Injury hell, medical blunders and false promises broke me
Malcolm Christie went from playing in front of 70,000 to not leaving his house. His tale is the dark side of our beautiful game
THE ascent was so fast and thrilling. From stacking supermarket shelves to the Premier League in the blink of an eye. Scoring a brilliant winner at the Stretford End of Old Trafford to beat his beloved Manchester United and ensure Derby County avoided relegation.
There was England recognition and a move to Middlesbrough as Steve McClaren created a team that would win the League Cup and reach the UEFA Cup final, but the descent was torturous and prolonged.
It is the dark side of our beautiful game, a world of injuries and medical mistakes, broken promises and a vanishing network of support and it plunged Malcolm Christie into a spiral of despair that ended in a breakdown and therapy.
The Reality of the Dream, he calls it, the title of the autobiography written after finally conquering his demons, the book he will sit and read aloud to his three sons when the time is right.
‘I want them to hear it from my voice,’ Christie, 43, tells Sportsmail. ‘It will be hard in some respects. I wish some of the lows weren’t there. I wish it wasn’t such a sombre second part to the story. I didn’t go on to win the Premier League or the Golden Boot but I went through a lot and I think I can help.
‘It’s important they know my mistakes, to beware the pitfalls. I’d like it to be a lesson to guide them through life. To know what it takes to follow your passion and achieve your dream but to know the other side, the adversity and rejection.’
Christie, unfortunately, became an expert in all of this when he broke his leg in training in November 2003. He was 24, little more than five years into his professional career and only five months after joining Boro from Derby.
‘They messed about with my injury,’ he recalls. ‘I don’t think I was treated right or the right decisions were made. I ended up playing and training with a broken leg, which was horrific.
‘Then the second injury comes along. Then the third and fourth. Then it’s the seventh and eighth operation. Gradually, over time, the drive and impetus drains away and the resentment builds up.
‘Middlesbrough being successful fed into that. They signed Mark Viduka, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Yakubu and they scored loads of goals. The fans weren’t missing me because they’d won a trophy and reached the UEFA Cup final.’
After his injury hell, no one would take a chance on Christie when he was released by Boro. Interest flickered and disappeared. He met managers who seemed keen but nothing materialised and a trial at Hull City made things worse, leaving him with the feeling that manager Phil Brown had agreed to take him in as a favour to his agent.
‘He treated me like a piece of s*** on his shoe,’ Christie says of Brown. ‘He didn’t want me. I was training with the youth team, playing with the reserves, not getting paid, going nowhere.
‘When I left, he told the media he’d had a good look at me and decided not to give me a deal — but it was my decision to leave Hull.’
A trial at Leeds United was more promising and there was a contract on the table, but on the day he was to sign it, Christie broke his back, twisting to hit a shot during a routine crossing and-training session. Leeds helped him regain fitness ,and 10 months later, the same £1,000-a-game deal was still on offer. Christie signed, made his debut and scored, but things soured when Simon Grayson replaced Gary McAllister as manager. The end came in January 2009 when Christie travelled to Elland Road only to discover he was not part of the squad. This meant he would not be paid and, as he walked towards the dressing rooms, he overheard Grayson say: ‘I don’t care if he’s getting paid or not, I’m not picking him in my f***ing squad.’ Christie turned around, walked to his car, drove home and did not return. ‘That was the moment I knew I was done with football,’ he says. ‘ He was right, it was his decision but the way it happened, in my mind, I couldn’t take any more. There was no coming back. ‘My first injury was in November 2003, that’s a bloody long time to go through the torture of rejection after rejection, hurt after hurt, setback after setback. ‘I often wonder what if the first injury finished me off. I might have got on with the rest of my life better than I did.’
Of almost 11 years as a professional, Christie spent more than half of the time injured and, in two years since his £15,000-aweek contract at Middlesbrough ended, he earned just £5,000 for five Leeds appearances. ‘The phone stopped ringing. People there on the up were gone overnight. Nobody wanted me. I didn’t even tell anyone I’d retired. I didn’t need to because no one was bothered, it wasn’t news.
‘I came to resent football for years. I couldn’t watch it because of the memories of what I could’ve done and what I could’ve achieved. I wasn’t able to face it. ‘I put my tin hat on and shut myself away. I’d gone from playing in front of 70,000 fans to not wanting to leave the house.’
Christie had lost contact with his parents, such a strong influence at the start of his career, and his first marriage disintegrated.
‘I went to the doctors and broke down in the surgery, couldn’t really speak,’ he says. ‘I felt a little bit alone. They advised some therapy in the NHS and I had 10 sessions.
‘I was able to open up and talk about what I talk about in the book, what I’ve gone through, what I felt, to someone with no preconceptions of who I was or what I’d done. That helped massively, getting some of the baggage out and away.’
He forged a successful second career in car sales, promoted to head of franchise at Jaguar Land Rover in York, without particularly enjoying the job or feeling comfortable with who he was or what he had become.
Still, he did not want to talk about football. ‘When the odd person recognised me, I didn’t
‘I played with a broken leg at Boro. It was horrific’
‘Phil Brown treated me like s*** on his shoe’
like it. I’d give one or two-word answers. I hid from what I’d achieved. I’d got myself going, working in the motor industry, but I wasn’t myself.’
Things fell into place when he met his second wife, Emma. He made an emotional phone call to reconnect with his parents. And, when his three boys — Flynn (14) and Zac ( 12) from his first marriage and Leo (four) from his second marriage — grew to love football, they drew him back into the game and reignited the passion.
Christie left car sales in 2019 to launch a coaching academy in Teesside with summer camps in Derby, where he remains a hero.
He is taking his UEFA B coaching qualification, with ambitions to return to the professional game in some capacity. In fact, Premier League academies ought to be encouraging him to advise and mentor young footballers. Which of them would not benefit from this cautionary tale?
‘I don’t know where things will take me,’ says Christie. ‘It would be nice to have some positive times back in football. I’m determined to make something of myself again, I’ve got so much to give.’