Some years ago as I was leaving the office I walked past a chap sitting in reception, a salesman with an open briefcase poring over catalogues with a colleague. He looked up distractedly but with a natural geniality and a familiarity that I couldn’t immediately place. It was only later that my colleague confirmed that he was listening to a sales pitch for industrial footwear from my childhood hero Brian Clarke.
It’s impossible to contemplate any circumstances beyond extreme financial impropriety or cursed bad luck in which any member of The Bluebirds’ current squad would need to consider a second career to see them through to retirement. This isn’t necessarily a good thing.
The transition to life outside the cosseted world of professional football has been a struggle for some. There have been many high profile falls from grace - household names like Paul Gascoigne, Stan Colleymore and Diego Maradona, cut adrift, lacking focus, beset by mental health problems and pilloried by an unsympathetic small-minded popular press. It’s sobering to read that there are currently almost 150 ex-professional footballers in prison, some 120 of them held for drugs offences.
Education prior to and during players’ short career is the principal factor in determining positive outcomes. Clubs have addressed this over recent years and many players have adapted, reclaimed their place in society and made a significant contribution.
I read recently that Everton and Wales midfield playmaker Barry Horne, a former chairman of the PFA and some time BBC Wales pundit hosts a chat show on Merseyside’s Radio City and has a column in the Liverpool Echo. And following his graduation from the University of Liverpool with a first class degree in Chemistry he also holds down a full time job as chemistry and physics teacher at Kings in Chester which has appointed him director of football at a school where they clearly take sport very seriously.
Pretty impressive, but few ex-players are ever likely to match the achievements of George Weah. Spotted by Arsene Wenger when a teenager, Weah signed for Monaco for £12,000. His distinguished career culminated with the Ballon D’or in 1995; he was also awarded the extravagantly titled ‘African Player of the Century’. On retirement he became a UN goodwill ambassador, produced a music CD to support programmes for African children and returned to Liberia to persuade former child soldiers to surrender their weapons. Completing his education in the US he obtained his Masters Degree before running successfully for President of Liberia in 2015.
Weah and Horne may be exceptions but it’s surprising how few ex-pros remain in the game. Through the wonders of the interweb via pinchofsalt.org and pulltheotheroneitsgotbellson.com I’ve been able to track down a number of interesting post-footie careers, some inspiring, some hum-drum, others quite frankly baffling. And not all verifiable.
- Peter Beardsley. The former England midfielder retired from the game with lowly Hartlepool and become the face of Armitage Shanks sanitary hardware bathroom solutions.
- Ken Monkou. The Chelsea and Southampton defender bought a pancake shop in his home town of Delft in the Netherlands.
- Phillipe Albert runs a fruit and veg business in Belgium.
- Ramon Vega. Never the most popular of players during his four years at White Hart Lane, Vega is a now a very successful merchant banker, which many Spurs fans see as deeply ironic (see Cockney rhyming slang).
- Lee Bowyer runs a carp fishing lake in rural France.
- Julian Dicks. The Former West Ham defensive enforcer retrained as a pedicurist and runs a chain of salons called ‘Hard As Nails’. Julian also has a City and Guilds Level 2 certificate in wax depilation.
- Frank Lebouef is an actor, best known for his appearance in Oscar-winning ‘The Theory of Everything’ as the doctor who informed the young Stephen Hawking that he’d never walk again. He has also acted on stage in several plays in France.
- Taribo West. The lime-green corn-crowed Nigerian is a pastor in the absurdist wing of the Church of the Latter Day Flapdoodles ministering at ‘The Shelter In The Storm Miracles Ministries Of All Nations’ church in Lagos.
- Neil Warnock the former Chesterfield, Rotherham United and Aldershot winger is currently the manager of Premier League team Cardiff City [citation needed]
There are moments in any season that you realise at the time might define the current campaign and have a major influence on the long term prospects of the club. One such revelation was Rudy Gestede’s leap and thunderous headed goal that confirmed our victory against Forest in the previous Championship promotion campaign and meant it was more or less impossible not to get promoted. A natural inclination to crippling doubt in the face of all potential outcomes had finally been laid to rest as I slumped down in my seat, resigned to greater days ahead.
Similarly, Anthony Gerrard’s penalty shoot out drag past the post in the League Cup Final against Liverpool (seven years ago this weekend) confirmed that the natural order of things had been restored, and that notwithstanding the crushing disappointment of another Cup Final defeat, we were no longer hostages to the malevolence of hope and distorted idealism; we’d had a nice day out thank you very much, well done you Scousers, we’ll just tootle off back home probably never to return.
These headline flashes are relatively few and easily recalled. Overlooked, but often of greater significance, are those in-between moments the impact of which is only revealed in the light of future events. Such a moment occurred on the hour mark in the Watford defeat. We were 0-1 down, but buoyed by the memory of recent victories against expectations, as Joe Bennett stepped up to take a free kick the midfield joined our attack jostling for advantage on the edge of the opposition penalty box. As we now know, Bennett’s under-egged free kick led to a breakaway goal, within 12 minutes we were 0-4 down and the game was up.
Only four days on, the impact of that devastating defeat was clear to see. It was imperative that we started well if the mental scars were to have a chance to heal. Within three minutes Zahore, restored to the starting line-up due to the ineligibility of the on-loan Niasse against his parent club, made a decisive run into the box and with the goal at his mercy elected to cross for the rampaging Mendez-Laing who was foiled by the fateful brush of a defender’s toe.
For a while we played with some belief against an Everton team in the middle of a slump, and showing little confidence, providing few threats. Although the initiative was with us, an early goal was essential if we were to bury the ghosts of Friday night. England ‘keeper Pickford however remained untroubled throughout a scrappy first half, both sides struggling to string two passes together and playing as if auditioning for the Championship. It was pretty uninspiring stuff.
If the match was ever to evolve into a meaningful contest it was always likely to be turned by the one player on the pitch oozing class. Baited by the petty and the small-minded amongst the home fans (the majority) for the Swansea connection Gylfi Sigurdsson so often our nemesis proved yet again to be the scourge. On 40 minutes, after a charge from Irish international full back Coleman, Sigurdsson made a perfectly timed run into the box and deftly stroked the ball past Etheridge to break the deadlock. His intervention seemed loaded with significance.
Until recent events, the one trait defining this season has been our capacity to take misfortune in our stride, to rise to the occasion with an indomitable spirit, displaying great ‘bouncebackability’. The mood on the terraces has soured; setbacks are suddenly looked upon ominously. We have returned to our habitual state of resignation. When the opposition scores first we no longer expect a reaction; the assumption is that defeat is inevitable, only the magnitude in doubt.
Whether this negativity is spread from the terraces to the pitch or vice versa is uncertain but last night it was pervasive. It must knock the team’s self-esteem to see the stands slowly emptying with 20 minutes to go but after Sigurdsson had dispatched his second following substitute Bernard’s waltz through a submissive Bluebirds’ defence, any residual confidence had evaporated. It was just left for Calvert-Lewin to deliver the injury time coup-de-gras, which I’m proud to say me and the heir to my ruinous obsession were still there to see, like so much collateral damage, silent witnesses on a desolate battlefield of abandoned dreams.
A glance at the remaining fixtures offers little encouragement. Eight of the remaining ten games are against either fellow strugglers or the top four. It’s expecting a bit much for the decisive moments to go in our favour and I wouldn’t hold out too much hope for those whimsical in-between times either…
No comments:
Post a Comment