The work of professional football Most professional footballers don’t have a Ferrari, a mansion, a celebrity girl- friend or a lucrative book deal. Few of them will ever play at Wembley. Their careers are short, insecure, and played out under constant scrutiny. The Work of Professional Football offers a sociological study of the working lives of ‘ordinary’ professional footballers. Based on extensive research, including in- depth interviews with players who have achieved varying degrees of professional success, it provides unprecedented insight into this ‘closed’ world, and a unique sociological exploration of a contemporary working culture. It examines: ● The labour of professional sport ● The drama and performance of a career in the public eye ● How players deal with the fragile and uncertain nature of their careers ● The role of footballers’ working and family relationships ● Changing attitudes and ideals over the course of a career The book focuses on career turning points, such as injury and transfer, and demonstrates how players’ identities are built around basic needs for security and self-esteem. The Work of Professional Football will be of great interest to students and researchers working in the sociology of sport and the sociology of work, foot- ball studies, coaching studies, business and management. Martin Roderick is Lecturer in Sociology at Durham University, UK and a former professional footballer. The work of professional football A labour of love? Martin Roderick I~ ~~o~!!;n~~~up LONDON AND NEW YORK First published 2006 by Routledge Published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © 2006 Martin Roderick Typeset in Goudy by GreenGate Publishing Services,Tonbridge The Open Access version of this book, available at www.tandfebooks.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Roderick, Martin. The work of professional football : a labour of love? / by Martin Roderick. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Soccer–Social aspects. I.Title. GV943.9.S64R64 2006 796.3334–dc22 2005028645 ISBN13:\ 978-0-415-36372-3 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-0-415-36373-0 (pbk) This book is dedicated to my mother Elsie Roderick Contents Preface viii Acknowledgements xi Football League descriptors xii Introduction 1 1 Professional football in context 15 2 Attitudes to work in professional football 33 3 Uncertainty and football injuries 52 4 Injuries, stigma and social identity 67 5 Transferring and the transformation of self 83 6 Transfer markets and informal grapevines 100 7 Control and the process of transferring 113 8 The fate of idealism in professional football 147 Conclusion 170 Notes 177 Bibliography 183 Index 194 Preface My initial inspiration for writing this book stems from my experiences as a young professional and then semi-professional footballer from the early 1980s to mid- 1990s. As an eager young apprentice-professional I was told that I had an opportunity that I should not waste; most boys of my age would not be offered the chance to make it in the professional game. What could be better than to play football for a living; to do something you love? If I played well there was the chance to earn good money; to be outside in the fresh air every day; to be the envy of schoolmates. I heard all these clichés regularly at the training ground, before and after matches, in the treatment room and whilst cleaning boots or undertaking other non-playing work tasks throughout my apprenticeship. In truth there were few hiding places: within the confines of the football club the realities of work for young players were addressed on a regular basis by first, reserve and youth team coaches. Daily life as a young player can at times be an intensely physical and emo- tional experience. Physically tough fitness sessions (mostly without a ball) were something each player could adjust to in my view; I don’t look back and recall the pain of interval running. I do however recollect the highs of playing well and receiving praise from teammates. There isn’t a better feeling than executing a piece of skill or, ultimately, scoring a goal in front of a crowd, however small in number. By contrast, the emotional pain of watching friends depart the club hav- ing been released, or of being ridiculed or undermined by a senior professional in training, or of returning to work on Monday morning following a poor perfor- mance on Saturday, are all moments which reside strongly in my memory. A football club is a positive, self-enhancing workplace for a player who is perform- ing well; by contrast, a club environment for one who has lost form can be unsupportive and marginalizing. I played left midfield most often, but I was not known for an aggressive, com- mitted style of play. The local evening newspaper in Portsmouth regularly described me as ‘talented but lightweight’, a description that repeatedly under- pinned the banter of teammates expressed at my expense. The first team manager would often say that he would ‘rent a crowd’ to stand on the side opposite the Preface ix team dugout, because I seemed to lack self-motivation. In fact, the idea that I lacked motivation for this profession was something that he and other coaches would draw to my attention on a pretty consistent basis, often in the company of colleagues. The first team manager (formerly the youth coach) would also ask: did I want to drive a Mini or a Ferrari? The implication of his question was that if I ‘wanted’ career success enough, material gain and, possibly, celebrity status could follow. On many occasions – on match days and in training sessions – the coaches would say to me that I didn’t look like I wanted it badly enough, that I didn’t look like I fancied it. I remember the manager asking me on one occasion whether I had read my horoscope that day: did the stars indicate whether I would play well or badly? My inconsistent form was, for all the coaches involved at the club, a question of my ‘attitude’ to making it as a professional footballer. During such times that coaches questioned my approach to the game, I would often speculate mentally about how I would need to ‘look’ for them to be convinced of my com- mitment to the sport and my work. Playing football meant everything to me at the time – I wanted to show them that I was dedicated to, and desperate to make it in, the professional game. At times I would try to appear ‘focused’, to be more overtly aggressive in the changing room in order to convey to the coach that I was ready and prepared for the forthcoming game. Yet, such surface acting was never sustainable and close teammates would often remark on my odd behaviour. While the importance of displaying a good attitude to work permeates every encounter with senior club staff, the consequences of adhering to such workplace prescriptions may be serious and unforeseen. Some years following my departure from the professional game, I played for a Conference club as a part-time semi-professional footballer. At 26 years old I began the 1993–4 season strongly and attracted some attention from lower Football League clubs. By Christmas of that season however my fitness levels had reduced significantly. I was experiencing pain in my groin area and the club manager was struggling to justify my inclusion in the starting line-up. Having kept faith in me initially, in January 1994 he started to question my attitude, accusing me of being a ‘big-time Charlie’ and disregarding my claims of fatigue. The harder I trained – to counter his assertion that I possessed a bad attitude – the more I experienced feelings of exhaustion. The club doctor responded to my ill-defined bouts of pain by suggesting two Ibuprofen tablets before matches and training sessions. By the end of March 1994, the manager informed me that my performances and levels of fitness were so poor that he no longer required my services: I was confused and unable to explain my cata- strophic drop in fitness and form. In June 1994 I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma – a cancer of the lymphatic system – and, at 27 years old, my ‘career’ was over. My hard work to display a good attitude allied with my struggle to prove my commitment to the Conference manager were merely a prelude to a far greater battle which lay ahead. x Preface Ultimately, a player may possess a fantastic ‘attitude’ to training, levels of fitness, diet and pre-match preparation, but all that really concerns club staff are levels of performance and results in games. All that matters is what happens at three o’clock on Saturday afternoon: the results achieved by players. For club coaches however there is a direct and important correlation between a young player’s self- presentation and approach to the game and the likelihood of his making the grade. This connection infiltrates interaction between club staff and players. Constant reminders to players to be ‘good professionals’ and to display an appro- priate ‘attitude’ subtly establish this correlation in their minds. In this book I attempt in part to examine notions of attitude, the way a player’s sense of self may be colonized by such workplace prescriptions, and the human costs of such processes of colonization.