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PICTURE EXCLUSIVE: Simon Ashton CHRISTMAS came early for injured non-league striker Matty Hughes when his Chester FC team-mates organised a special raffle.
A Real Madrid shirt signed by Michael Owen was amongst the prizes to help ease the blow for 26-year-old Hughes, whose torn cruciate ligament also meant him losing his job as a labourer, an integral part of his earnings.
Being part-time, his National League North wages can’t support the Fleetwood-based player, his partner and their three young daughters.
It’s a far cry from the Premier League world of £100,000-a-week stars where if injuries strike they receive the best treatment – sometimes even being flown abroad – and continue to receive their bloated salaries.
For Hughes, his head was left in a whirl in the knowledge that he was out for the season – and out of his day job.
He revealed: “Being injured was a double whammy because it meant I would lose my second income from my labouring job.”
“After all, what good is someone with an immobile knee when you are expected to mix and break up concrete?”
Nightmare
Hughes added: “It’s heavy work and so with the injury it’s impossible to continue. I keep in contact with my boss and hopefully the job will be there for me again when I’ve recovered, but in the meantime there’s no extra money coming in which is a nightmare.
“I’ve got three young girls – the youngest is just 14 weeks – so it’s tough.
“Luckily we had started the Christmas shopping early so we had a few things in.
“But the injury hasn’t been the best of timings and so the money raised by my team-mates has been fantastic.”
Once Chester FC joint managers Anthony Johnson and Bernard Morley, formerly of Salford City fame, gave the go-ahead, skipper Scott Burton and the players sold raffle tickets and went around with buckets collecting money at a recent game against Darlington.
A total of £2,732 was raised with t ravelling Darlington fans contributing more than £400.
Hughes said: “People on Twitter started chucking things in for prizes. All this has shown the best side of people, at a time when so many bad things are happening.
“It was incredible that at the fund- raising ng game the Darlington l i ngton fans contributed. ibuted. Another National League North side e Southport also helped me out by putting some money ney in.
“It’s brilliant lliant how opposition osition clubs have e done their bit for or me.
“It’s very humbling. g. It’s also good how people realise we’re not all on £100,000 a week or down i n the non- l eague football administrators are given £5million bonuses.
“It’s a different world. There’s certainly not much glamour. Like myself, the majority of non-league players have other jobs.
“There’s a huge gulf between the haves of the Premier League and the have nots of the non-league.”
Before his injury a typical day for Hughes, one repeat repeated throughout the non-le non-league world, would start at 6am. Hughes added: “In addit addition to matc matches at Chest Chester, we train t wo evenings a we week. It means wor working thro throughout the day near home in Fleetwood la labouring a and meeting o one of the la lads halfway down the motorway towards C Chester.”