Aldred has taken his baby steps and is at the stage where he’s become bit of a bully
TOM ALDRED has been on a journey from baby to bully in between stints in the Scottish game. The Motherwell defender admits he was nowhere near ready, in 2011 and at the age of 20, for top-flight football in Terry Butcher’s Inverness Caley Thistle side. And so it proved.
Aldred’s loan deal from Watford was cancelled after only a month. Lowlights included three defeats, a 3-3 draw at Dunfermline, conceding a penalty against Rangers six minutes after coming on as a substitute and being sent to Wick to play Halkirk United in the North of Scotland Cup tie for a farewell appearance.
‘I moved up from Watford for opportunities, I was still young,’ recalls Aldred. ‘And, for a centre-half as well, 20 — that’s a baby. As a player, and as a person, it came at the wrong time for me. Listen, I learned a lot from it. It was an experience.
‘And, as I look back on it, I think that I wasn’t ready for it at that age. Seven years later and nearly 300 games on, I am a different person. It’s chalk and cheese, really, in my life. I was up against some good strikers, so it was a tough start for me. Now I feel I am more suited to playing against them — and would probably bully them now!’
Those collisions with Michael Higdon, Garry O’Connor and Nikica Jelavic were a harsh introduction to Scotland’s top division for a player who admits he should never have left Carlisle United when a hotly-tipped teenage talent after only five League One games.
For he lost out on regular football and only recaptured that thread when finding Accrington Stanley in January 2013 to his liking following a spell playing nonleague. Via three years with Blackpool then the first half of this season at League One strugglers Bury, Aldred has wound his way back north of the border — fulfilling a desire for new challenges back in Scotland.
‘One of the things I was seriously looking at after Blackpool last year was to come up to the Scottish league and there were a few offers to be considered,’ he explained. ‘That didn’t materialise but when the opportunity arose again in January, I was glad that I could jump at it.
‘First and foremost, the motivation for that was to do something different.
‘For the previous six years I’d been in and around the English leagues. I got 25 games for Bury but sometimes you need fresh impetus. That can come from playing against new teams, new players in different stadiums.
‘Sometimes you can get too used to what you are doing. Fortunately, the offer arrived from Motherwell. So it’s a new lease of life for me. I feel like I’ve enjoyed it and I’ve started to do well again. I’ve been here six weeks but it feels like I’ve been here a year!
‘That’s how settled I feel and how great a set of lads there are here. And what a welcoming club Motherwell is. All that has helped me find a home, if you like. I was well aware, even from down south, of the team getting to the League Cup final. To get here to Motherwell and be in the quarter-final brings a massive extra incentive to the season for me.’
Aldred has returned as an imposing, experienced figure for a Motherwell team fully recovered from a pre-winter break slump. The 27-year-old has tasted defeat only twice, to form sides Hibernian and Kilmarnock, in nine games and knocked out top-flight rivals Hamilton and Dundee from the Scottish Cup to reach the last eight.
One of the highlights was shattering the eight-game streak of clean sheets enjoyed by today’s visitors Hearts. Curtis Main’s 95th-minute equaliser at Tynecastle in January was the product of some bruising work by Aldred that Stephen Robinson is benefiting from and wasn’t part of his repertoire at Inverness.
‘I had been saying to the gaffer when we are chasing games to use my body and throw it about a bit to cause some chaos,’ explained Aldred. ‘I love getting up and playing centre-forward in those situations and I got involved in a couple of set-pieces which led to our goal.
‘I ended up right up there for the last three minutes or so, trying to cause some carnage. I was having a bit of banter with their centre-half, Christophe Berra, about me going up front. Us centrehalves quite fancy ourselves at times, really.
‘A couple of flicks later and we were right back in the game and won a point. I really enjoyed going to Tynecastle. It was an evenly contested game, we were deserving of a draw and we managed to nick it. It felt like a win in the 90th minute.’
That marked a jolting reminder for Craig Levein of Aldred’s ability. The Hearts boss was Scotland manager in 2010 when he mentioned the Carlisle prospect as one of the young, English-born players he’d been alerted to by talent identification staff. Aldred’s grandmother from Sanquhar qualified him for Scotland duty and he featured in one Under-19 friendly against France before that ill-fated move up the leagues to Watford.
While his international hopes have long since sunk, a Hampden appearance remains a distinct possibility with his club side.
Even better, he claims, if that leads to a reunion with former Accrington team-mate Josh Windass. Aldred recently enjoyed hospitality at the home of the Rangers forward. Now he hopes for the hostility of a clash with his ex-colleague at Hampden.
‘I went round to see Josh the other week and he cooked me some food,’ said Aldred. ‘I spoke to him all the time and did so before I came up here to get his thoughts on the league right now and what his experiences have been like.
‘We played a lot together at Accy when he was just coming through. My first experience was pre-season when he came on trial with us and I ran alongside him and thought: “Flipping heck, this guy can run”. He was a fit lad and had that yard of pace.
‘His game has been improving ever since so it doesn’t surprise me he’s done well for Rangers. I’m looking forward to going up against him, we’ve got a league game against Rangers at the end of March and it’s a while since we shared the same pitch. Hopefully we can take each other on at Hampden, too.’
When we’re chasing games I can throw my body about and cause chaos