If I hadn’t drunk so much at Dons I might have got back to playing at a DECENT level
Boozy wide boy Ben takes dig at Scottish football
BEN THORNLEY has admitted his “massive regret” at partying during his stint at Aberdeen and confessed he would knock back booze for hours the day before training.
But Dons fans will be stunned to hear the reason he thinks he should have been a better pro in Scotland was so he could get a move back to England to “play at a decent level again”.
Thornley started off as part of Manchester United’s famous Class of 92, alongside stars such as Ryan Giggs, David Beckham and Paul Scholes . But he only managed a handful of games for United after a horror injury and ended up at Pittodrie after a spell with Huddersfield. He said: “When I went to Aberdeen especially, I should have been concentrating – because I was only 26, 27 – on getting myself back to a level where I could get back down to England and play at a decent level again. “But I was on my own up in Aberdeen, I got into going out all the time and that was basically what I did. “Even though I was playing, I was drinking far too much and
going out at the wrong times. At times perhaps in an afternoon, when I should have been maybe doing extra in the gym or extra with some of the fitness coaches, I’d just go and meet a few lads who I’d met in the time I’d been up there.
“I would just go in the pub and I’d be in there for seven or eight hours then I would get up and go training the next day.
“That went on far too long and that is a massive regret I’ve had, because of all the chances I had at Manchester United and they were taken away from me.
“I needed to get a grip of myself and say, ‘Listen, you’re still only 26 or 27, you still have a chance here of being able to play at a really decent level.’
“That’s no disrespect to Aberdeen – I played against Celtic, I played against Rangers when they had great teams – but I knew there was still something in me that could get me back to top of the Championship level and back into England but I just didn’t work hard enough.
“That was a big regret of mine and, before I realised it, it was too late.”
Thornley, now 45 spent three years at Huddersfield Town following his exit from Old Trafford.
He moved to the Dons for the 2001-02 season, netting three times in 30 games. After one year he left for Blackpool, who were then in the third tier of English football.
He turned out a dozen times before a move to now defunct Bury that saw him play just five games, ending his professional career before his 29th birthday.
The winger blamed his boozing on a serious knee ligament injury in 1994 in a reserve match against Blackburn Rovers that kept him out for more than a year and effectively put an end to his Old Trafford career at a time when Alex Ferguson had high hopes for him.
Thornley added: “I didn’t really sit around and feel sorry for myself because there was no point and it would just make me a very sort of bitter person.
“Rather than sort of look at the world through dark glasses and want to be horrible to everybody, the way I dealt with it – and I’m not saying it was the right way to – was by surrounding myself by loads of people I could go out and have a laugh and a drink with.
“Subconsciously I was sort of letting off quite a lot of steam, perhaps feeling sorry for myself a little bit, yeah, I’m not going to deny that.
“But rather than be bitter and twisted I wanted to go completely the other way, just go out and enjoy myself all the time. Neither is the right way to be.”