Matt provides psychological advantage for league leaders
IF THERE is one player suited to overcoming a sickening injury then it has to be Jamille Matt. The psychology graduate was able to harness his mental skills and bounce back after a gruesome hand injury looked to have ended his season early in March.
The striker’s pain was witnessed by lunchtime TV viewers who were surely put off their food who saw his four fingers veer off at unnatural angles after colliding with Bolton’s MJ Williams.
‘It was early in the game and an innocuous challenge,’ says 31-year-old Matt. ‘ The only thing I was worried about was coming off.’
He was told dislocating four digits would be the end of his season.
‘I always try to make myself available for every game,’ he adds.
‘It was getting towards the business end of the season, I wanted to be out there helping the lads and was gutted.’
To make matters worse a four-game losing streak dented their promotion hopes – and led to manager Mark Cooper’s exit in April.
‘It was a bad bit of form at the wrong time of the season,’ he says. ‘We fancied ourselves to go up automatically.’
The road to recovery was painful for Matt. His fingers had to be wired back into position and he had to endure three weeks of agony as the Forest
Green physio bent the affected fingers back every day.
‘It was very painful. I hated it. He would have to hold my fingers and squeeze them for 20-30 seconds at a time. It was excruciating,’ he says.
‘The sessions would go on for about half an hour. But without it I would not have had a chance of playing in the play-offs.’
Against all the odds he made it back in time, only for Rovers to lose in the semi-finals to his old club Newport.
Now outright promotion is the target this season and Matt’s winner against Northampton last weekend continued new boss Rod Edwards’ flying start in the job and means Forest Green head to
Stevenage tomorrow as the League Two leaders.
‘He’s great, he comes in every day with different ideas, constantly looking at ways to improve us,’ says Matt.
‘You can see that in the way we play, his information gives us confidence. He’s brilliant.’
On their scintillating early-season form, he adds: ‘We would have expected that, we put that pressure on ourselves. It’s been a good start but there is a long, long way to go.
‘It is a club that tries to do things in the right way – on and off the pitch. All
the facilities and staff are there to help improve you as a player.’
Matt himself is all about self-improvement, having earned a counselling psychology degree.
He finished his last year at Wolverhampton University while playing at Kidderminster before spells at Fleetwood, Blackpool and Newport.
‘The mind is so powerful. There are times when you think your body can’t do something,’ he says. ‘But look at Cristiano Ronaldo. He will tell you his biggest trait is his mindset – to still be doing the things he does at that age.
‘It’s about not taking things too much to heart and focusing on the positives. Not getting too high with the highs or
low with the lows – it is a little cliche but it is a big thing.’
As captain, he uses some of those psychological skills as captain to empathise with left-out players.
‘It is about making sure we are all together. People can come and speak to me whenever they need to,’ he adds.
‘We’re now in an environment where people are a lot more open to talking about mental health, it’s not a taboo.
‘I am a more of an arm-around-yourshoulder type of captain.
‘You might need to have a go at them if they are not doing the right thing, but always in a constructive way.
‘It’s about empathy. I like to think how I would like to be dealt with.’