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The Secret Footballer: undercover in the Premier League

Red Phoenix

By Red Phoenix,
in FF - Football Forum

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Red Phoenix Grand Master

Red Phoenix

Posted
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Just saw this on The Guardian and thought it was a pretty good read :

 

'Growing up on a council estate, all he wanted to do was play football. But a long career in the Premier League has made him question everything. The Guardian's Secret Footballer reveals what life is really like at the top of the game'

 

"A few years ago, I seriously considered giving up football. Sometimes, when the games are coming thick and fast, and you don't see your family, you aren't playing wonderfully well and the results are poor, it gets on top of you. I would later come to realise this was depression knocking at the door. But standing in the tunnel before a match against Liverpool at Anfield, I had a brush with something that Marcel Proust describes as "a remembrance of things past". As our coach gave each player a ball, I lifted mine up to my nose and sniffed it. Don't ask me why – I had never done it before as a professional, or since. The ball was brand new and looked so inviting. The smell took me right back to my council estate and the moment when my mum and dad bought me one of my first full-size footballs. It suddenly filled me with all the reasons I'd ever wanted to play the game – it smelled of happy times and familiarity. As the noise outside grew louder and the opening notes of You'll Never Walk Alone made their way through the tunnel, I told myself to keep that moment at the front of my mind for as long as possible."

 

 

 

Link : The Secret Footballer: undercover in the Premier League | extract | Football | The Guardian

 

Seems like a few references in there that'd start people trying to narrow down who he is, but if that's all true I hope nobody susses it out. Also hope that he can eventually deal with his life without the depression meds eventually, was also on mirtazapine and citalopram earlier this year and it made me kind of sad and angry that he's having to take that stuff just to be ok. If it really works for him for now, fine, but would like to think he isn't stuck with taking them.

 

Some of the things mentioned there are pretty crazy though. Don't usually read about what footballers lives are like and just kind of guess this is the case for some of them.

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Whit Newbie

Whit

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It's Kevin Davies, council estate in Sheffield, Chesterfield lower league. He was Blackburn's record transfer at the time, he was crap so he got stick off the Ewood Park 'faithful'. Played at Anfield last season, sniffs balls in his spare time.

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