You don’t hear anything, feel anything. You are entirely locked in the moment
STEVEN NAISMITH DESCRIBES SCORING IN OLD FIRM DERBY
THE glory game is played out to the most cacophonous of soundtracks. Steven Naismith, though, savours its most tumultuous moments in a profound silence.
‘I don’t hear anything,’ he says of those times when a fuse he has lit causes a stadium to explode. ‘There is a moment when nothing registers. I am just focused on what I am doing.’
He has scored a hat-trick for Everton against Chelsea, he has netted for Scotland and he has achieved his childhood dream of thrashing the ball into the Celtic goal while playing for Rangers. All have been accomplished with an immediate calmness followed by exuberant celebration.
This deliberation and passion are central to understanding Naismith.
At 31, he has come to an amicable understanding with his dyslexia, survived two serious injuries, taken the difficult decision to leave his boyhood heroes and found both glory and rejection at Everton. Deliberation and passion are now in evidence as he prepares for the next step in his career. He is not playing at Norwich City.
‘I won’t be able to go to the end of the season like this. That is not an option for me,’ he says. His game-days are difficult for the born competitor.
‘I train on my own, or with a few guys, and then go to the match to watch the team. It is frustrating, but I want Norwich to do well for the club that they are and for the people that they are.’
Footballers are defined by match-days. Naismith, though, has been formed by his experiences on and off the pitch as fan, ball boy and player. His measure of passion can be gauged by his reaction to questions about Rangers, particularly when a clash with Celtic will echo around the East End of Glasgow this afternoon.
‘When I was really young — maybe about eight — I waited outside the Rugby Park front door when Rangers were playing. Ally McCoist and (Ian) Durranty were at Killie at the time. I was shy but my mate was bold as brass and, the next minute, I got a photo with Stuart McCall. The photographs are still about, my mum or dad will have them,’ he says.
The encounters with Rangers became closer when he was a Killie ball boy.
‘I asked (Gordon) Durie for his autograph when he was going out to warm up. He told me to go into the Rangers dressing room for more: “Just tell them Jukebox sent you’’.
‘I walked in and Walter Smith looked at me. So I gave him Jukebox’s message. He replied: “Oh, he did, did he?’’ But he let me go round the room. Gattuso, Negri and others were all happy to sign.’
Naismith, of course, went on to play under McCall, who coached for Scotland, and for Smith at Rangers. He signed from Kilmarnock in August 2007 for £1.9million.
‘There was a demand at Rangers that victory was expected. A draw wasn’t good enough and I loved that,’ he says. ‘I loved operating on that fear of not doing well. That could drive you on. It was about being a winner and I thrived on that.’
The boy who lay on the floor of the living room to watch Old Firm games in his family home became intimately embroiled in them.
He came on as a substitute in a 3-0 win over Celtic for his derby debut only two months after signing.
‘Greegs (Allan McGregor) has launched one long and I try to bring it down, but it races through to (Artur) Boruc. I’m thinking that if I had just touched that, it would have made it four — and that would have been perfect. What a day it was: sunny, at Ibrox, what a feeling.’
He scored his first goal against Celtic in 2011 (top). Did he recoil at the noise that moment produced?
‘In the moment, you don’t hear anything, feel anything. You are entirely locked on the moment,’ he recalls of a right-foot shot that was the first of his two goals in a 4-2 victory.
‘I always pictured my first Old Firm goal being into the Broomloan Stand. And that is how it happened,’ he says. ‘It was just one of those things you dream about as a kid. ‘I just slid on my knees in front of the Celtic fans. I think that is acceptable. It is not about baiting fans. It is just that you have scored a goal against your biggest rivals. All right, it’s maybe rubbing it in a bit, but that is natural.’
He left Rangers as the club descended into administration and
liquidation, opting not to transfer his contract. It was a difficult decision for him, but one which illustrates that passion must be tempered by deliberation.
He joined Everton under David Moyes in 2012, leaving for Norwich four years later. Injury interrupted his start to this season and he has found it difficult to break into Daniel Farke’s City side.
Reason and emotion collide in his daily life, but he has handled the setbacks with a maturity born of the experience of overcoming hurdles throughout his career.
‘You deal with it better when you get older,’ he says of being left out of the first team. ‘Of course, you can’t be happy not to be in the team. But you can’t dwell on things. No good comes of it.
‘You can just sit and sulk and tell yourself this and that to make yourself feel good, but, in the long run, that’s not helpful. You have to dismiss things like that.’
This reflection extends to personal responsibility. ‘When I was younger, I was terrible with defeats,’ he explains. ‘Now I tend to look at my performance, see what I can do better and work on it during the week. You can’t let negativity pull you down. That’s when you have a big problem.
‘I am a positive person. I do everything to prepare myself, keep myself in tune.
‘I have a great routine now in terms of fitness. I know I might not be playing on Saturday, but I do a lot of fitness work throughout the week and on game-day. You don’t compromise because you know you don’t have to keep something back for Saturday.’
He is blunt about retaining his passion for the game.
‘There is no outlet for it on a Saturday because you are not playing,’ he says. ‘But there is every day in training. That is the big thing for me. You can’t let your standards drop. I have been in squads where players are not part of the picture and you can tell. It’s not even worth them being there.
‘I love football, I enjoy it all. I have a lot to offer any club. I am confident in my ability. I know what I can do. I am a good judge. I can say: “I am better than him’’ or: “I have to work a lot to be on a par with him’’.
‘That has got me through so much. A lot of players with great ability don’t make it because they can’t handle the downs.
‘Hard work and determination, those are the greatest attributes, believe me. I would place them above ability any day.’
A recent trip to Glasgow, where he funds a dinner for the homeless, prompted questions about a possible return to Rangers.
As the transfer window
prepares to open, Naismith rules nothing in or out. ‘I have to ask what is best for me,’ he says. ‘It’s as stripped back as that. It is about playing for the right club and the right manager. It’s not about finance or a stepping stone. One day, I will wake up and not be able to play football any more. I have to accept that. So I have to make the right decision now.’ His wife, Moya, a dentist, will return to her profession once his two girls — the elder is four — grow up. The professional focus is on football at the moment. It still provides a kick for Naismith. ‘In training the other day, the ball comes to me and I have flicked it, the goalie never expecting it, and it has gone into the far corner,’ he says. ‘All the boys were apparently roaring on the sidelines. They asked me later why I didn’t respond with a celebration. But I was so focused I didn’t notice anything else.’ The passion and purpose endure. All they require is the soundtrack of a crammed stadium.
In my mind I always saw my first Old Firm goal in front of the Broomloan Stand... and that’s what happened