The Secret Footballer - The Secret Footballer: What the Physio Saw...

I Am The Secret Footballer

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The Secret Footballers Guide to the Modern Game

The Secret Footballer: Access All Areas

The Secret Footballer: How to Win

The Secret Footballer: What Goes on Tour

Follow The Secret Footballer on Twitter @TSF

TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS

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Transworld is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com

First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Bantam Press

an imprint of Transworld Publishers

Copyright The Secret Footballer 2018

Cover image: Shutterstock
Cover Design: Stephen Mulcahey

The Secret Footballer has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

Every effort has been made to obtain the necessary permissions with reference to copyright material, both illustrative and quoted. We apologize for any omissions in this respect and will be pleased to make the appropriate acknowledgements in any future edition.

This book is an account based on the experiences of the authors. Pseudonyms, composites and other forms of disguise have been used and sequences and the detail of events changed. To those readers who believe they recognize themselves or others: youre wrong!

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781473543386

ISBN 9780593078761

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To all those who read, heard or saw something from TSF that changed their opinion of football,

To all those who bought a book, read a column or shared a post,

To all the teammates who looked the other way, passed on inside stories or shared a changing room, pitch, table, bar or bed with me,

To all those people in the game who supported me, turned on me or hanged me,

You have all kept me sane

The Secret Footballer

EVERY FOOTBALL CLUB has a local private hospital that it uses to treat its players. At one particular Premier League club that my husband played for, the hospital made tuna sandwiches for the convalescents. I dont know what they did to those sandwiches but they were amazing. Theyd wheel him back into the room and Id forget he was even there as I watched his TV and ate his sarnies.

When he used to go and see Dr Dodgy Rodge in Leicester it was great because I would get to go to Borders bookshop and read while drinking a latte in the upstairs Starbucks. I love books and I miss Borders. He would come home and say that he had to go to Leicester and Id say, Oh, can I come?

I never saw the pain. The club hid it from me. The doctors hid it from me. He hid it from me. Even when he was in pain hed say that he was fine. If he came home hobbling after a match, or maybe on crutches, or with a clutch of pills from the doctor or some stitches in his head, hed just say, Dont worry, its just a precaution.

That sounds callous, but he was that way as much for his own benefit as for mine. They all are. If he told himself that he was fine, that he could carry on, that he wouldnt be out for too long, then it helped his recovery process. He had to play. Footballers have to play. They dont have time to sit and watch somebody take their place, especially when they know that they would be in the first eleven but for the hamstring injury theyve suffered.

I can remember him putting his tooth through his lip, breaking his nose, his eyelid hanging off by a thread, having his knees rebuilt, breaking his ribs. And we put a brave face on it. It was football. Theatre. If a guy from any other walk of life came through the door in the state a footballer sometimes does then it would be a major event. But its just a regular part of the job for us, as it is for every other football couple. Certain aspects of being a footballer lead to players suppressing their emotions, just as much as others lead them to express them anger in the face of defeat, frustration, or the joy of an unnatural high after beating Huddersfield 1-0.

There were bad injuries of course, and Ive often heard him say that he wished he could have his old physio back to help him. Thats the problem with moving clubs. Physios have their own way of doing things and if youve been at one club for a long time and youve become used to doing things in a particular way, it can be quite hard to change.

I read something my husband wrote about the fans only seeing footballers for ninety minutes every week and judging them solely on that ninety minutes. There is so much that you dont see, so much that is kept away from the fans and the media. What the physio sees is a big part of football, and what I saw was a combination of physical and mental suffering. TSF once told me that if he had to give an average figure for how physically fit he was throughout his career when he played matches then he would put it at around 80 per cent. Most footballers would probably say the same thing. From the start they are used and abused, then spat out the other end with the body of a sixty-year-old.

That said, I prefer him today. Or maybe I just acknowledge his feelings a little more. He was far too toned when he played football. They all are. Theres nothing to grab on to.

Some footballers are like fine wines: they get better with age. My husbands scars add to his personality. But it could be that I just feel sorry for him these days.

WHEN MANKIND LEARNED to stand upright and walk we should have just left it at that. Running was too much. Show-off stuff. Ostentatious. Look at us on our hind legs! Ooh look, we can even go fast without falling over!

For me, running is the single most boring activity known to the species. Bar golf. Running, spending time in the gym and golf are the express routes to insanity.

When I played football I ran around a football pitch because everybody else was doing it and that seemed like the only way of actually getting the ball. There are only a few other circumstances where you might hear the pitter-patter of my perfectly formed feet. If somebody is chasing me with a curved blade and a crazed look (not you, Mrs TSF), well, then I run. So, football and an imminent stabbing and last orders at a bar a hundred yards away. Outside of those circumstances I have never seen the need for running.

I dont even do the man jog that you see some guys doing when they think their car has been stolen from the supermarket car park. Usually theyve just forgotten where they parked. If I trip over some broken pavement then I gracefully allow my face to hit the concrete rather than disguise the tripping motion by breaking into a light jog, as if I had suddenly been overcome by a spurt of energy.

For those who know me, there was therefore some surprise when on 5 July 2016 (with both English football and the English economy crumbling all around me) I let it be known that the time had come for me to buck the trend and do something radical about my health. I announced my intention to experiment with exercise. My regime would still heavily emphasize the importance of rest but it would now include some running.