Watt keen for starring role at Fir Park after a few too many cameos
TONY ON HIS TRAVELS... THE MANY STOP-OFFS OF A WANDERING SCOT
The loans add some clubs on but it doesn’t bother me. It improves you
AT the ripe old age of 26, Tony Watt could soon lay claim to the old Tommy Docherty gag about having had more clubs than Jack Nicklaus.
The striker has now darkened the door of a dozen in five different countries. The perception that tour of duty has created is of a somewhat restless character perhaps in too big a hurry for his own good. It’s a charge the Motherwell man refutes in its entirety.
‘If you want to go and do your research… one of those clubs was a transfer embargo, one was an injury,’ he stated. ‘The team (Charlton) that sent me on loan to two of them (Cardiff and Blackburn) were trying to get their money back on what they paid because they were in trouble financially.
‘They then sent me on loan to Hearts. That’s four in the space of six months. That is nothing to do with being restless. That isn’t me being cheeky. They wanted to make the money.
‘The loans add a few clubs on but it doesn’t bother me. They improve you as a player.’
The highlight of Watt’s story to date is so renowned that it no longer even gets a mention in a 30-minute Zoom interview.
Scoring what proved to be the winner for Celtic against
Barcelona as a teenager set the bar impossibly high for the rest of his career.
But when the CV starts acquiring clubs at a rate that it’s hard to keep up with, the narrative changes. The public’s assumption became that wherever he lay his hat, he just couldn’t hack it.
‘When you go abroad then come back, people automatically think you’ve failed,’ said Watt of spells with three clubs in Belgium and more recently CSKA Sofia.
‘It was the same even when I came back from Charlton (to Hearts). But at Charlton every game I played they sung my name. It was always my name you would hear, everybody was for you, everybody was buzzing off you.
‘I’ve had many a good time. I scored against Anderlecht (for Standard Liege) when we won.
‘I played against Levski (Sofia) in the derby in the national stadium. There are many, many highs you take from it.’
No number of those stolen moments sustain you through the real lows, however. On loan at Blackburn ahead of a proposed permanent move in 2016, Watt badly tore his groin.
‘I had never been injured before and I didn’t handle it,’ he admitted. ‘I lost some love of the game. I wasn’t at my best and it just kind of spiralled.’
The rocky patch is very much past tense now. A season at St Johnstone, steady rather than unspectacular, rekindled his desire and proved to be the platform for a move to Bulgaria which was more fulfilling than a curtailed seven-month stint suggests.
‘Going to St Johnstone really curbed that (negative) feeling and for the last two years I have loved it,’ he explained.
‘It’s growing again all the time and I really enjoyed Bulgaria when I was playing.
‘But I also knew that I needed to bite the bullet and come home for the benefit of my career.’
A free agent when he first signed a short-term deal at Fir Park in February, the man from Coatbridge felt a sense of belonging again.
In Stephen Robinson, the manager who has made good on his promise of a one-year contract despite the current crisis, Watt knows he has someone who rates him highly and has his back.
‘I have joined a good club,’ he offered. ‘They have handled this furlough situation well and they handled me well.
‘They stuck to their word and offered me a new contract when it was possible.
‘That shows there is a lot of good in football. They have looked after me and kept to their word.
‘When clubs just want to make money off you then you do lose the love of football. You just feel like a pawn in the game.
‘That’s why I am glad I am at a club like Motherwell, where players are really appreciated. It’s a club where I can improve with the coaching staff and the players around me.
‘It’s all about improving and playing games now. It’s not about anything else. Money and everything else doesn’t really matter. I just want to get goals and keep ticking stuff off.’
Lockdown has allowed him to indulge his other great passion in life — movies. A few years back, he set up his own film-review website. But even an aficionado like he has seen enough credits rolling for the time being.
‘Not as much,’ he replied when asked if he was still a budding Barry Norman. ‘I didn’t realise how much work it was going to take.
‘I’ve become unbelievable at the PlayStation as well. Big Dec (Declan Gallagher) and I are sharing most of our lives away.
‘It’s got to a stage where my wife is a bit angry I’m not spending time with her. So I’m just going off and annoying her so that she lets me play the PlayStation.’
These online football jousts, which also feature Hearts striker Liam Boyce, seem just as competitive as the real thing.
‘We have become close friends — me, him and Dec,’ explained Watt. ‘It’s got to the stage where we are shouting and going mental at each other. Dec and Boycie are having it out, me and Boycie are having it out, me and Dec.
‘It’s quite refreshing because we are slaughtering each other and people get to see it. I think big Dec actually muted me last night. He was raging at me.’
There is nothing quite like the real thing, however. Like the rest of the nation, for Watt, the minute some kind of normal service resumes in our national game will not be a minute too soon.
‘What I love about football is just the buzz it gives you,’ he said. ‘When you walk out on the pitch and you get that feeling of butterflies.
‘Then something good happens on the pitch and it all just builds up.
‘You get the first goal, the second goal and then you score too. You go home after that and you are buzzing.
‘On the flip side, there is the same level of feeling when you lose. You are gutted.
‘When we go back I am going to take the highs as high as possible.
‘Now I am back home I just want to play and enjoy it.
‘Lockdown has showed me I do love football. There have been times where I have maybe not missed it. But I know I do love it.’