Darkness and Light

by Joe Thompson

  I loved having a routine and structure to my life. I had a purpose. It was easy for me to go to bed early because I could see the value of being fresh for a match the following day. In the back of my head I had a vision and a goal and was happy to make sacrifices. You speak to so many people who say, ‘I could’ve made it, but it didn’t work out.’ I didn’t want to look back in 20 years and have regrets, that would’ve killed me. It probably sounds intense given that I was still so young, but the great thing was that there was no pressure on me. Mum never had to force me to go to bed early or be more disciplined. For me, it was always fun and she was happy to join in. She bought herself a pair of Umbro football boots and most nights the three of us would head down to the fields with a pair of pliers, loosen the hinge off the fence, and sneak in to play until it was dark. Not for the first time during my childhood, mum had to play dad, but she never once complained and was liberated by his absence.

  I had such an active childhood and I’m using the same approach with Lula. I want her to try as many activities or hobbies as possible and find out what she loves doing. If she follows that, I know she’ll be happy. I don’t want her to ever feel that she’s been forced to go down a particular path. If I have a son in the future, he won’t feel any pressure from me to become a footballer. I loved being part of an academy, but I get why some players who have been in one since they were six or seven are sick of football by the time they reach 15 or 16, because there is a lot of external expectation. Normal children just have to worry about their GCSEs, but a teenage footballer has to balance that with a potential sporting career. If their parents are also applying the heat then that can be very difficult to handle at a young age.

  For the first time, my life was sailing in calm waters. Our family was happy and settled in Rochdale, and I was content at school and living the dream at United. But there was a problem brewing on the horizon and there was nothing I could do about it. I’d always been a small lad, but as I approached my 16th birthday I was still tiny and really slim. At school, there were boys two or three years younger who were bigger. I felt like most of my team-mates and opponents were towering over me. Football isn’t all about being big and strong, but if you’re getting thrown off the ball for 90 minutes you’ve got a problem.

  The club were concerned. They told me I looked great in training but had stopped being the same player in games. The truth was that my confidence was shot as soon as I saw I’d be playing against a team of giants. I didn’t know how I could affect the game when there was such a difference in size. I felt like I was drowning on the pitch. I had a hand scan at Carrington, which is used to predict a player’s potential height once fully developed. The results told me I’d only grow to 5ft 9in or 5ft 10in at a push. It was bad news, and more was to follow.

  Chapter 4

  The rat race

  I REMEMBER the moment I found out like it was yesterday. It was a cold February afternoon and I’d been playing football at the school field with Reuben. We ran home, where mum stopped us in our tracks and ordered us to strip off before setting foot in the house. As always, dinner was nearly ready, but she wanted a word with me first.

  I could tell by the tone of her voice that something wasn’t right. I walked into the living room, where mum and auntie Niecey beckoned me to join them on the sofa and gave me a reassuring smile. Mum explained that United had called her. The club had decided they weren’t going to offer me a YTS contract and would release me in a matter of days.

  I sat there dazed and confused, while she tried to soften the blow by saying it would only be temporary and that I’d go to another north-west club, like Bolton Wanderers or Blackburn Rovers, and return to United in the future. I was 15, but I wasn’t daft, I knew the truth.

  This was the end of the road. I was heartbroken.

  A few days later I had a formal meeting at Carrington with two of my coaches, Paul McGuinness and Tony Whelan. They were concerned I was too small and hadn’t been affecting games. After the results of my hand scan, they feared I would never be big enough to compete at the top level and felt I’d be better off pursuing a career elsewhere.

  It felt like my world had stopped rotating on its axis. I tried to be brave and thanked them both for everything they had done for me over the previous seven years, but inwardly I was devastated. On the journey home I didn’t say a word, and when we got back I retreated to my bedroom to lick my wounds.

  In the days that followed I barely moved. My friends knocked on my front door to see if I wanted to join them for a game, but I didn’t answer and kept the news to myself. My overwhelming emotion was rejection. I felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach. My self-esteem was intertwined with my football ability, so now I felt worthless.

  When you play for United, you’re used to everyone telling you you’re amazing and that you’re going to make it. That makes it even more difficult to take when the rug is pulled from under your feet. At school, I used to feel like the corridors parted when I walked down them – everyone wanted to be Joe Thompson. But when United let me go, I felt like people were pointing and laughing at me. Some of them probably were. Some kids relished the fact they could have a sly dig.

  When I finally told my closest mates I’d been released, they supported me, but other people would come up to me and say, ‘Are you not at United now?’ even though they knew full well that was the case. I realised very quickly who my allies were. Some so-called friends weren’t interested in socialising with me anymore because my star was no longer shining quite so brightly. From that moment on, I vowed to keep a tight circle and became wary of letting other people in.

  The news couldn’t have come at a worse time. It was only a few days before my 16th birthday and my GCSE exams were in a few months’ time. My teachers had warned me for years that I needed to knuckle down and make sure I got good enough grades to pursue another career, while I practised my signature on the back of my books. Their words had come back to haunt me and it hurt. I felt like a few of them wanted to come up to me and say, ‘we told you so’.

  At that age, your hormones are up and down like a yo-yo and it’s difficult to process setbacks. I struggled to sleep at night and my mum would often put lavender oil on my pillow to help me switch off. Motivation was also in short supply. Until that point, I was more concerned with what my coaches had to say about my passing or finishing when we had our regular assessments than anything my teachers had to say. I wasn’t stupid, though. I knew if I didn’t put the work in, I could end up with no club and no qualifications. Talk about a fall from grace. I had to fix up and do it fast.

  I decided to go back to basics and start playing for my school team. Since the day I signed for United, I hadn’t been allowed to play for any other team, to make sure I didn’t suffer an injury. I was back with the boys and in a way it felt liberating. The pitches were bobbly and before the games we had to put the nets up and bring them down again afterwards, which I’d never done before. It was football in its purest form and there was less pressure. Even though we were all desperate to win every game, I didn’t have to worry about facing giants who would dominate me physically. Having been at United, I became a target for lads from other schools, and some of their tackles weren’t far off GBH. But part of me liked that. As a winger, if defenders are smashing you, it means you’re doing something right.

  The standard felt easy compared to United. Time and time again, I’d stand on the touchline wide on the right wing, breeze past three or four players and cut the ball back for one of my team-mates to score. Slowly, that success helped to rebuild my self-belief. We managed to reach the cup final and I scored one and assisted another in a 3-1 win. It was just the lift I needed and the perfect way to end our school days together. Football felt like fun again. Although I loved my time at United, as you get older you realise you’re playing for a contract or to impress your coaches before your next assessment. The scrutiny is intense and you know that if you put a foot wrong there is someone else, just as goo
d as you, who is ready to take your place. You have to have a professional mindset from a very young age, and although I was comfortable with that it can strip away the fun.

  I wasn’t ready to throw in the towel. At every club, you meet players who have been released at least once but have possessed the character to bounce back and forge a career in the game. Some lads never recover from the trauma of that first setback. Others realise they just don’t want it enough or simply don’t have the talent to cut it at a professional level. Some boys discover alcohol and girls, especially around 16.

  I knew I hadn’t become a bad player overnight and I had a head start in the rat race to find a new club. Hundreds of other lads would find themselves in the same situation as me over the coming months, but being released in February meant I had the chance to make an early impression.

  Liverpool were interested, but mum knew the competition would be tough and thought it would be better for me to be a big fish in a smaller pond. My first trial was at Blackburn, who were a decent outfit and their academy had a good reputation. I felt I did well, but they weren’t taking players on until the end of the summer and told me they would be in touch then. I was confident they would make me an offer, but I couldn’t put all my eggs in one basket. Wigan were in League One, so I went along to train with their youth team. The training ground was surprisingly good, not quite up there with Carrington, but still a quality facility. They had a couple of players who had been at United and they had told me good things about the set-up, while I’d also played them on multiple occasions, so I knew they had a decent side.

  I did well but didn’t get on with one of the coaches. I didn’t like his delivery of criticism and the way he went about his sessions. I probably had a bit of a chip on my shoulder as well, which didn’t help. I came home and told mum I didn’t want to go back, but she urged me to give it a bit longer. Reluctantly, I agreed, and the club told me they liked me. I was playing with the under-17s and 18s and holding my own. That gave me confidence, because I was playing with older, bigger lads, and doing well, despite my skinny frame. But just as I’d started to come around to the idea of joining them, I turned up to a training session to find out it had been cancelled. Nobody had even bothered to tell me or my mum. It was unprofessional and would never have happened at United. That was the end of my time at Wigan.

  As summer approached, I was still without a club, until my teacher, Mr Eyres, threw me a lifeline. He knew a coach at Rochdale and said they were interested in taking a closer look at me. I had nothing to lose, so once my exams were finished I went along to training one night. Their facilities were an eye-opener. There was no training ground as such; instead they played on an old school, sandy astroturf pitch in Heywood, which had hockey nets on it. I thought to myself, ‘Jesus, what am I doing here?’ I had to take along my trainers and mouldies and inspect the pitch before deciding on my footwear. I went for trainers to be on the safe side. The training session didn’t feel structured and the players didn’t even wear training kits. I had been spoilt rotten at United – everything was Nike and brand new – but I had nowhere else to turn.

  That night was also the first time I met Keith Hill. He was in charge of the youth team at the time and came along to cast his eye over potential recruits. He had been an old-fashioned brute of a centre-back during his playing days and must’ve only just retired, because he still looked like a footballer. He had a big set of quads on him and rolled his shorts high and his football boots were always black. He liked what he had seen and invited me to play for the youth team that weekend. We were playing against Halifax at Rossendale United’s ground, just outside Burnley, which felt like a million miles away from Carrington. I was playing against third year pros, who were 19, but I got my chance off the bench in the second half. I did well and managed to score a goal late on when I nicked the ball off the centre-back and slotted home past an onrushing keeper.

  We won 2-1 and I felt I had the backing of the dressing room, but after the game I was reminded of my innocence. All the lads stripped off and headed to the communal showers with their cocks out. I was shocked. I was only 16 and didn’t have the same confidence as the older boys. I got in the showers with my boxer shorts on, which prompted laughter from a few of them. ‘Don’t be shy mate, get it out, we’ve all got one!’ said a lad called Deano. I did as I was told. It was a character-building experience to say the least. I was out of my comfort zone and learning fast about the inner workings of football dressing rooms. I may have impressed my team-mates with my performance on the pitch, but I still had to do a lot more to get Keith’s seal of approval.

  ‘Take those fucking earrings out and give them back to your grandma,’ he bellowed in his thick Bolton accent, to the amusement of the lads. It was the week after the game, but I immediately realised I’d only passed stage one of his test. I’ve never been shy to dress a bit differently and had decided to get both my ears pierced. I thought they looked the part, but he wasn’t a fan of my cubic zirconia diamonds. It was a stupid mistake, particularly when I was trying to make a good impression. He probably thought I was trying to be different, but I had completely forgotten to take them out. Still, I couldn’t believe he was hammering me after I’d scored the winner at the weekend. I realised there and then that he wasn’t the sort of manager to put an arm around your shoulder. He preferred a tough love approach. He was testing me to see how I would react. Would I go into my shell or try to prove him wrong?

  I went home that night and moaned to my mum. ‘This guy is like a drill sergeant, all he does is shout and swear.’ I was unsure of Keith at first, because he was a real man’s man and very intimidating, whereas I was still a boy. He is black and white and says it how he sees it, but I grew to appreciate his honesty. There is no bullshit with him. He has actually calmed down a lot now. Don’t get me wrong, you still fear a bollocking from him, but he has definitely mellowed and understands that different approaches work with different players. Luckily, we got on well after earring-gate and he was incredibly supportive during both my battles with cancer and never once pressured me to return quicker than I needed to. I’ll always respect him for that.

  Keith kept asking me to train with the youth team, so I must have been doing something right. A few weeks later, he named me in his side to play against Bolton. The youth-team ground was at Bowlee fields in Heywood, a small town just outside Rochdale. The changing rooms were dark and primitive and there was an overwhelming smell of Deep Heat. At the time, I didn’t even know what it was. I was used to tiger balm and nice massage oils at United, but the Rochdale lads would spray cans of the stuff on their legs, along with dollops of cream, to try and get rid of any muscle soreness before the games. I sat in the corner and watched on as the lads went through their pre-match routines. I was fascinated by their little idiosyncrasies. Some of them would roll their socks up to a specific height, while others wrapped tape around them to keep their shinpads in place. I’d never seen so many pairs of Copa Mundials in my life, with big long studs so they would keep their footing on muddy pitches.

  Bolton were in the Premier League at the time, so it was no disgrace that we got beat that afternoon. I played well again, and after the game I called my auntie to ask her for a lift back home. She couldn’t pick me up and my team-mates had all left, so I had to walk into Heywood to catch a bus. I had no idea where the nearest stop was, so I walked for 20 minutes or so until I came across one. I put my bag down and waited. Up the street, a minibus pulled up and a group of war veterans climbed out. They were all wearing military uniforms, which proudly showed off their medals and various badges. They started walking towards me when one of them shouted, ‘you fucking monkey’. I was momentarily stunned and thought I must’ve imagined it. There were about 30 of them, and as they got closer the same guy started waving his walking stick and yelled, ‘You heard, you fucking monkey. Do you think I fought a war to have your types come to my town and sit on your lazy arse?’

  My first reaction was laughter.
I was incredulous and couldn’t believe what I was hearing. They were all heading to a local working men’s club for a drink. Worryingly for me, the entrance was just behind the bus stop and I feared they might come out again later on and start looking for trouble. I could’ve reacted badly, but I decided to let their comments slide. They must have been 70 or 80 and had probably done and seen things I can’t even imagine. They were just ignorant and hadn’t changed with the times. Thankfully, the bus eventually arrived and I jumped on without taking a second look back. When I got home I told my mum but she just laughed. She didn’t condone what they’d said, but I think she’d become used to those sorts of comments from older people, especially when she first started seeing my dad.

  They were testing times, but it made me realise how much I wanted to make it. I loved the grittiness of football at that level. In England, we talk a lot about the character you need to play lower down the leagues, but, really, it is nothing compared to what a lot of foreign players have to conquer before they come to Europe. Many South American and eastern European footballers have to contend with sand or concrete pitches until their teenage years. Still, playing lower down the leagues requires a certain steeliness because it is more exposed. Everything is a bit rougher around the edges and there are none of the comforts you enjoy in an academy. It was the best experience I could have had at that age. It was a real eye-opener. I saw at first hand the mentality and professionalism required if I was going to make it and was convinced that I had the tools for the job.