IceBreaker14
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On the ninth of May in the year 2010, I retired from football after seventeen years of playing in England. My last game was against Aston Villa and I captained Blackburn Rovers to a victory where Richard Dunne scored an own goal in the eighty-fourth minute to seal us the tie. In my seventeen years as a professional football player I had won a Premier League title, an FA Cup, two FA Community Shields and a UEFA Intertoto Cup yet I still felt like I hadn't made an impact. True, Blackburn Rovers and Stoke City both considered me legends yet that didn't mean anything to me. I was useless, over four hundred games as a striker but only ninety-eight goals, nine clubs played for in only seventeen seasons, a mediocre at best professional that couldn't even get capped for England despite spending almost my entire career in the top division.
I spent a month away from football but I didn't have much to do considering my wife left years ago and I have no children. What does one do when they retire at thirty-four? I knew that I would have to do something soon. Punditry beckoned, as did journalism. There are hundreds of ways for a retired sportsperson to earn money, none of which I particularly fancied.
It was by accident I got into coaching. I had taken my National C and B licenses at Blackburn Rovers but I was unsure of whether I wanted to get back into football that way. I slowly worked my way upwards, earning my National A license in December 2010 and my Continental C license in the Summer of 2011. I did a bit of work for TalkSport radio. A couple of bits here and there about the transfer window. It was in Summer 2011 I got offered my first job, as an Under 21 coach at my boyhood club, Newcastle United, the team I made my youth debut for at the age of twelve. I accepted it without much deliberation. In my first season we finished fifth and in May 2012 I became a first-team coach, a job I held for two seasons until I quit in April 2014 after I decided I was ready for the next step - management.
I spent a month away from football but I didn't have much to do considering my wife left years ago and I have no children. What does one do when they retire at thirty-four? I knew that I would have to do something soon. Punditry beckoned, as did journalism. There are hundreds of ways for a retired sportsperson to earn money, none of which I particularly fancied.
It was by accident I got into coaching. I had taken my National C and B licenses at Blackburn Rovers but I was unsure of whether I wanted to get back into football that way. I slowly worked my way upwards, earning my National A license in December 2010 and my Continental C license in the Summer of 2011. I did a bit of work for TalkSport radio. A couple of bits here and there about the transfer window. It was in Summer 2011 I got offered my first job, as an Under 21 coach at my boyhood club, Newcastle United, the team I made my youth debut for at the age of twelve. I accepted it without much deliberation. In my first season we finished fifth and in May 2012 I became a first-team coach, a job I held for two seasons until I quit in April 2014 after I decided I was ready for the next step - management.
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