‘It still kills me inside been’ - Ramsey recalls
Fateful meeting with Harry Redknapp led to a career spent in non-league
Steve Ramsey went from discussing a professional deal with Pompey to working on the building sites in the blink of an eye.
The midfielder was highly rated making his way through the Blues' youth ranks - where he had been from the age of six - playing in the same team as two of the best PO4 exports in recent times, Crystal Palace's Joel Ward and Newcastle's Matt Ritchie.
Things could barely have been much better for Ramsey who had signed on two-year scholarship terms - before it all dramatically changed.
Unaware of the details, the Paulsgrove lad - 18 at the time - would be called into boss Harry Redknapp's training ground office for a meeting in 2008.
The exchange that followed was about to change his life.
After being routinely drug tested, Ramsey returned a positive result. He is adamant this came through 'passive smoking' at a party - inhaling secondary smoke while at the gathering.
Redknapp, though, reacted by sacking the teenager; compounding the shock, Ramsey was also handed a two-year Football League ban - meaning he couldn’t join any other club in the top four tiers in that period - and slapped with a £500 fine after a FA hearing.
Steve Ramsey once scored four goals in one game for Hawks in the Conference South.
In the 2011/12 season he starred in a 6-3 victory at Dorchester Town, with one of his goals coming from the penalty spot.
That was the campaign he netted 14 league and cup goals, his best seasonal return for the club.
The day of his Blues dismissal would be the last involvement he would have with a professional club.
Some 13 years after his Fratton Park departure, non-league spells at Hawks and Gosport Borough have arrived - while he currently plays for Wessex League Premier Division outfit AFC Portchester, mixing football with his job as a builder.
But Ramsey, 31, feels being 'made an example of' for his failed test and the punishment that came with it always hindered his chances of ever making it as a pro
‘It was straight from fulltime football to the building site, so that was a bit of a wake-up,' he recalled.
‘I went from going from training and getting in at 9 o’clock, having some breakfast, rolling out and doing a bit of training and leaving by lunchtime to getting in a van with a load of smelly builders at 5 in the morning.
'I went right through the ranks at Pompey right the way up from six all the way up until pro, pretty much.
‘I fell out of love with the game after that.
‘I think they made a real example out of me. I couldn’t go to any other club, really, so I had to go down to the nonleague.
'They called me into the office, obviously I’d had a drugs test before but I didn’t think nothing of it, but obviously it came back as a fail.
‘It was just being round my mates at a party and taking in (the smoke), obviously you realised.
‘I try not to think about it too much but it still kills me inside to think what could have been.' Ramsey would be handed a quick route back into the game, though, albeit at Conference South level. Ironically, a call arrived from a former Pompey player, Shaun Gale - manager of Hawks at the time
Steve Ramsey scored 17 goals for Portchester in the 2019/20 season - to ask if he wanted to resurrect his career at Westleigh Park.
Ramsey accepted the offer, although he admitted to going through the motions somewhat having joined just weeks after his Blues sacking in the summer of 2008.
Still only 18, it wasn't long before he was back enjoying the game again and featuring regularly just two divisions below the Football League.
Across a six-year stay at Westleigh Park, Ramsey amassed 220 appearances and AFC Bournemouth were even
It was straight from full-time football to the building site, that was a bit of a wake-up Steve Ramsey
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