Journeyman (10 page)

So I went and saw the headmaster and told him I’d been intending to leave until I heard about Alan’s condition. I said I didn’t want to take Alan’s job, but I did temporarily want to take over his timetable, teaching football, PE and business. I also said I didn’t want to go back to my old role if no job was available for me when Alan returned, in which case I would just have one month’s money before moving on.

The head appreciated my honesty and was good enough to change my timetable completely. He got rid of all the lessons I hated teaching and I’m now just left with subjects I actually know something about. Once again, my fledgling teaching career has been extended.

My fears about the Ofsted inspection were realised as well, though. At the start of this month we were notified of a surprise inspection. Everyone went into panic mode – me as much as anyone.

On the second day of the inspection I was out of school coaching the sixth-form football team, so I really only had to get through the first day of it. I managed to negotiate myself all the way to fifth period unscathed. By then I was quite relaxed, talking to one of the sixth-formers in my business studies class and telling him how I was only small fry so there was no chance anyone would come in and observe me.

Right on cue the lead inspector, who was a former business studies teacher, walked in and sat down. After the initial shock I just got on with the lesson and even cracked a couple of jokes. I thought it went quite well, all in all. I was lucky he came to a sixth-form lesson where there aren’t too many behavioural issues, as opposed to some of the younger year groups where I can spend the majority of the lesson trying to get them to shut up.

I had a PE lesson in football earlier in the day with a group of Year 7s, which was absolute chaos. One of the lads was desperate for a wee and
wanted to go up the fence. I told him I did not care how desperate he was he had to cross his legs. I could just see it now, him urinating up the fence while one of the inspectors strolled round the corner.

Thankfully they did not come to that lesson. That would have been really embarrassing, being told my football session was inadequate.

At the end of the day I bumped into the inspector and asked if I could get some feedback. I thought I would get it in straight away that I’m new to the job and have only been doing it for six months. He asked if I’d received any formal teacher training – which I haven’t, so he said in that case he was impressed by my potential. He marked me as three out of four, which means ‘requires improvement’, though he also said there were a lot of ‘good’ features (a mark of two) within my lesson.

I think this was a fair assessment. Apparently the inspector was very complimentary about me in the end-of-day briefing: two vice principals and the headmaster all came and told me as much. I really appreciated their comments and it’s made me feel more positive about the future.

I
WAS IN
limbo and loath to take the offer Southend United had made. I was not keen on Rob's management style and even less keen on the 33 per cent pay cut. I booked the whole of May off, gambling on the fact I would have a new club by then and thus not need to come in and train in June.

I had a big problem, however: I'd hardly kicked a ball the previous season and I hadn't been a regular first-team player since March 2001. I'd resorted to sending my CV out to every League Two and Conference National team yet again and was awaiting their responses. You never know when you'll get a reply to such letters as the season close can be a strange time. Managers go away on holiday or work from home and therefore may not receive any CVs until weeks later. I imagine the vast majority of applications get thrown in a bin. I often thought Football League managers had a wastepaper bin full of my letters and would laugh about me with their
secretary every year – ‘Ben Smith has sent in another one!' – before asking for my application to be put in that ‘special place'.

However, out of the blue late one evening I got a phone call from Ron Jukes, chief scout of Nationwide Conference side Hereford United. He seemed to know a lot about me and asked why I hadn't been playing. I explained my injury situation and, after a long intake of breath, he told me that manager Graham Turner liked me and wanted to know how much money I was earning.

As always in these situations, I added a bit on and said I was earning £500 a week. Ron replied that was big money for Hereford and he would have to speak to GT, who was actually the owner, chairman and manager all rolled into one. After a couple of days he rang back and asked if I would come to the Midlands to have a chat.

I was delighted. I'd been involved in some good battles against Hereford during my time at Yeovil and always thought they would be a good club to play for. A week later I met GT at the Hilton hotel in Bromsgrove – mainly because it is an unwritten rule that all contract negotiations take place in either a hotel or a motorway service station! As I had no agent, I turned up by myself in my ill-fitting Yves Saint Laurent suit (which I had bought from a catalogue and was still paying off). I think GT liked the fact I did not have a representative and, for an hour or so, we just talked football; discussing players at Hereford, how he liked to play the game, players I had played with and those at our level in general. GT came across as a good, honest football man.

We never at any stage talked about money. I think GT just wanted to chat and see what sort of person I was. He'd spoken to Colin Addison, my former Yeovil manager and a good friend of GT's, who'd told him I was a good player but a handful off the pitch – a fair assessment of me at that stage.

GT finished the meeting by saying he was interested in signing me and would be in touch. A day later we arranged for me to go to Edgar Street,
Hereford United's home, to have a medical and try to agree a deal. This time I brought my dad with me for some advice.

I sailed through the medical so all that was left was to agree a deal. I told GT I was not particularly bothered about the money – I just wanted to play every week. He said if I signed then I would be Hereford's number eight. That was good enough for me. I wanted to be a key member of a first team again.

GT explained Hereford could not give me the £500 per week they thought I was on at Southend, but they could offer £450, plus £50 appearance money – which meant, if I was playing, I would be earning my desired amount anyway. Strangely this appearance money was not per game but per week, whether I played one game or four. That didn't bother me though as the sneaky £50 added to my basic wage meant I'd be getting the same as at Southend, with the opportunity to earn an extra £200 per month if I played full time.

I agreed and my new contract was due to start on 1 July and run until the last game of the season – although if I agreed a new contract at the end of the season I would get paid through the summer. Despite being in the Conference Premier, Hereford United was still a full-time club that trained its players every day – another bonus.

It was late into May when I agreed the deal and I took great pleasure in calling Southend United on the way home to say I was not accepting their offer. Unfortunately I could not get through to Rob Newman, so I left a message with Steve Tilson. I didn't hear anything from Rob but was not bothered in the slightest.

As with most football clubs, pre-season training started on the first day of July. Hereford had disappointingly finished seventeenth in the previous season and, as a result, there had been a large playing staff turnover. I believe only five or six players were left from the year before's squad. Not great for team spirit, admittedly, but it did make it easier for new players to settle in as everyone was in the same boat.

I initially stayed in digs with Michael Rose – another new player – and Matt Baker. We were lodging with John and Joan Criasia, who were very hospitable and made me feel welcome. Michael enjoyed the hospitality so much that he eventually married their daughter!

Matt Baker then bought his own house. So, after about six weeks, I moved in with him in Credenhill, just outside Hereford, which incidentally is where the SAS are based.

For some reason I seemed to attract big, ginger roommates – firstly Skivo at Yeovil and now Matt. I quickly took up the role of ‘unskilled labourer' within the house. I got a pretty good deal because in exchange for whipping the Hoover around the house a couple of times a week and doing the washing up, Matt knocked up a gourmet meal for us every night.

Even though Matt was a year or two younger than me, maturity-wise he was streets ahead – which made us an odd couple. He would do or say things that I would just ignore or laugh at, but then started doing myself a year or so later. For example, who in their twenties reads the
Sunday Times?
Matt did. He was not a typical footballer and got plenty of stick about it, although he didn't seem to care.

If I were to look up ‘stubborn Yorkshireman' in the dictionary I would expect to see a picture of Geoffrey Boycott, closely followed by one of Matt Baker. Matt revelled in the fact that a scout from Manchester City once said of him that he ‘exuded confidence, which bordered on arrogance'. I think he would like this on his gravestone!

His more sophisticated and professional approach was good for me as, while he couldn't totally eradicate my more laddish side, Matt did help suppress it. He was teetotal, for one, so I didn't have him egging me on to go out drinking every few days. I still had regular Saturday night blasts on the town with the boys, but my midweek sessions were now few and far between.

Joining Hereford also put me in contact with Richard O'Kelly, who had joined the club over the summer as assistant manager/physio/kit
man – basically anything that needed doing – and I loved everything about him straight away. He had no ego whatsoever and was a brilliant coach – the best I had ever come across. He was so enthusiastic and loved football more than anyone I'd met. Even now when I'm coaching, I try to base my style on Richard's. I'll be delighted if I turn out to be half the coach or man he is.

I had done some work over the summer and came back to training feeling sharp. I must have impressed as, during one of our breaks, GT said he knew I was good, but didn't realise just
how
good. Now, anyone who has worked for him will know these compliments are rare. During my four and a half years with GT I think I heard maybe two more ‘well done's. He was very old-school and reminded me of David Webb in that you normally knew you had played well when he said nothing at all.

I was well off the pace in our first friendly against Tranmere Rovers, but I suppose that was to be expected after not playing for nearly eighteen months. We had another game against Swindon a few days later and I felt a lot better in that one. It was also the first time I played with a striker by the name of Steve Guinan – we instantly built up a good relationship both on and off the pitch.

But then disaster struck…

We had an away game at Bromsgrove Rovers. I was on the bench but came on for the last thirty minutes. During this time the ball fell to me in the opposition's 18-yard box but I could see an opponent coming towards me at the same time. My plan was to nudge the ball away from the oncoming defender, anticipate the contact and, once I felt it, go to ground and win a penalty. This was something plenty of players do time and again.

Unfortunately the contact was heavier than I anticipated and it sent me high in the air. I landed on my elbow, which took the full force of the landing and levered my right shoulder out of its socket.

The pain was instant and unbearable and I was rapidly taken to hospital. The journey was more painful than I envisaged as, when the ambulance
approached the hospital, we had to go over speed bumps and my damaged shoulder was moving all over the place.

In casualty, I was injected with a horse tranquilliser to help put the shoulder back into place. I remained conscious but have no recollection of it being done – only coming around with my arm in a sling.

Unfortunately I had not suffered a straightforward dislocation. Not only had the shoulder fully come out of the socket, but I had also severely damaged the nerve in the right deltoid. For the next six months I had no feeling in that muscle, and yet a specialist decided I didn't need an operation. He also told me there was a very good chance the shoulder would dislocate again, which didn't exactly fill me with confidence.

It was a huge blow after missing so much football the previous season. I seemed to be changing my reputation from ‘good-time guy who goes out too much' to ‘injury prone'. I didn't want to be perceived as either of these, let alone both, so I decided I could either whinge about the situation or I could just get on with it. In some ways I was lucky it was an upper-body injury as I could continue working on my fitness throughout the recuperation period. I was determined to be physically better than I'd been before and ready to play as soon as the physio gave me the all clear.

During the rehabilitation period I did lots of work in the gym and with the physiotherapists at Lilleshall, which, at that time, was the national sports centre.

A couple called Phil and Pauline had, in conjunction with the Professional Footballers Association, created a centre where professional sportspeople could go to recover from long-term injuries. Recovering from such injuries can not only be a long process but a rather lonely one too, so it was nice to get a change of scenery and work alongside other players in the same situation. As well as other footballers, there but also some top cricketers there like Mark Butcher and Andrew Flintoff, who were also on the way back from long-term injuries.

My recovery went well and, by the beginning of November, I was back in training with Hereford. I eventually made my full League debut against Barnet at Edgar Street on 30 November 2002. Steve Guinan stole the show by scoring a hat-trick but I also managed to get on the score sheet in a 4–0 win. I was running on adrenalin and delighted to play my first senior game in eighteen months. Scoring made all the hard work even more worthwhile.

I kept up my personal promise of hitting the ground running and went on to score two goals in my next game – a 5–0 hammering of Woking at home. I was really enjoying my football and was playing with some really good players. Matt was nearly as good a goalkeeper as he thought he was, while in defence we had Matt Clarke, Michael Rose, Tony James and Andy Tretton. I built up a good relationship with Jamie Pitman in midfield – he carried the piano and I played it! Left winger Paul Parry was clearly going on to big things and Steve Guinan was my type of centre forward, intelligent and a good finisher.

My recovery took a bit of a setback in my third game, though. We beat Chester 1–0 away but I caught tonsillitis leading up to it and, as a result, put in a crap performance. A combination of the tonsillitis and my initial adrenalin surge subsiding meant my performances tailed off after that; I found myself struggling to complete games and was regularly substituted.

That pattern looked set to continue when we played Telford at home on New Year's Day, however, in the sixty-third minute – around the time I was normally being replaced – I somehow ghosted past a Telford defender and smashed a right-foot shot into the top corner of the goal from just inside the box. That goal prevented my substitution and went a long way to helping recapture my form.

I scored again in a 2–1 defeat against Yeovil in the FA Trophy. I received plenty of stick from the travelling fans for being – how can I put it? – ‘cuddly' (a fair comment a couple of years previously maybe, but not at that point!).

My place was now cemented in central midfield playing alongside Jamie
Pitman. Our qualities complemented each other well: his discipline allowed me to break forward into the box regularly and his defensive strengths covered up my frailties.

The team was playing well and we were making a late push for the play-offs in the process. The goals mostly dried up for me after that one against Yeovil – I only scored one more against Kettering – but I was pleased with my overall form.

I loved going into training every day too. The combination of a great set of lads – all around my age – and brilliant training sessions with Richard meant we were really improving as a team. We were only a couple of additional players away from being a very good team.

Unfortunately we didn't quite make the play-offs but we were involved in a few eventful games before the end of the season. We got spanked 4–0 away to Yeovil at the start of March – a game that also saw us have two players sent off. Yeovil dominated us all over the pitch and Skivo took great pleasure in giving me lots of stick for it, both during and after the game.