translated, means: ‘You have been playing rubbish and this is my way of passing the buck in an attempt to sugar-coat the decision to release you.’

Chris seemed apprehensive when he broke the news but he should not have worried because I felt more relieved than anything – I no longer have to toil through tedious matches. In every single game I played for Sudbury bar one, I paled into the landscape as just another mediocre player in a mediocre team in a mediocre league. Chris appreciated the grace with which I took the decision and I hold no grudges. Ultimately I did not perform and, if I’m honest, I just could not motivate myself to. It’s strange because I didn’t lose my motivation for training. I still enjoyed going to the gym and working hard but, when I pitched up on a Saturday, I just could not convince myself the game was important. There was no fear factor and no public humiliation if I had a stinker – whether I played well or not, my performancewould generally be forgotten by 5 p.m. and I certainly never got rated out of ten in a national newspaper.

It’s not surprising the gaffer has to trim down his playing staff. According to one of my former teammates, the playing budget is £1,600 per week – yet I believe the club is running at double that. I think this is the economic model used by many football clubs, unfortunately.

So I’ve decided I’m done with playing, unless something comes up in the higher echelons of part-time football. I fancy concentrating on coaching or maybe even trying my hand at scouting. I have always been pretty analytical regarding football, so I believe that role could suit me. I could call in a few favours to try to compensate for the loss of wages from football. Hopefully in a few years I will regard my conversation with Chris as a blessing. I’m confident my transition from playing to coaching or scouting will happen at some stage.

On the plus side, I just received my first pay packet from the school. I’m meant to clear around £1,400 a month but I’ve somehow been paid £2,375. Suffice to say, I’m not telling anyone, although with this sort of fiscal management it’s no wonder the government is effectively bankrupt!

Anyway let’s crack on with my story.

• • •

I AM GOING to start right from the beginning but, as I typically always find the bit about the player’s formative years in any autobiography quite boring, this will be short and to the point.

I was born and raised in Witham, Essex. It is a pretty unremarkable place. I do not mean that in a derogatory respect, but the best way I can describe it is that if you – or family or friends – do not live there, then you have no real reason to visit.

Witham started off as a small town 30 miles from east London, but in the 1960s it became an overspill town for Londoners who wanted to live in the country. My dad and mum were two such people, so Peter and Margaret Smith moved to Essex in the mid-1970s. I joined them on 23 November 1978 and my brother Joe completed our family at the start of 1981.

My upbringing was that of a typical suburban family. My dad worked as a London fireman (and as anything else he could find to make ends meet) while my mum looked after the house, my brother and me. Dad would regularly work a night shift at the fire station, do some kind of skilled labour the whole of the next day and then go back for another night shift.

I used to wonder why he would come home and sometimes snap at me when all I wanted was to talk or play games with him. Now I am working in a ‘proper’ job I really appreciate how tired he must have been, but the vast majority of times he would submit to my demands and stand in goal while I smashed footballs at him.

I have no real gripes about my upbringing. The only sad point I can think of was when we all struggled through a couple of years of stress because my mum and dad were wrestling with the decision of whether or not to split up. They tried to hide it from my brother and me, but the tension and frostiness were clear to everyone and made our house an uncomfortable environment for a while.

In fairness they were only doing it to try to keep the family together. In hindsight, and I have discussed this with both of them, it would have been in everyone’s interest to have two happy parents who lived apart than two miserable ones who were living together for their children’s sake. I do not think the former ever works but, in the mid-1990s, there was much more of a stigma around divorce than there is now.

My memories of my early years are quite vague but I remember not starting to play football until about the age of eight. That might not sound old but I know kids these days who start going to soccer schools and other such organisations as soon as they can walk.

My dad loves telling a story about us walking through our local park when I was five. He wanted to stand and watch a football match but, according to him, I said, ‘Daddy, I don’t want to stay here – football is boring!’

A couple of my friends always used to try to get me to go football training with them and I eventually succumbed aged eight and joined my first team – the Witham Nomads.

I do not remember being particularly good in those days, or even having any real passion for the game. But I continued with it and, as I got older, I became obsessed about practising. My dad had to regularly rebuild the wall outside our house as I used to continuously kick my ball against it.

I used to go over to the park with my pals pretty much every day after school to play ‘headers and volleys’. If nobody wanted to play I would go and practise ball-juggling non-stop. My record was once 10,000 touches without dropping the ball. When I go on different coaching courses I now realise that kind of exercise is the reason for my good touch. Those hours of repetition trained my brain to know exactly how hard or soft to hit the ball depending on where I wanted it to go.

I also have to thank my dad for the fact I can play with both feet. He used to spend hours making me kick the ball with my left foot and it got to the stage where the majority of people who watched me play thought I was left-footed. I also developed a pretty unique style of predominantly using the outside of my foot. I haven’t got a clue how I created this technique – it was not something I consciously worked on – but I always took it as a massive compliment when I read scouting reports saying that I could use both feet.

Within a year of joining Witham Nomads I moved on to Witham Youth Football Club and then Valley Green. Little did I know this was an early indication of the nomadic lifestyle I would lead nearly twenty years later – that first team name was very prophetic!

I played for Valley Green between the ages of nine and fourteen. Joining them was, I believe, the first piece of good fortune that contributed to my becoming a professional footballer.

Ryan Oates, still one of my best friends, played with me there, and his dad Gary was the manager – a man who had trodden the footballing path I wanted to follow.

Gary had been an apprentice and professional footballer at West Ham United. Unfortunately his career was curtailed by what nowadays would be a pretty insignificant injury – he had the cartilage from one of his knees removed. That sadly ended his professional career at the age of twenty.

I cannot remember if he was a brilliant coach but he was an excellent player whenever I watched him play for my dad’s Sunday team, or even when he joined in training with us youngsters. He was a cultured left-footed midfielder and maybe in hindsight this was where I developed my dominant left-sided style.

I am a big believer in the theory put forward by the likes of Matthew Syed, in his superb book Bounce, and Malcolm Gladwell, in his equally impressive Outliers. These authors argue that excellence is nurtured and not something we are born with. I believe being coached by Gary Oates was one of those strokes of luck they refer too. It put me in contact with someone who knew what was required to have any chance of succeeding in the professional game for the first time. This, in my opinion, gave me an advantage over any peer being coached by an enthusiastic but less experienced volunteer.

That Valley Green team was all-conquering. We won our league every season as well as the majority of the cup competitions. At the end of our first season we went into summer five-a-side tournaments and won all eight we entered. We had five or six really talented boys who made us a formidable side in that form of the game.

I enjoy looking back on those days playing for Valley Green. I used to look forward all week to training on a Saturday and games on a Sunday, although there is one tragic episode that will stay with everyone who was involved with the team forever.

We were playing an away game against Stony Stratford in the East Anglia Youth Cup. They were based in Milton Keynes so it was a long trip for us. When we arrived at the venue we went to inspect the pitch.

To get to the grass we had to walk across a couple of others that contained moveable goals. My memory tells me they were full-size goals, but I’m not sure eleven-year-olds could have touched the crossbar. Anyway, some of the lads did what boys tend to do and jumped up to hang from them. Again, my memory tells me there were at least three or four lads who successfully did this.

Their combined weight made the goal unstable and it toppled over, pinning them to the floor. Most of them were unharmed but Jonathan Smith was not so fortunate. The impact of the goal frame had broken his neck and he died almost instantly. My dad, being fully qualified in first aid, was on the scene at once and gave Jonathan mouth-to-mouth. He managed to resuscitate him on more than one occasion but he tragically couldn’t keep him alive.

This may sound strange to some of you but, as a youngster, you do not really understand the enormity of such a tragic accident. Young boys can be pretty resilient. It is only now that I reflect on the impact this must have had on the adults within our club. I know that my dad and Gary especially were hit really hard for a long time as they felt a responsibility to Jonathan. I can only imagine the pain his mum and dad, Peter and Brenda, went through – and no doubt still do to this day.

I remember the funeral being a hugely emotional day. The whole team was inconsolable as the magnitude of what happened became a reality. Jonathan was a huge West Ham fan and they were great with regard to the funeral – former Hammers midfielder Stuart Slater was in attendance.

That devastating incident aside, my days playing for Valley Green were brilliant. The success of our team meant we started to generate a lot of interest from professional clubs. By the age of nine I had been spotted by local professional club Colchester United. I trained with them for a year before then attracting interest from West Ham and Ipswich.

West Ham wanting to sign me was especially exciting as my dad had grown up in the area and been a lifelong fan. Obviously, with him supporting them, I had the dubious privilege of doing the same – I say ‘dubious’ because I seem to remember not having a great deal of choice in the matter!

Initially I trained at both clubs but, after a while, it became clear that I would have to make a decision. As much as we loved West Ham, my dad and I felt that the club had an approach of quantity over quality. At every training session there were twenty or thirty players in each age group. I felt like just another player – nothing special.

Ipswich was different; I felt really wanted and appreciated there. Even at the age of ten that was important. During my time at the club there were some players who went on to become stars in the Premier League. There was Kieron Dyer and defender Matthew Upson, who both trained in my age group, as well as goalkeeper Richard Wright, who was in the year above.

One incident involving Kieron Dyer really sticks in my mind. We were doing some kind of small-sided game and Kieron ran at me with the ball. He twisted me up to the point where I ended up on my backside before he went on to score a goal. The coach was kind enough to stop the session and get Kieron to re-enact the incident in slow motion, including putting me on my arse. It was embarrassing enough once, let alone twice!

After twelve months there I had another decision to make as Arsenal began showing interest in me. Steve Rowley, who is now the chief scout, started regularly attending our games and eventually he invited both Lee Boylan and me to train with them. I enjoyed it straight away, plus it felt a lot more selective – training sessions would often have fewer than ten players involved.

I was in a bit of a quandary. I was perfectly happy at Ipswich but this was the start of the 1990s. Arsenal had just won the First Division championship (now the Premier League) by beating Liverpool on a memorable night at Anfield. At the time they were arguably the biggest and best club in the country and they potentially wanted to sign me!

Signing young players was different in those days. You signed a ‘centre of excellence’ form for a year and the agreement was re-assessed at the end of every season until you got to fourteen, at which point you could sign a two-year contract called a ‘schoolboy’ form. This was the holy grail as it meant you were eligible for free football boots from the club, although slightly tempered by the fact Arsenal handed out very unfashionable Gola-branded boots to their schoolboys. I doubt this is still the case but it didn’t even bother me as Ian Bishop, my favourite West Ham player at the time, wore Gola.

I was just starting senior school when Arsenal wanted to sign me, so I was eleven years old. Ipswich did their best to persuade me to stay once they became aware of the interest. Tony Dable was the youth development officer at Ipswich back then and a nice man. He gave my dad and I the normal advice about Arsenal being a big club and how tough it would be to be a success there. Bearing in mind the future success of the Ipswich lads I mentioned earlier, maybe he was right. I definitely felt equal to those players at that time, but his advice fell on deaf ears and we came to the decision that I had to take this opportunity.

So that potent Valley Green squad stayed together until we all went our own separate ways to embark on the next part of our careers. I joined Arsenal while Lee Boylan, who was our star striker, went to West Ham. Gary’s son Ryan joined Ipswich and a couple of other lads played regularly for lower-league professional clubs.

I trained initially at Arsenal’s regional training centre in Grays, Essex. It was a small indoor ball court at Grays Athletic FC and, as I mentioned previously, it was a really select group. The sessions always involved players from my own age group (the under-12s) and the year above. This was the first time I came up against players I knew were better than me. One player, Lee Hodges, was especially brilliant.

Lee was one of the older players but he was head and shoulders above everyone. He reminded me of Gazza as he had such quick feet and was brilliant at dribbling with the ball. He finally left Arsenal and went to West Ham but never fully broke into the first team and eventually played in the lower divisions for the likes of Bristol Rovers and Scunthorpe United. I think his career was curtailed prematurely by a persistent knee injury, but Lee is the first example of many players you will read about in this book who, for whatever reason, did not go on to realise their full potential.

Joining Arsenal put me in contact with the next big influence on my career. My coach at Arsenal was a guy called Andy McDermid. He was superb – everything a player could want from a youth football coach. He was enthusiastic, energetic, outgoing and, most importantly, knowledgeable. Without a doubt he was one key person who helped mould the football philosophy I hold to this day.

As I recall those training sessions, I remember we did not do anything groundbreaking. Often we would only have six or eight players and we would just play knockout competitions in pairs with Andy in goal. But, whatever we were doing, there would always be a theme to the session and he would drop in pieces of advice and information. As there were so few players you got loads of contact time with the ball. The philosophy of small-sided 4v4 games that everyone preaches now is what we were doing twenty years ago.

I specifically remember learning what a third man run was and how to do it. We practised it for weeks on end until everyone got it. For the uninitiated, a third man run is when two players combine to then play a pass through to a third man making a late forward run, hence the name.

As much as I enjoyed Andy’s sessions, I also really liked him as a person. He was always teasing us and telling us about his own football career. Apparently he played in goal for England under-16s and he even brought an England cap to training once. I was never convinced it was his though as he was about 5 ft 7 and not a particularly good goalkeeper, but he was adamant. Whether it was true or not didn’t really matter as it inspired us to try to show him what good players we were.

After a couple of years at the Grays training centre I progressed to training at Arsenal’s old Highbury Stadium. The club used to have an indoor training facility under the old Clock End called the JVC Centre and I would go there a couple of times a week. I cannot remember who the coach was but I remember continuing to enjoy the training. Among the other players was one Frank Lampard.

At that time Frank was a decent player, but not someone who really stood out – and definitely not someone you’d have predicted to go on to have the wonderful career he had with Chelsea. However, even at that age he had a great attitude towards training. I think Arsenal knew that his loyalties were always with West Ham but they had a go at taking him on anyway.

So, at the ripe old age of fourteen I played solely for Arsenal and everything was going well. I always felt like one of the stronger players in my age group. By the time I came into my last year at secondary school I had been with the club for five years. I had been one of only a couple of players who had signed those precious schoolboy forms two years previously, so I was relatively confident I would be offered an apprenticeship. In those days an apprenticeship was through the YTS scheme and would last two years.

However, the one fly in the ointment was the strength of the players in the age group below. My team only had about seven regular players and, in hindsight, that was because the year below was so strong. There were about twenty players in the younger age group with some really talented boys. We would regularly play against them in school holidays and, more often than not, lose.

Arsenal eventually made a decision just after Christmas to offer me a contract. Leading up to that time I also received interest from Leyton Orient and Cambridge United. You may think that there was not a choice to be made there but I do often look back and wonder whether I made the right one. Yes, at Arsenal I would get the opportunity to train with world-class players and coaches and use top-level facilities but, realistically, would I ever get anywhere near the first team?

However, if I were to join Leyton Orient or Cambridge, I could quite realistically be in and around a first team within a year. If that happened, and I impressed when given the opportunity, then it may not have been long until another big club showed an interest in me.

On the flip side, I was also conscious of the fact that if it did not go well at one of the smaller clubs then where do you go from there? I would’ve had to rebuild my fledgling career in non-League football. Even if it didn’t work out at Arsenal, I was at least pretty confident I would get another opportunity lower down the League. Every coach knows a person has to be of a certain standard to have been at a club like Arsenal for the amount of time I had been there so they would, as a minimum, give me an opportunity to impress.

So, after about five seconds’ thought I put my fears aside and accepted Arsenal’s offer of an apprenticeship. I do not think you would have found many sixteen-year-old boys who would have passed up such an opportunity, and the kudos I received at school was enough justification (let alone all the other positives).

Signing the contract was my first of many career mistakes, however. I instantly decided that signing guaranteed me superstardom and riches beyond my wildest dreams and, as a result, there was no need to concentrate on my GCSEs, in my opinion. I just downed tools at school.

I still took all my exams and picked up some decent results (five A–Cs and five Ds) but I could and should have achieved so much more.

Not that this bothered me in the slightest at the time. In a display of arrogance I did not even go and pick up my results, confident in the misguided idea that I would never need them. I was busy preparing for the next chapter of my life and conquering the world of professional football. It did not quite go according to plan…

• • •

29 OCTOBER 2012

I have somehow managed to make it to half-term at the school. Teaching is so much harder than I imagined. That extra £1,000 in my last pay packet was a tax rebate, by the way – just another illustration of how far I have fallen financially.

Currently I am teaching ICT, maths, philosophy, citizenship, science and a little bit of football. It seems ironic to me that the one area in which I am an expert is the one in which I do the least.

I pretty much resigned last week. The headmaster asked me to a meeting and said he wanted to retain me after my one-term contract expired. He asked me how things were going and, as he’d caught me in between my worst couple of days, I told him exactly how I felt: ‘I’m teaching lots of stuff I know nothing about.’

He seemed to sympathise with me but I was warming to the theme, going on to say I did not think teaching was for me and that I wanted to resign as soon as possible.

As I have no other job lined up, was that a brave or stupid thing to say? Over the past month I had applied for five jobs and not been asked to even one interview! It seems, worryingly, that I am over-qualified for most of the positions I have been pursuing.

However, I’ve decided being unemployed is better than my current reality – I simply do not look forward to going into work. I know in my previous job I was lucky enough to get paid to indulge in my passion, but I also loved going in for training. There were plenty of times when things were not going well personally or professionally but as soon as I got onto the training pitch all those problems dissipated and I felt free. Working at the school is so different, probably because I am absolutely winging it. I’m frustrated that the school has got me in this position. How can they put someone who has never taught before, or had any formal training, in charge of a classroom? I used to think I was a resilient and focused person but now all I think about is quitting.

Having written that, I do think in the back of my mind I could actually become a good teacher within a year or two. The real question is: do I want to go through all this shit to get to that point?

I recently had one of my lessons observed by a senior member of staff who graded me on criteria set by teaching governing body Ofsted. You can be marked as either ‘outstanding’, ‘good’, ‘requires improvement’ or ‘inadequate’. I also looked for ‘crap’ but apparently that is not one of the options.

Anyway, I surprised myself by earning an overall ‘requires improvement’ grade with some elements of ‘good’ thrown in. The person who graded me said she was really impressed, considering I only had three weeks’ experience. I do like building relationships with the pupils too, which helps, although sometimes I probably blur the line between friend and teacher by engaging in some of the classroom banter.

A couple of days after that meeting with the headmaster I told him I would at least see out my contract and re-assess the situation nearer Christmas. I am sure I can do this now and, more importantly, be good at it. I just need to keep reminding myself to be patient.

Meanwhile, like an ageing journeyman heavyweight boxer, I have been lured out of football retirement for a few extra quid.

I was convinced, after being deemed surplus of requirements by AFC Sudbury, that I was hanging up my boots for good, so I made no attempt to find another club and was instead looking at coaching and scouting options. However, the reality is you have to work much harder doing either of those things to earn less than you would through playing, even if it is at a low standard in front of one man and his dog.

A couple of weeks into my ‘retirement’, Mark Stimson, the manager of Ryman Premier League side Thurrock FC, rang me and asked if I would come and play for him. He offered me £200 per week after tax plus £25 an appearance and £25 a win. Considering they were bottom of the League with one win all season I was not banking on the win bonus too much!

I was not in a position to turn down that sort of money from a manager I really respected. I’d spent a month on loan at Kettering Town with Mark in the 2011/12 season – the club itself was a shambles but I took to him straight away. He’s a brilliant coach who simplifies the game and paints pictures for his players in training sessions. We also share similar footballing philosophies, which is important when you become a stubborn senior player and are less likely to submit to managers who can be, especially at this level, less qualified than yourself.

Only two weeks into the arrangement, however, and I’m already struggling to motivate myself – so let’s see how long it lasts. I need to regain my full love for the game; there is still opportunity to earn good money playing in the lower leagues but I have got to want to do it. Money has never been my main motivation to play football, but it is at the moment – and it’s not enough.

CHAPTER 3

IN THE BIG TIME

SEASONS: 1995/96, 1996/97

CLUB: ARSENAL

DIVISION: PREMIER LEAGUE

MANAGER: PAT RICE (YOUTH TEAM)

WITHIN A MONTH of finishing my GCSEs in the summer of 1995 I was embarking on my first ever pre-season as a full-time player alongside David Donaldson, Lee Richardson, Jason Crowe and Mark Thorogood – all of whom had also signed two-year YTS contracts. It seems like another lifetime ago, but I can recollect some memories vividly.

The then assistant youth development officer Steve Rowley gave me a lift to my first day of training and I bounced into the training base at London Colney confident in my own mind that I was going to be a superstar.

My first day also coincided with the first for new manager Bruce Rioch. He had the unenviable task of taking over from the hugely successful George Graham, who had been relieved of his duties after being found guilty of receiving illegal bungs. I had grown up watching Graham’s team (youth players were given complimentary tickets to every home game) and although the style of football was not aesthetically pleasing, the team was superbly organised and built on strong foundations, with sprinkles of genius from the likes of Ian Wright, Paul Merson and Anders Limpar. But, being honest, Arsenal under Graham did not play my kind of football.

We were not the only new boys on that first day either. Arsenal had also signed two undeniable superstars who were massive heroes of mine: the mercurial Dennis Bergkamp from Inter Milan for £7.5 million and David Platt from Sampdoria for £4.75 million. I used to watch Bergkamp every Sunday afternoon on Channel 4’s coverage of Italian football and Platt was the sort of box-to-box attacking midfielder I had tried to base my game on.

I will let you judge who you think was the most successful of all these new signings arriving at London Colney that day, although what I will ask is this: did Bergkamp or Platt ever grace the hallowed turf at Hereford’s Edgar Street?

My youth-team manager was Pat Rice, the legendary ex-Arsenal right back. He was the ideal youth-team manager – a tough man who would come down on you like a ton of bricks if you stepped out of line but would also build up your confidence when he felt it necessary. I have never really feared authority and have always been pretty cheeky, which I think he quite liked, but he often gave me a bollocking when I crossed the line between being confident and gobby.

In those days at Arsenal, everyone (first team, reserves and youth-team players) trained together during the first week of pre-season. There were a total of sixty players. I remember this as I was number fifty-eight – I believe it was sorted out via alphabetical order, not ability!

We were then mixed up into several groups to work at one of the different stations spread around the training ground for thirty minutes at a time. These stations included a body weight circuit, the dreaded perimeter run (around the outskirts of the whole training ground), shorter shuttle runs and head tennis.

The late George ‘Geordie’ Armstrong was in charge of my group and, while I cannot remember everyone in it, I can recall defender Nigel Winterburn’s behaviour. We were doing some simple weaving in and out of poles but Nigel decided he would just run through them and clothesline them all like a WWE wrestler. I was stunned! All the senior players just laughed at him and Geordie did not say much. I bet he was pissed off though.

In those days, pre-season was not taken very seriously, especially for the first couple of weeks. A lot of players came back overweight so the first priority was to shift that excess via lots of running – not like it is nowadays where footballs are often incorporated on the first day.

Having said that, there were balls used for head tennis, of course. It is called ‘head’ tennis but you can use any part of your body to get the ball over the net. I had gone from playing ‘headers and volleys’ with my friends in the park to playing it with experienced Premier League and international players. Suffice to say I was a nervous wreck and my sole aim was to ensure I was not the one to make a mistake.

Paul Dickov, the fiery Scottish striker, was in my group and prided himself on his head tennis expertise. He could not care less if you were an established player or a spotty teenager – if you made a mistake he deemed preventable, he gave you both barrels. Luckily one of my strengths has always been my first touch so I managed to get through that unscathed.

On one of those early days my group had just completed its perimeter run and we were waiting for our turn on the head tennis court. Dennis Bergkamp was playing in the group ahead of us and produced a piece of skill that left me open-mouthed. The ball came over the net from about 10 metres in the air, but Bergkamp cushioned and caught it on his foot in one motion and then nonchalantly flicked it back over the net. Everyone went mad! It was amazing and my words probably do not do it justice. Even in those early days it was starting to dawn on me just how good you needed to be to make a career for yourself at the highest level.

The first few months were a real learning curve. My adolescent body was struggling to adapt to the rigours of full-time football and I had gone from being a top player in every team I had played in to being one of the weakest. Physically and mentally I was still a boy and I soon realised I had a massive challenge on my hands to make a career for myself at any level of professional football, let alone playing in the Premier League.

My home in rural Essex was geographically on the cusp of Arsenal’s clubrun accommodation boundary. As a result, they let me make my own choice and I decided I wanted to stay with my family and friends.

This was another mistake.

I should have moved to north London and immersed myself in trying to be a professional footballer. Instead I spent a lot of time on the train commuting to and from Highbury.

As an apprentice footballer in those days I was paid the princely sum of £29.50 per week in my first year. On top of that, the club also paid my dad £60 a week to look after me and they covered my travel costs too. As you can see, this was long before the pampered lifestyle of young scholars nowadays.

My week consisted of training Monday and Tuesday, attending college in King’s Cross on a Wednesday, more training Thursday and Friday and then a game on Saturday mornings. When the first team was playing at Highbury, our week would finish by watching them in the afternoon. However, these were only half of our responsibilities.

Every player was in charge of looking after three professional players’ match day and training boots. The players who had the dubious honour of me cleaning their boots were David Seaman (at that time the England national team goalkeeper), Ian Selley (who I thought was a brilliant central midfield player before his top-level career was ended prematurely by injury) and Matthew Rose (a young professional who went on to have a good career with the likes of Queens Park Rangers). The best memory I have of Rose is that he had a very attractive girlfriend!

Now I say it was a dubious honour mainly because I took no pride in cleaning my own boots, let alone anyone else’s (even if they were a current England international!). I have been criticised throughout my career for having dreadfully dirty boots – often having it cited as a lack of professionalism. However, I like to argue that my boots were always dirty because I loved football so much and was always using them.

To make matters worse, Seaman was very particular about the preparation of his boots. He insisted the Nike logo on each one be painted with a well-known paper correction fluid and that there be no black polish on the logo at all. Now this probably does not sound too taxing but you have to factor in that I am not artistically gifted. Seaman was thankfully one of the more laid-back professionals, however, and would show any displeasure with a loud, deep laugh, accompanied by a headlock. We mutually parted ways early in the New Year of my first season and his boots were passed on to another apprentice who took more pride in his responsibilities. However, this still gave Seaman the opportunity to illustrate his displeasure with me via his Christmas tip.

At Arsenal there was a tradition where you had to sing a Christmas carol to the whole playing staff in order to get your tip – no song equalled no money. As I am sure you can imagine, this was a pretty daunting prospect for anyone, let alone a seventeen-year-old fresh out of school.

Legend has it that when Ray Parlour was an apprentice he sang ‘Little Donkey’ to Tony Adams. The defender allegedly showed what he thought of the song by chasing Ray around the training ground – but I never found out whether he caught him or not!

I got the Cliff Richard classic ‘Mistletoe and Wine’ to murder – and that I did. I am one of those unfortunate people who is tone death but thinks they sound good until they witness the quizzical look on the face of any onlookers, who often cannot tell if I’m being serious or taking the piss. I can’t even compensate with some eye-catching dance moves as they are arguably just as embarrassing.

So the first team and reserve players would be watching and baying for blood with buckets of freezing water, saliva and God knows what else. If you were good the players would sing along until you finished and you’d escape a soaking. If you were terrible you would get booed off and covered in whatever inhabited those buckets. Needless to say, I suffered the latter.

Now, if I knew the size of the tip coming my way from England’s No. 1 I do not think I would have bothered at all. I could not believe it when he handed over £50 … £50?! A conservative estimate would say he must have been on £10,000 a week. Probably more. We have established that I was not the best boot boy in the world, but surely he could have given me a couple of hundred quid. Other apprentices were getting bundles of £50 notes, new boots and as much sports clothing as they could carry. Maybe he was teaching me an early lesson?

Selley gave me £30, which, considering he liked to clean his own boots, was acceptable, although still a little tight in my opinion. Rose gave me £25 – another paltry amount…

On top of boot-cleaning, we apprentices also had other duties to carry out. Chores included taking all the training kit from Highbury to the training ground, preparing all the equipment for said sessions, packing the players’ boots for away games, cleaning Highbury before and after games and keeping the youth-team bus clean.

I remember early in my apprenticeship, we had packed the kit and boots for an away youth-team game, arrived at the venue and started to unpack the huge metal skips, and realised one of them seemed really light. Turned out it was empty. The lads on duty that day had picked up the wrong skip and left the kit at home. Laurence, the youth-team kit man, went apoplectic. The lads responsible got a right bollocking. As it was nothing to do with me I found it hilarious, although I’m not sure those sentiments were shared by those involved!

Highbury would always have to be cleaned on a Thursday before a Saturday home game and, on such days, I would leave home at 7 a.m. and not get back until 9 p.m. – not exactly what I had signed up for. I soon realised that a lot of apprentices are taken on as glorified cleaners. Back then I believe a lot of clubs, especially lower down the leagues, recruited enough players to play in their youth team and carry out all menial jobs, knowing full well that the vast majority of them had absolutely no chance of making any type of career in football.

That first year as a full-time footballer was a huge learning curve. I could not break into the youth team in my favoured position of central midfield but, due to the fact I was comfortable with both feet, I managed to nail down a place on the left. My performances in the first half of that 1995/96 season were very up and down, though, as I struggled to find any real consistency.

I either played really well and would be one of the best players on the pitch or play horrendously and be the worst. Unsurprisingly, the latter resulted in me being on the wrong end of Pat Rice’s hairdryer treatment on more than one occasion. This was the first time I had been on the end of such aggression and I was not too sure how to handle it. You have to quickly realise that it is not personal and that at some stage of the season everyone gets a kick up the backside. I just managed to get more than most.

My most memorable dressing-down came when we played an FA Youth Cup match at Highbury against Wimbledon. Leading up to the game I had been struggling with a hip problem. It was not enough to stop me playing but it was causing me discomfort. The coaching staff was undecided about whether I should play or not, but I insisted I was fit and they took my word for it. In hindsight, I definitely should not have played as the game was a complete disaster, but it was my first opportunity to play in such an iconic arena and the best ground I had played at before then was Colchester United’s Layer Road in an under-10 cup final for Valley Green.

We were totally outplayed in the first half and were getting comfortably beaten by half-time. I had been at the club long enough to know that a rollicking was coming our way and that there was every opportunity I would be one of its recipients.

I was not disappointed. Rice initially went mental at everyone and then I had the misfortune of catching his eye. He exploded, saying how I had let him down as I clearly was not fit.

He was pretty much foaming at the mouth and saliva was going everywhere as he launched into the finale of his dressing-down, which involved him thumping his fist on the treatment table in front of me. He did it with such ferocity that his watch broke and fell onto the floor. Even in my petrified state I had to suppress the laughter swelling inside me. He did not find it amusing and it was the end of my participation in that game.

It always made me chuckle when I used to hear Arsenal fans on radio phone-in shows saying there seemed to be nobody on the coaching staff giving out criticism when the team was underperforming. Pat Rice, who spent sixteen years as first-team assistant manager until the end of the 2011/12 season, would have had no hesitation in letting his thoughts be known – believe me!

At that age, such setbacks had a detrimental effect on me. After that game, my form suffered for quite a while, which did not go unnoticed by some of my teammates. Generally in football there is very little sympathy handed out and this case was no different. Players would come out with comments such as, ‘Where were you Saturday?’ or ‘Shock, you gave the ball away again.’ Sometimes it would be under their breath but always loud enough for me to hear. In the long term it spurred me on to improve, but in the short term it made life tough. I remember sometimes during that first year, especially in the early days, dreading going into training.

The situation was not helped by the fact I also had to handle the embarrassment of getting subbed before half-time in a youth-team game once. It was after that game that I first learnt managers will sometimes be conservative with the truth.

Thanks to the ever unpredictable British Rail I had missed training on the Friday before the match. The ritual in the youth team on a Friday was to do functional work, which consisted of working on the formation we were going to play, trying some set-piece situations and finishing with a small-sided game. I had missed all this.

The next day I threw in one of my worst performances and was dragged off after about twenty-five minutes. I thought I was going to get another dressing-down, but Pat must’ve realised how low my morale was and made up some cock-and-bull story about me not knowing the formation we were playing. We were playing 4–4–2, which, even at the age of seventeen, I had played hundreds of times before. I suppose it was his way of protecting me, but I was intelligent enough to know the real reason.

However, as the season wore on, my confidence both on and off the pitch did begin to grow. I started to feel at home with my teammates and slowly won the respect of the group. I had found a niche for myself in the team on the left side of midfield and began to add some consistency to my play.

Bruce Rioch seemed to take a liking to me as well. He was a regular at youth-team games when the first team was playing at home. One particular game, I cannot remember the opposition, he seemed to take a real interest in my performance. It may just have been that I was playing on the side of the pitch where he was standing, but he was giving me lots of advice that I attempted to take on board.

I was amazed the manager knew my name, let alone took any interest in my performance, but it gave me a lot of confidence and I felt I was making progress.

I had always been technically gifted with a football and, even in the youth team at Arsenal, I knew I was one of the better in the group when in possession. In those days I thought that being good with the ball was enough, so, unfortunately, I did no extra fitness work and would regularly cheat when doing the bodyweight circuits. Pat Rice would refer to me as ‘Fatty Arbuckle’ – he said it in jest but it was a dig and I knew it. In those days one of my heroes was Paul Gascoigne and, in my mind, I thought that if Gazza could get away with being a little chubby then so could I. Obviously I was wrong. My diet was terrible too, but I do not blame the club for that. My education on such matters was and always is my responsibility.

Putting my physical deficiencies aside, I was definitely making progress – although I was acutely aware of the strength of the age group below who were due to be first-year apprentices in the 1996/97 season. A lot of the names will not be as recognisable to you as they should be, but the likes of Andrew Douglas, David Livermore, Julian Gray, Tommy Black, Greg Lincoln and Paolo Vernazza had the ability to become mainstays in Arsenal’s first team. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say those boys could and should have had the same impact as the famous Man United class of ’92. To be fair, the likes of David Livermore and Julian Gray went on to have good careers, but that batch as a whole underachieved.