CLINT HILL
Veteran defender on what keeps him going
CLINT HILL believes that one day there will be more like him.
The Rangers player isn’t making a bold prediction that football squads will be packed with left-sided, central defenders who could do with being a little quicker.
He is convinced that many others will follow his example and keep performing with their 40th birthday in sight.
Hill turned 38 a fortnight ago and is in line to play his 13th game of the season against Ross County this afternoon.
The Englishman has seen a massive transformation in the way players prepare for action.
He said: “The lads were still having steaks and a few pints before a game when I started. “That was the norm. “Now sports science has come into it. There’s different training, recovery and gym work.
“You have had to adapt over time to the new trends that have come in.
“But the basics are there – if you eat well, sleep well and recover, then with everything at your disposal as a player, you can go on until the age I am at, or even longer.
“When you start out, playing until 35 is the target.
“These days the facilities are there if people want to get beyond that and I’m sure carrying on until my age will become the norm.”
The former QPR man admits he started thinking about his lifestyle over a decade ago.
He went on: “I had a lot of injuries when I was younger – cruciates, broken legs, ankle injuries.
“At about 25, I thought: ‘I need to make sure I do things right here because it’s not going to get any easier’.
“It always takes a while to come back from injuries and you always have that little bit of self-doubt.
“I’ve never been blessed with pace, so I don’t know how people handle it where they were
explosive and then lose it. It must be quite hard mentally.
“Keeping going is down to hard work and luck in my case.
“I’m 38 and I’m here at Rangers. It’s something I would never have dreamed would happen.
“My career has gone backwards in a weird way.
“A lot of injuries at first and then I’ve been able to steer clear of anything serious for the last 10 years or so.
“I’ve found myself at a massive club, in a good league, and I feel honoured to be here.
“I want to make the most of it. Hopefully I can stay in the team for as long as possible.” This is a player taking nothing for granted. Rangers, he admits, are the ideal club for a player in the autumn of his career.
He said: “People can give you a fitness programme but you still need the mentality to do it.
“A lot of players better than me have fallen by the wayside and not gone on to have the careers they should have had. “It is hard to be a good professional. “But the training facility at Rangers is amazing.
“It’s the first time I’ve ever had something like a swimming pool at a training ground.
“There are ice baths and gyms. If players want it, it’s there.
“Don’t get me wrong, when I deserve it, maybe on a Saturday night, I’ll have my Chinese takeaway and a few glasses of gin or something.
“You’ve still got to have a bit of fun. It can’t all be sterile.”