Clattenburg plea after ref attack EXCLUSIVE
Portsmouth legend was living in his car when he toyed with ending it all. Now he’s backing Reposm housing charity to help struggling stars
MARK ClAttenbuRg has called for criminal charges to be brought against amateur footballers who attack referees following a shocking assault on an official at the weekend. Satyam toki required treatment from an ambulance crew after he was punched three times in the face by a player he had sent off in a pre-season friendly on Sunday in Acton, west london. train conductor toki told
Sportsmail today that he is ‘scared to go out and referee again’ and that if ‘I don’t press charges, this individual would get away with it and tomorrow he might bring a knife and murder a referee on the pitch’. Former Premier league referee Clattenburg told
Sportsmail the threat of violence is a ‘reality facing every referee at grassroots level’ and more must be done to protect referees. ‘It’s about education,’ Clattenburg said. ‘the consequences need to be severe, too — more than issuing a suspension for the perpetrator. ‘If an incident such as this takes place, it has to become a criminal matter. ‘treat the player as if he was any man on the street. Why should it be any different just because you’ve crossed some white lines?’
Through the clear eyes of 11 sober years, Alan Knight can make perfect sense of his personal crash into the ranks of the homeless.
he acknowledges his mistakes with honesty and regret as he retraces his steps and he appreciates the perils awaiting professional sportspeople when age forces them into the real world. At the time, however, it was a high-speed blur.
Knight, a one-club legend with 801 senior appearances for Portsmouth, spiralled out of football, out of control and into depression via alcoholism, a broken marriage and a medical emergency in the uSA.
‘I’ve had those moments where you think about ending your life,’ he says. ‘I’ve done that. I was sleeping in the car when there was nowhere else to go and you would sit in there and think about all sorts of things.
‘hosepipe into the car? Would that be the easiest way? All those things go through your head when you’re at your lowest.’
At 59, Knight is an ambassador for Pompey and active in their community projects in a city where homelessness and addiction are prevalent. Who better than someone who can empathise and offer proof of a way out?
The key for him was to overcome the embarrassment of talking about his predicament and accessing the support network. he was fortunate to have family and good friends on hand, and agencies such as the PFA and the Sporting Chance addiction clinic.
There are gaps in the system, however, and Knight believes reposm, a new charity established to help former sportsmen and women with affordable housing highlighted on these pages yesterday, will go a long way towards closing one of them.
‘ It’s very easy to slip through the grid,’ he says. ‘More common than people realise. It comes down to pride with a lot of lads I see, and that was my biggest problem. People told me I needed help, that I was an alcoholic and I should go to the PFA but I wouldn’t accept that.
‘I was wrapped up in myself and there’s fear and embarrassment. Where to go? Who will help? I know lots of footballers who have struggled to access help they needed.’
When Knight’s playing career ended in the late 1990s, he was on about £50,000 a year and dropped to £25,000 to become the club’s goalkeeping coach. There had been a windfall from a testimonial in 1994 and another benefit match a decade on.
The £30,000 it generated soon disappeared to repay debts. ‘ A lot of people worked hard and people paid to come and watch,’ says Knight. ‘I’m grateful and I feel I let them down.
‘ unfortunately, my personal life was unravelling. I split from my wife and I was haemorrhaging money. I lost the house and instead of sorting the finances, I buried my head in the sand and tried to make out everything was going well.
‘ My drinking had escalated. I can look back now and see that I was a functioning alcoholic when I was playing. There was a big drink culture but you couldn’t drink two days before a game.
‘As a coach, I didn’t have those rules. I’d go out on a Friday or, if it was an away game, I’d stay up drinking in the hotel with some of the staff and I’d be kicking balls at the goalies in the warm-up still half- drunk. I was losing self-control.’
From Portsmouth, Knight accepted a job coaching in the uSA with Colin Clarke, a former team-mate who was in charge of FC Dallas. It was going well until his appendix burst and he needed emergency surgery. ‘They found it was infected and I nearly lost my bowel. Then came the conversation about who was paying the $100,000 bill. My contract said medical care was covered but Dallas hadn’t put it in place and the hospital said that was my problem. It was settled in the end but it created a bad feeling.’
Clarke was sacked after losing on penalties in the 2006 play- offs and Knight returned home.
‘ That was when things became really difficult,’ he says. ‘I had nowhere to live and getting a job in football proved impossible. I had no money for rent. I was running on empty.’
he lived in spare rooms and slept on sofas in the homes of friends and former team-mates, unable to offer rent, afraid he would outstay his welcome, and he picked up cash doing manual labour and occasional coaching sessions at Bournemouth, havant & Waterlooville and Dorchester, but he was still drinking and unreliable.
‘I always ended up in a pub,’ Knight admits. ‘I could always go into a pub in Pompey and someone would look after me.’
Then came the emotional breakdown. ‘I woke up one Saturday morning in Southsea in clothes I’d had on for a couple of days, a suit and a white shirt covered in dirt, and I walked over Fratton Bridge. Pompey were at home and supporters were
in the pubs saying, “Come on in, Al”.
‘I must have looked like a bag of s***. I could tell by the looks people were thinking, “Look at the state of him” and “Where’s it all gone wrong?”
‘I ended up in a pub and I just broke down in tears. I couldn’t do it any more.’
Friends, family and the PFA moved in to help. The following day he borrowed £5 to buy 10 cigarettes and half a pint of lager, which he left untouched. It is the last drink he bought.
By Thursday he had spoken to counsellors at Sporting Chance and the following Monday was starting a 28- day rehab course. He emerged clean. ‘I had an epiphany, I think,’ he smiles, but stepping back into society was daunting.
‘ I can’t thank Sporting Chance and the PFA enough, so I don’t want to sound disingenuous but the big bit for me was at the end. Where are you going to go? I didn’t know where I was going to live. I didn’t have a job. I was lucky to have some very good friends and family who supported me.’
Knight found a job doing groundwork on construction sites. ‘I wasn’t very good, but at least I was reliable because I wasn’t drinking.’
And he returned to coaching, first at Horndean in Wessex League Two, step seven of the pyramid, and later at Aldershot with Kevin Dillon, another former team-mate, and as manager at Dorchester.
The labouring took priority, however, because it paid more. Eventually he could afford rent on lodgings to call his own and regain some control. ‘I was in a bed, with a better sleep pattern,’ says Knight. ‘It didn’t feel like I was sofa- surfing. I had the stability of my own space. ‘I met my wife, Heather. She has been a massive help with my sobriety. I got my head straight and started to face my issues.
‘ There were times when I thought it never would, but my life changed. I have a better relationship with my two daughters. I have three grandkids. I have a wife, a stepson and stepdaughter, a new life and it has been great to get back into football.’
Knight returned to Portsmouth as goalkeeping coach in 2013, before becoming an ambassador.
Uncertainty lies ahead, once again. He was on furlough through the pandemic and volunteered delivering food parcels with Pompey in the Community. He knows clubs in League One are facing difficult decisions.
But Knight is safe in the knowledge he has faced greater fears and survived.