by Ben Smith
My injury had not improved after two months of rest and recuperation so I was finally sent for a scan. It showed, as I suspected, a meniscus (cartilage) tear to my right knee and a chipped bone in my right ankle. A foreign body within the ankle had also created a cyst that had to be removed. The recuperation time was three months, which didn’t seem too bad until you factored in the two wasted months the club had gambled on sorting it out.
It always makes me chuckle when football clubs try to ‘save’ money on MRI scans. I think the price back then was around £300 to £400 per scan; the wait actually cost Southend around £4,000, which was what they paid me while ‘assessing’ the situation. If they had paid for the scan immediately, I would have been available to play by Christmas.
To make matters worse, David Webb left the club as I recuperated. During October he had been away from the club and it transpired he was suffering from a heart complaint. He could not take a risk with his health, fair enough, but it didn’t help me. I was now stranded; injured at a new club where none of the management staff knew my qualities.
After our rather inauspicious start, John Gowans and I started to build a good relationship. To be honest, we didn’t have much choice as I spent the vast majority of my time in his physio room. John worked me hard and it was the first time I took any real interest in training in the gym.
At Southend’s training ground (Boots and Laces), the club had a decent gym area and I used it every day. If you were injured you trained seven days a week, bar the odd day off, so I had plenty of time to utilise the facilities. This was the start of my love affair with the gym, which continues to this day.
However, my injury was not helping me control my off-the-field activities. Being back home with my friends meant I had plenty of opportunities to go out partying, which, more often than not, I took up.
I managed to endure John’s wrath again when I called in sick one Sunday morning. I had been out drinking heavily the night before and, when I got up the next day, I got in the car to drive to training and realised I was still so pissed it would have been dangerous for everyone. Before starting the car I rang John, left a message telling him how ill I was and turned my phone off, knowing full well there would be an irate northerner on my voicemail when I turned it back on the next day. He was fuming, but angrier that I’d lied to him. Thankfully he didn’t tell the manager, but this was proof that my social life was still more important than what could still have been a promising career.
The change of management happened while I endured my injury-forced sabbatical. Rob Newman, the former Norwich player, was initially given the job temporarily before being appointed on a full-time basis.
When I first joined the club, Rob was the assistant manager and I thought he was perfect in that role. He was very approachable, friendly and had a good sense of humour – an ideal foil for someone like the manager, who could be very detached and quite intimidating.
Unfortunately this all changed when he became first-team manager. I’m well aware that when anyone becomes a manager they need to change and keep a certain amount of distance from the players, but Rob changed too much, in my opinion. He went from being a really affable character to the exact opposite. He would regularly have little digs at me for being injured, as if I was happy being on the treatment table every day.
By February 2002 I was starting to get fit and I spent two of the hardest weeks of my life with John doing aerobic work once I was clinically given the all-clear. The next step was to join in with the team. I got right back in the swing of things and raised a few eyebrows with some of the senior boys who didn’t know much about me as a player.
I was confident I was good enough to play at this level but not quite as confident I would get an opportunity to showcase my ability in the first team, since Rob and I were not getting along. In hindsight, he was obviously struggling with the pressure that went with the job – something I can now relate to.
He would try to dig me out in front of others and I would snap straight back with a sarcastic comment. I remember after one reserve game, my comeback against a youthful Norwich side, I was doing a bit of shameless self-publicity regarding my performance when Rob quipped that I had only been playing against Norwich’s youth team. I retorted with I could only do it against the players he put me up against and ‘if you want me to do it against better players then put me in the first team!’
I do not think he made much of comments like that but I was not really bothered.
Other than the underlying tension with the manager, however, my comeback was going well. I played in a few second-string games and was doing everything expected of me. After a long spell on the sidelines it was just a buzz to be back on the pitch. The first team was pretty average and I sensed I was close to getting an opportunity, whether from the start or off the bench.
But the adrenalin was subsiding as my comeback progressed and I started to feel new aches and pains. My right knee and ankle felt fine but, as often happens after a long-term injury, my body was subconsciously protecting the affected areas, which had led to a soft tissue injury.
In early March we were doing a shooting session and I could feel my left quad tightening up. Now, in a normal situation I would have stopped training immediately but, after being out for so long and desperate to impress, I kept going. Eventually the inevitable happened and I pulled my left thigh properly. To add insult to the injury, I subsequently found out that they’d been strongly considering me for the local derby against Leyton Orient on 12 March.
I was devastated as this new injury meant I was guaranteed to be out for at least three or four weeks. It pretty much meant the end of my season. I was out of contract and, in my mind, I had little or no chance of earning a new one.
I did manage to get back for the last couple of reserve games but I was nowhere near fit enough to compete for a place in the first team. The season had been terrible. What had looked like a great opportunity had been nothing of the sort. My sole contribution, if you can call it that, was my two-minute substitute appearance in early August. Southend finished right in the middle of the table on fifty-eight points.
Obviously this highly successful personal season meant I was due an end-of-season piss-up, so off I went with the Southend boys on a three-day bender to Dublin. I made the schoolboy error of going out in Chelmsford the night before the trip and, after an excellent first night in Ireland, I was a wreck for the last two days.
I was now out of contract and it seemed pretty obvious that I would be on the move again if I could get a new club. However, after a poor end to my last season at Yeovil and a non-existent year at Southend, I was far from confident that someone else would take me.
To further complicate matters, the Football League had agreed a £315 million deal with ITV Digital to broadcast League and Cup matches on its then-new paid TV channel. Unfortunately the new broadcaster went bust without fully honouring the contract and ended up owing a total of £180 million to Football League clubs. With football being the industry it is, where clubs spend money before it’s earned to guarantee future success, this was a big problem. Clubs knowing they were entitled to a certain chunk of the TV contract had used the money to offer players more lucrative contracts. Anyone out of contract, like me, was in a very vulnerable position. Best case scenario: you got a sizeable pay cut. Worst case: you got released. This debacle ended a lot of senior players’ careers prematurely and a lot of younger players’ before they began.
I was convinced I was going to be one of the victims of the situation. As usual in these circumstances, I had a one-to-one meeting with the manager to discuss the previous season and my future. Our chat did not last long but, to my surprise, he didn’t immediately release me. He gave me the normal spiel about how the club had no money and I had contributed very little to the season, but he then went on to say he thought I had ability and he was willing to give me an opportunity to prove my fitness. He offered me a three-month contract on £300 per week. My wages for t
he previous season had been £450 per week so this represented a big cut. He was basically proposing a paid trial on the understanding that, if I proved my fitness, my contract would be extended for the season.
I was surprised to get any sort of offer, but it was not the sort I in any rush to sign. I was also put off by the fact Rob wanted us to train through four of our eight weeks off. I told him I would have to think about it.
When a Football League club makes you a contract offer, and it is in writing, you have twenty-eight days to either accept or reject it. During that time the club cannot retract the offer and they have to honour it if the player accepts. Again, as at Yeovil, this new contract offer was lower both in terms of salary and length of time, which meant, if I did move on, there would be no fee involved for my services.
All the signs were pointing for me to start packing my bags again.
• • •
23 FEBRUARY 2013
Former Prime Minister Harold Wilson said a week is a long time in politics and I’m sure someone slightly less important has said the same thing about football. Well, it turns out this is also the case in the world of education. Half-term is coming to an end and I do not want to go back. I have thought long and hard about it and teaching ICT, science and maths is not for me. I have written my resignation letter ready to hand in on Monday:
Dear Sir,
After much deliberation I am handing in my notice as I intend to leave my position at Easter.
I appreciate the opportunity you have given me but I have not enjoyed teaching such a wide range of subjects. After giving it six months I don’t envisage this changing and, as a result, I don’t think secondary school teaching is for me.
Once again, thanks for allowing me to experience working in the industry and good luck for the future.
Ben
I’ve even printed it off and put it in an envelope ready to go. My mind is made up.
• • •
9 MARCH 2013
Well, I thought it was … until I got a phone call that made me think twice. Alan Bailey – the man who got me into teaching, has been my mentor and was, incidentally, my PE teacher when I attended as a pupil – was taken very ill.
He told me he was going to be away from school for a prolonged period of time and asked if I could come and see him at his house. He said that he won’t be returning until Easter at the earliest (though probably not until the end of the school year) and that I am the only person with the expertise to do his job: he wanted me to take over from him, at least on a temporary basis.
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.
CHAPTER 9
HEREFORD’S NUMBER EIGHT
SEASON: 2002/03
CLUB: HEREFORD UNITED
LEAGUE: CONFERENCE PREMIER
MANAGER: GRAHAM TURNER (GT)
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 an
y 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.