Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
How Tom Hateley has inspired his very own title fairytale in Poland
PIAST HAVE UPSTAGED THE BIG GUNS TO ‘DO A LEICESTER’
ONE SMALL corner of south-east Poland may be an unlikely setting for a footballing fairytale — but it’s one that suits Tom Hateley just fine.
You’ll recognise the surname. Of course you will.
But midfielder Tom has carved out his own place in the history of the game with a central role in that country’s top division, rivalling everything Leicester City did with their 5,000-1 Premier League title triumph three years ago.
Never mind the fact that dad Mark played for AC Milan, Rangers, Monaco and England. Nor the fact that granddad Tony trod the original path for the family with Liverpool and Aston Villa.
Tom, 30, now stands tall in his own right after creating a legacy with unfashionable Piast Gliwice – a small town 15 miles west of Katowice, after shocking the big boys and winning the Ekstraklasa last term.
The Champions League this term proved one hurdle too far.
But, despite losing three of their stars to major European clubs during the summer, Gliwice are bloodying the noses of the big boys again, sitting one point behind leaders Legia Warsaw.
And Hateley is smack-bang at the heart of it.
He said: “It’s a story for the football romantics – and it’s one that I feel privileged to have been part of.
“The way it has been described over here by the press is very much like Leicester winning the Premier League.
“And if you judge it on criteria such as the size of the budgets, the clubs and their tradition, it does bear comparison.
“Even more so when you think that, like Leicester, Gliwice were fighting relegation the year before they won the title – they had to win on the last day to survive – and did so beating LKS Niecieza 4-0.
“Twelve months later, the club was celebrating winning the title – and it’s the highlight of my career so far.”
It has been far from an easy ride for Hateley Jnr, trying to strike out and find a platform in the game for himself, rather than living in the shadows of his illustrious forefathers.
But he has embraced life in Poland and is thriving, despite being just the third Englishman to play for any significant time in the country, although he is out of contract this summer. He added: “Afew years ago, I was offered the chance to play for
Slask Wroclaw and took it up because I always wanted to experience new cultures and a different way of playing.
“There was just myself and my girlfriend at the time, we didn’t have any kids, so we just thought, ‘Why not?’
“I had travelled around because of my dad, so it wasn’t that much of an issue for me and we took the plunge.
“I had a couple of lessons per week, learning Polish, it’s a really difficult language, but I had the mindset that it was something I wanted to try and so I went into it with an open mind.
“I’m not yet able to give interviews in Polish, but I can do the basics and I speak in the dressing-room.
“And the football itself is different. More possession-based, less direct, and it’s played at a higher tempo back home.
“I feel I improved as a player, I’ve learned so much abroad and feel like I could offer plenty if I was to go back home because I’m much more aware now of the technical side of the game.”
And is there a chance of lightning striking twice?
“We lost three of our players in the summer – one went to
Lazio, another to Brentford and a third to Mallorca in La
Liga,” he added.
“And we lost two goals in the last eight minutes, so we went out to Bate Borisov in the Champions League.
“But we are up there again and went up to second during the international break. We were eighth at Christmas last season, so who knows?”