Guest Post by Ben Smith
For every James Tomkins, Mark Noble and Michael Carrick that makes it through a clubs academy and goes on to play regularly for the first team there are hundreds that do not.
A small number of those hundreds will go on to create some sort of career for themselves in the professional game. That might be in the Premiership, Championship or the lower reaches of the professional game. The reason I know this is because I was one of those fortunate/unfortunate (delete as appropriate!) young men. After a brief sojourn in the Hammers Academy I signed for Arsenal at the age of 12 with dreams of superstardom.
All seemed to be going well as I rose through the ranks sharing training sessions with the likes of Frank Lampard, Lee Hodges and Jason Tindall. I don’t think there was ever any chance of Frank or Lee being prised away from West Ham but Arsenal tried anyway.
My progression continued apace as I was offered what would now be called a scholarship and joined Arsenal as a full time player. This was when the problems started!!
Primarily I wasn’t good enough for that level of football. Secondly I developed a taste for the high life and spent as much time enjoying myself as I did trying to become a professional footballer.
During that time, the 1995/96 season, I regularly came up against a really strong West Ham Youth team including Rio Ferdinand, Frank Lampard, Lee Hodges, Joe Keith and my former childhood team mate Lee Boylan. I remember that team pretty well as the vast majority of them wanted to kill me when I theatrically went down for a penalty that allowed us to win one of our encounters!
Even then Rio was a genius that looked just as comfortable playing central defence, midfield or centre forward.
I quickly went on to have a nomadic career traversing between English footballs basement and the Conference finding myself in the very unglamorous surroundings of the likes of Yeovil Town, Hereford United and Shrewsbury Town to name just a few.
‘Journeyman’ is about my experiences as a, more often than not, struggling footballer who somehow managed to survive for 17 years in the cutthroat world of professional football. The chapters are intertwined by the struggles of trying to adapt to the real world in a new career at the age of 33.
What with me being a West Ham supporter there are plenty of connections with the club. I talk about my year at Ipswich Town, at the age of 11, being coached by Hammers academy director Terry Westley (he scared the life out of me), playing under Alan Pardew at Reading (I liked him a lot, super confident but could back it up), my 5 months with new Hammers signing Darren Randolph who signed on a 6 month loan to Hereford in 2008 (which he didn’t complete), One of the few highs in my career as I toiled while trying to mark Michael Carrick at Old Trafford (I was dripping with sweat while he looked like he had his slippers on) and plenty of nut cases such as the notorious Steve Evans who I shared a tumultuous three years with at Crawley Town FC.
‘Journeyman’ is an insight into the realities of life in the professional game. If you watch Sky Sports regularly you could be forgiven for thinking that every professional footballer earns £40,000 a week, has millions of pounds worth of endorsements and drives a Range Rover.
Funnily enough they never talk about the players who had to take a £25 a week pay cut during the summer as their employer could not afford to pay all their wages….
I have no doubt that the vast majority of you will have never heard of Ben Smith and why should you have? However I am pretty sure that the scenarios and situations that come up within ‘Journeyman’ will be familiar within your club and might give you a clearer insight into why players and managers do what they do!
If you read the book I would love to hear your feedback. You can contact me on Twitter @bsmudger7
‘Journeyman’ is available in paperback or as an eBook via Biteback Publishing at £8.99 in paperback and £5.99 as an eBook, or from Amazon too.