BECK’S BASICS GAVE ME ALL THE HEART AND DESIRE I NEED
YOU might have seen my reaction when Mansfield Town scored their eighth goal against us in the FA Cup recently – I chased my right-back to tell him off!
Heart, desire and commitment to do well is a big part of me.
I’m 43 now but for the last few years I’ve said to the wife I will pack football in when I’ve lost that desire, whether it be the beginning of the season, the middle or the end.
I made my debut at 17 for Cambridge United against Colchester so I’ve been going a long old time.
The game has changed massively since I started – and for the worse in my opinion.
Too many players think they’re Premier League players. Young kids coming out of academies get a massive culture shock when they drop into Non-League. They find it hard to adjust.
I understand why Premier and Football League clubs like to play, play, play. At our level, where it’s faster and you have no time on the ball, they struggle.
To be a manager now is so difficult because you can’t talk to players the way we were brought up – and I believe that is the right way.
At Cambridge I played under the famous John Beck. I’m not the biggest and he wanted to improve my spring. So he got me in a bunker behind the stands of the Abbey Stadium.
Gary Johnson would throw the ball in while he would have a bag of Mitre balls.
As I went up to catch it he would smash me in the chest with a ball trying to get me to spring, get up there and get stronger.
At the time I used to go home and say, ‘That guy is an absolute nutter’. But, in hindsight, it’s done me well. There was a method in his madness.
I was going to retire at the end of last season after playing for Worksop. The travelling and the commitment the manager wanted was more than I wanted. My son Callum is at Grimsby Town so I want to do as much as I can to help him too.
Then St Albans came in for me and I opted to carry on. It was an easy decision because I loved every minute at this club.
The fans are fantastic and the club has always done me well in the past.
In the summer the joint-manager Jimmy Gray asked if I’d come back and do another year – I couldn’t resist!
LET’S GET UP FOR SUPER JOHN’S 50TH
MY CAR looks like a hearse! I live in Boston so it’s a bit of a drive down to St Albans.
I have an old friend who comes with me who looks about 120 and a kit man who is 80-odd.
Our kit man John Feneley has been in different Non-League dressing rooms for 50 years next year.
He lives in Stotfold which is too far to drive so I pick him up and he asked if I could do another year so he could do his 50th!
I’ve always said if we get promoted this year I will leave the club – I would love to go out on a big high.
