by Joe Thompson
Our paths crossed early on that season when we faced Chester, who he was playing for at the time. He was sent off for violent conduct on the half-hour mark after head-butting one of our lads in an off-the-ball incident. ‘JT, don’t let him get away with that,’ shouted one of our boys on the bench. Ellison’s eyes were wide and he looked like a raging bull as he walked off the pitch. I decided to let him know I wasn’t happy with him flattening my team-mate. He glared at me, with the veins popping on his shaven head, and told me he’d see me in the tunnel. I thought nothing of it, and scored our second goal in a 2-0 win, but at the end of the game he was there waiting for me. All hell broke loose as he tried to get to me through a crowd of bodies, but luckily my team-mates were on hand to stop him in his tracks. I’m not sure how I would’ve fared if he’d managed to get to me, but I probably wouldn’t have emerged victorious.
It wasn’t the only time that season that our team spirit helped us out of a tight corner. We were all on a night out at a student club in Manchester when one of the boys was punched in the face. In a matter of seconds it all kicked off. I was sat on a sofa and looked up to see all the boys wading in to protect those who were being attacked. I thought to myself, ‘We’re in it together here, we’ve got each other’s backs.’ I don’t condone violence, particularly when there’s alcohol involved, but the fact everyone stood up for each other spoke volumes. News of the incident got back to Keith Hill, who gave us a dressing down, but he was happy that we’d stuck together and made sure we all came away unscathed.
At that age I would go out on a Saturday night but it was rare that I drank. Most of the time I’d stick to soft drinks and be the taxi driver for my mates. I love music and sometimes it’s nice to just go out after a game and unwind, particularly if adrenaline is still flowing through your veins. If you win 3-0 and there’s music playing in the dressing room, it can quickly snowball into a night out. We’ll start by going out for food and before you know it we’ve tried out a couple of bars and it’s the early hours of the morning. I’ve always been mindful not to take the piss, though, because you have to be professional and make sure you keep yourself in tip-top shape.
Part of the reason we were such a tight-knit unit was because we had such a small squad, who had all got to know each other. But the lack of numbers meant we slowly started to run out of steam. Our style of football was physically demanding. Keith liked to play a pressing game and win the ball back high up the pitch. To do that you need to be able to sprint, repeatedly, for 90 minutes. Over the course of a season, particularly in the Football League when you’re playing two games a week, that style takes its toll on your body. We didn’t have the luxury of rotating players and a combination of fatigue and injuries curtailed our brilliant start.
We didn’t manage to clinch automatic promotion to League One, but we still ended the 2008/09 season in sixth place, which meant we were in the play-offs for the second consecutive year. We played Gillingham in the semi-finals, but after a 0-0 draw in the first leg at Spotland, we lost 2-1 in the return fixture. It was gutting to come so close again, but on a personal note I’d made progress. I ended the season with 35 appearances and featured in both play-off games, having missed out altogether a year earlier. My efforts were rewarded with a new two-year deal, worth £700 a week, which would rise in my second year. I’d only just turned 20, so I felt like a millionaire compared to the money I’d been on as a YTS.
After breaking up with Lucy, I’d decided to be single for the following 12 months so that I could concentrate on football. I didn’t want any distractions as I tried to win a new contract. My plan had worked, but around Christmas time the following season someone caught my eye. I’d been to a few house parties and kept seeing the same girl from afar. She looked different to the other girls; she was dark and, like me, clearly had mixed heritage. I kept tabs on her, so to speak, and the more I saw of her, the more I wanted to go over and chat, but it took a while before I plucked up the courage to approach her.
I eventually made my move during a night out at Circle nightclub in Manchester. She was sat on a sofa and I decided it was the perfect time to try and work my magic. I can’t remember my exact words, but I walked over to her and said something like, ‘Are you too cool to get up and dance?’ Smooth, I know. I sat down next to her and we got chatting. Chantelle Perry was two years older than me and very independent. She was a self-employed hairdresser who was originally from Hull. She went back there three days a week to see various clients and already had her own apartment in Manchester. She let me know that she had already heard about me and my ‘dickhead’ group of footballers. Charming. I had a new challenge on my hands. I liked the fact that she had her head screwed on and already had her own flourishing career. She didn’t need me, but I hoped, eventually, that she’d want me.
Our first date was at an Odeon cinema at the Printworks in Manchester. If the conversation was dead I knew we could just watch the film, but she caught me off guard by telling me to meet her early for some lunch. I’d already eaten after training and ordered a small portion of food. I barely touched it because I was so full and nervous. Aside from trying to impress her, I was also wary that we were going to the main cinema in the city centre.
I wanted to keep it low key and didn’t want any mates to potentially see us together. She was calling the shots and told me we were going to watch Avatar. It was an animated film, so we both had to wear 3D glasses. I couldn’t believe it; I thought she was this cool girl with a bit of an attitude and there she was watching a 12A film like a geek. Even worse, I could see my own reflection in her glasses; I was losing street cred by the minute.
We dated for four months between November and February and I soon realised I was falling for her. Neither of us were seeing other people and we made it official shortly after I’d turned 21 in March. She was keen to plan a summer holiday together, but firstly I wanted to concentrate on my football. Rochdale were third in the league and on course for promotion. The club hadn’t been promoted in 35 years and I was having a good season, which I wanted to finish with a bang. In the event we went up, I was also guaranteed a £12,000 bonus, which would pay for a week-long trip to Las Vegas with a few of the lads.
After missing out on the play-offs twice, we were at last promoted to League One at the end of the 2009/10 season after holding on to third spot. I immediately put my extra cash towards Vegas. My team-mate Simon Ramsden told me he would book the flights and accommodation, having been there a couple of times before. ‘Just bring your spends, I’ll sort the rest,’ he said. Joining us were two other Rochdale lads, Tom Kennedy and Sam Russell, as well as Dean Shiels, who was playing for Hibernian at the time. We all met at the airport, where Simon revealed he’d booked the trip for ten days, rather than the agreed seven. I couldn’t believe he’d added an extra three days to the trip when he knew I hadn’t been certain I could go until promotion had been secured. Even worse, he hadn’t even sorted a hotel, which meant we’d have to find one when we landed. He shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’ll be right man,’ he said in his Mackem accent.
We arrived on the Vegas strip, suitcases in hand. I was immediately caught up in the bright lights. ‘Pick a hotel,’ said Simon. I was excited and suddenly loved the spontaneity of the trip. The hotel set us back about £700 and I then lost £600 in 20 minutes on a roulette machine inside the lobby while the lads checked in. I had a Thomas Cook bag stuffed with notes but I soon realised it wasn’t going to be enough. At one point, my bank called to notify me about large transactions on my account from Vegas cash machines. I assured them it was me and made sure there was plenty left for me to withdraw. We didn’t do much sightseeing. There were no trips to the Grand Canyon or any other landmarks. Most of our time was spent at pool parties and in nightclubs. It was a relentless holiday and after one particularly heavy night an old woman had to make sure I got in a lift and went back to my room at 4am. ‘That’s enough for you,’ she said, after her own night-long stint on the slot machines. It was th
e first time I’d drunk properly and it had taken its toll.
After four days, we all sat down in the hotel and looked at each other through bleary eyes. ‘Lads, should we get an early flight home?’ said Tom Kennedy. Everyone was in agreement that we should book a flight for the following day. Vegas had physically and financially destroyed us and we couldn’t handle another five days of partying. I called Chantelle and told her I was coming home early. She’d been to Vegas herself and knew I wouldn’t last the full ten days. Once again, she was one step ahead of me. I’d had a lot of fun in Vegas and the previous summer in Malia, but inwardly I knew that I needed an anchor in my life. When I came home we decided to make our relationship concrete and then went on our first holiday to Dubai.
We’d only been together for six months but going away felt right. Our backgrounds were similar in the sense that neither of us had had the perfect childhood. Chantelle’s father committed suicide when her mum was pregnant with her, which meant she was brought up by her step-dad, Paul. She knew from a young age he wasn’t her real dad, but he was in everything but blood. It takes a brave man to bring up someone else’s child and it was probably even more difficult given that Paul was white and Chantelle was mixed race, which meant he got funny looks wherever they went together. He loved her like she was his own and gave her stability as she grew up in a settled family unit.
At the time, I was still living at home and my relationship with my mum grew increasingly strained. We fell out over the smallest of things and I’d go and stay with my auntie. A few days later we’d make up and I’d be back in my bedroom with my brother. Over the course of the next year, I spent an increasing amount of time at Chantelle’s apartment by Deansgate Locks. At first she didn’t come to any of my games, but after a while she started to attend the odd one and I also introduced her to my mum. When I was with Lucy, I felt my mum was worried that I’d be spoilt by her parents and perhaps change in some way, but she got on well with Chantelle from the start. She recognised that she was her own girl and didn’t dote on me.
I was keen to settle down and I understand why managers want players to find themselves a solid partner as soon as possible, because they don’t want you to have too much time on your hands. If you’re single and you get home from training at 2pm, the first thing you do is ring your mates or a girl that you’re seeing to find out what they’re up to. Your manager wants you to have your feet up resting but instead you’re driving around in your car and wasting your energy on other things. A lot of players end up settling down very young because of that external pressure, but for others it’s a difficult thing to do because they want to socialise and have different experiences.
When you’re a young footballer, finding the right girl is easier said than done. When you go to certain nightclubs, you know there will be girls who are there with the sole intention of trying to find a footballer. I’ve seen plenty of young lads get with girls who have wanted them more for their wealth than their personalities. Further down the line they’ve seen their true colours, but by that point it’s been too late because they’ve got a house or had a child, which has led to a complex and expensive divorce. Seeing those sorts of things can make you paranoid, but I was fortunate to have met someone genuine, who had little interest in footballers or what I did for a living.
I’d only been with Chantelle for about 12 months when we bought our first house together. The lease on her apartment was due to expire and we both felt ready to take our relationship to the next step. We found a three-bedroom property in Prestwich, on the outskirts of Manchester. It was on a new estate full of young couples who were all buying their first homes. The area was the perfect balance between city and country life. We were only a 10- or 15-minute drive from the city centre and the same distance from my mum and auntie. It was better for me to be a little bit away from town so I didn’t have the temptations of bars and nightclubs on my doorstep. I was also happy to put a bit of space between me and Rochdale. Living close to the ground is great when you’re winning and fans are patting you on the back, but if you’re not playing well they want to know why when they see you buying a pint of milk in the shop.
Without realising it, I’d started a new chapter in my life. I was 21, had bought my first home with a girl that I loved and made a good start to life in League One. Little did I know, another one was about to follow.
Chapter 7
A man’s world
IT was the height of summer, but winds of change were sweeping over my world. The sweat and toil of the first day of pre-season training was the same, but the sights and sounds were very different. In June 2011, after four successful years at Rochdale, Keith Hill had left to take charge of Championship side Barnsley, and taken his right-hand man David Flitcroft with him.
Since the age of 17, his barking voice had been the soundtrack to my working week but now it had been replaced with the softer tones of Steve Eyre. On paper, his pedigree was first class. He’d previously been a youth-team coach at Manchester City and helped to bring through a talented group of players, including Micah Richards, Ishmael Miller and Kelvin Etuhu, but this was his first managerial role at senior level.
I couldn’t fault his credentials as a coach, but dealing with grown men is a completely different challenge to working with teenage boys. He was a perfectly good bloke but preferred a kid gloves approach, when the squad of players he’d inherited had thrived on tough love. When older players questioned his decisions, he struggled to stand up to them and it was often left to his assistant, Frankie Bunn, to act as his voice.
From his early days in charge it became obvious the appointment was a bad fit. On the training ground and in the dressing room he struggled to communicate when senior players questioned his methods. In training, he preferred structured drills, involving lots of cones and crossing drills, which was like something out of an FA coaching manual, whereas Keith always tailored his sessions to a game scenario, which the lads enjoyed.
Steve’s recruitment also left a lot to be desired. We’d finished the previous season in ninth place, three points short of the play-offs, which was a brilliant achievement in our first campaign back in League One. But the current side had been together for a long time and everyone knew we would need an injection of fresh blood to maintain our progress. New faces did arrive, but they lacked the quality to improve the squad and it was the start of a reversal in our fortunes.
Still, on that first day of pre-season training, I was desperate to impress. Steve had spoken to me at great length about his plans and I’d put in a lot of effort over the summer to ensure I made a good first impression, only for a freak injury to ruin all my hard work. On the first day we went through a light warm-up before doing a series of sprints, but midway through the opening run my back went into spasm, leaving me in agony on the grass.
The physio came running over, but my back was locked and I could barely walk or stand up straight. ‘Fucking hell,’ I thought. It was the worst possible start and I feared I’d suffered a long-term injury. It turned out I was right. I’d torn a disc in my lower lumbar and my back had gone into spasm as a defence mechanism to prevent further damage. I was told it’s an injury that can happen to anyone at any time and that it would take at least two weeks before I could even stand up properly.
We were due to go away to Marbella again for warm-weather training and the coaching staff agreed it was best for me to join the rest of the squad and try and do some light rehabilitation work in the warm weather. Fortunately, the temperatures seemed to loosen up my back and by the end of the two weeks I was able to do some gentle running in straight lines. It was the first time I’d suffered a serious injury and made me realise how your body works as a chain. A problem in an isolated area incapacitates so many other muscle groups.
It was two months later, in August, when I was finally ready to return, but I faced a fight for a regular starting place. I featured in pretty much every game between August and October, but I often started on the bench and wa
s slowly growing frustrated at my lack of playing time. It was around this time that my agent received a phone call offering me an escape route. Keith was keen to take me to Barnsley on loan and wanted to know if I was 100 per cent fit. I told him I was and felt excited by the possibility of testing myself in the Championship, a level I felt I was more than capable of competing at.
The deal was agreed, but yet another injury setback scuppered the move. The day before I was due to join Barnsley, I tore my left quadriceps muscle as I pulled my leg back to take a shot at goal in a Football League Trophy tie against Walsall. I was forced to come off at half-time and then faced another two months on the sidelines. It was a nightmare start to the season, and by the time I was fit again in early January Steve had been sacked, with Rochdale languishing in the relegation places, four points adrift of safety.
Rochdale’s youth-team manager, Chris Beech, was placed in temporary charge. Beechy had been the youth team manager before I progressed to the first team and was similar to Steve in that his experience had been forged in youth coaching. However, he’d had a good career in the Football League and that showed in his sessions. He was very professional and able to walk us through exactly what we needed to do because he could still play. There are some brilliant managers who haven't had great playing careers, but I have an instant respect for someone who can do what he's asking of the players.