From Premier League to Producer

On Friday 26th July 2019, I decided to take a step into the unknown and prematurely retire from being a professional football player at the age of 28.

I had no physical injury, nor was I out of contract.

In fact I made a decision purely based on happiness and my intention of being able to regain it. It was roughly eight months prior to me labelling football ‘A Beautiful Game With An Ugly Persona’, that I had actually begun to come to the conclusion that it was going to be my last season as a player.

A knee injury I picked up in November 2018 was the beginning of my end. I sat on the physio bed in the away changing room at Scunthorpe United, with nothing except a bag of ice and my thoughts to keep me company. I had no idea what this injury was, but I genuinely sat there and hoped that it was my ACL that I’d torn. At that point I was in such an unhealthy relationship with the game that I couldn’t cope with any more uncertainty around my emotions. The rollercoaster had taken me from mesmerising heights to debilitating lows on a daily basis, and I was at a point then where I would have preferred to have just been out injured for months so I didn’t have to ride that every day.

As it transpired the scan on my knee showed no damage, which was great — Except I was still getting excruciating pain from a task as simple as kneeling down to change my daughters nappy, so there were still question marks and anxiety aplenty. I had 5 scans in total between then and January, each with a completely unique diagnosis to the first, which only added to my increasing stress levels. That period made me really re-evaluate my sense of life purpose.

I had never before been injured for that amount of time, so wasn’t sure how I’d possibly cope with being away from playing, but without it I would never have made the decision I later did. Having had transfers all over England, with some out of my hands, I had missed out on a lot of quality time that I was beginning to make up on. I also recognised that whilst being away from the pitch, there was an opportunity for me to begin doing things and having opinions in areas where if playing and not on form, football players are very often criticised. One of which, was an exciting opportunity to write a column for Four Four Two magazine. It was the first time in over a decade as a football player that I felt I had the freedom to truly express my thoughts and personality.

A few weeks after my first piece, still injured and now unwanted by my current club, I signed for League Two Northampton Town on loan for the remainder of the season. In all honesty it wasn’t a move I particularly wanted to make given where I was both physically and emotionally, but doing so would allow me the opportunity to move back home. My wife was pregnant and we were living 100+ miles away from family, so to be able get support with our new baby and our 20 month old daughter was a dream. It was the decision I had to make.

I made my debut after two days, without having trained in four months, before breaking down injured, again. I found myself completely disillusioned with football to the extent where I later had a moment after we had won a third game in a row, catapulting us towards a late play-off charge after flirting with relegation, and had no feeling of joy whatsoever. All I wanted was to get out of there as quickly as possible and back home to my family. The love and passion for a game that had been my entire life up until that point, had completely diminished, which made me as annoyed as much as it did sad.

I had often spent my train journeys back to London questioning why I was still doing it. Sure I had a regular wage, but I hadn’t enjoyed being a footballer for a long time. And was still missing a lot of my kids growing up. That really hit me. All my family and friends ever cared about was that I was happy. But I wasn’t. So what was I still chasing when I had already lived my dream?

When I made the decision to retire, my wife, family and friends were all extremely happy for me, but then posed the question ‘what are you going to do?’. That’s something I had no specific answer to — which is a worrying regularity amongst professional football players. I had some idea in that I wanted to share my story and help spread awareness around mental health, whilst giving other players support in that area. I also loved the idea of filmmaking, but I had no way of knowing how either of those interests were going to open up a potential career path for me.

I had been fortunate that my football career gave me the financial security to afford me some time to patiently build something and explore my options, but in all honesty the first few months were ones that I found extremely difficult. Where I had often heard that the lack of routine and changing room camaraderie were the biggest emotional barriers to overcome, these were things I adapted to very comfortably. What I had found hard to get a grasp on, was both the lack of opportunity and support. Life felt as if it was progressing at snails pace, with several meetings that led to nothing and ideas that hit dead ends.

But as time progressed and my focus completely shifted towards the production company I had co-founded in April of that year — Oneighty Productions — we slowly began to gain traction. The opportunist that had grown in me, led to two interview requests turn into being a consultant on the BBC documentary ‘Shame In The Game’ and presenting & co-producing a-yet-to-be released series with Yahoo!. In the midst of this, we filmed a pilot episode for a series called ‘The Switch’, and a short piece with Oscar nominee and Bond star Naomie Harris. But again these faced multiple closed doors. It felt like an impossible task and industry to break into, but nonetheless despite the countless setbacks and shut doors myself and my company had received, I could only continue to put myself out there as someone who could and would succeed, as a producer, a writer and a public speaker.

Over the Christmas period in particular, I was crippled with imposter syndrome and questioned myself a lot. I wondered whether or not I had made the right decision. Was I selfish for chasing happiness instead of wanting to just make sure that I earned money to put food on the table and pay bills? Should I just get a job and stop trying to achieve unrealistic dreams? Should I just go back and try to play football again? Internally I was in a bad way, but continued to present myself as otherwise in public. Deep down I still had a strong belief that my decision to retire at such a young age would be justified, but I just needed to figure out how I was going to get to that destination before I ran out of gas. Then in late January, I received an email from someone I had initiated a meeting with in September. That meeting had been brief and felt almost pointless at the time, but this email was an opportunity to pitch, to create and film an advert for the Heads Up campaign.

We won the pitch and not long after that, I was then part of a documentary having a conversation with HRH Prince William. Things felt like they were beginning to take a massively positive turn and that the breakthrough was about to happen, and then came covid-19 and lockdown. The advert was delayed, so too the series we co-produced with Yahoo!, and it threw a lot more stress, anxiety and question marks into an already up and down transition period in my life.

We couldn’t film anything new. We had no content ready to go — and what we did have was being held back. How could we build when we have no foundations to add to, I thought? Another question, another doubt, and yet still trying to move forward one step at a time.

I still don’t know exactly where this journey is going to take me, but there is so much that I have learned and experienced in the past 12 months that I never imagined would be possible. Understanding the importance of networking, the expertise we have of the football world, and knowing what we are truly capable of, are things that I have gained knowledge of that I believe every single player that faces the journey I have embarked on, needs to know. Because of this, I have set up Transition FC, an online platform which essentially looks to give footballers the tools I have found to be an absolute necessity, to build their bridge from playing to retirement.

Some may look at my transition and the year I’ve had since retiring and automatically think that it’s gone brilliantly. I may have had a few successes, but I have also had an insane amount more failures. I still have extreme levels of self doubt, I make tonnes of mistakes and bad calls, I feel overwhelmed at times and often lost, but what allows me to be perceived as someone successful is that despite this, I just keep getting up, keep learning, and keep moving forward.

These are what I believe to be the three most important factors in having a successful transition into retirement from professional football, and the advice I would always pass on to any player crossing the bridge.