CHRIS DUNLAVY
Our resident expert on why being a pro doesn’t suit everyone
FANS of Birmingham City may vaguely remember a lanky, languid winger by the name of Robbie Dale. A 30-year-old barman with no pace and an awkward gait, he didn’t exactly strike fear into the Blues’ back four when they pitched up at Blyth Spartans for an FA Cup third round tie in January 2015. Appearances, though, can be deceiving.
On 35 minutes, Dale opened the scoring. Moments later, he received the ball wide left. Arm extended, he weaved across the 18-yard box, scattering bamboozled Blues players like Jonah Lomu ploughing through a playground. A lethal, speared finish wasn’t enough to scalp the Championship side, but it proved Dale belonged in their class.
Happiness
“Robbie made good defenders look like pub players that day,” said Stephen Turnbull, a team-mate in that game. “But none of us were surprised. He could make anyone look silly.”
Indeed, Dale had spent the previous decade doing exactly the same thing to NonLeague defenders.
Turnbull actually played in the EFL with Bury, Hartlepool and Rochdale and maintains that Dale was “levels” above anyone he encountered.
But this is no hard luck story. Dale did not fall through the cracks, nor waste his talent. He simply chose health and happiness over wealth and ambition.
On Tuesday, another maverick wideman from the North East did likewise. Hours after cutting short a loan spell at Bolton, Marcus Maddison posted on Instagram that he was considering retirement.
“Well the football industry has eventually broke me,” wrote the 27-year-old, who scored 62 goals in 249 games for Peterborough before joining Charlton in October.
“All the abuse, pressures & monotony of the last 2 years has just got to me. I’ve tried to fit in & be happy but if I can’t be happy in a winning team fighting for promotion it’s clearly something deeper. I’m returning home to think do I want to play football any more as it just doesn’t bring me any joy at all.”
Reading those words, I immediately thought of Dale. Not because football broke him, but because it never had the chance.
Consciously or otherwise, Dale sensed he didn’t have the mindset of a pro. He liked a pint - or six - and a game of pool. He had no desire to leave the north east. He despised doggies, drills, and defending. Dale, as former Blyth manager Tom Wade puts it, relished the comfort zone.
“Non-League football was perfect for Robbie,” explained
Wade. “Because you train, you play and you go home. That’s it. All the off-field stuff - the discipline, doing analysis, taking stick on social media - he wouldn’t have coped with that. He wasn’t ruthless enough.”
That is why Dale spurned a contract offer from Oxford at the age of 20, shunned innumerable trials and played for managers who overlooked his limitations.
Limitations, by the way, which should not be construed as inadequacies. Beyond the glamour of the Premier League, football is a brutal business, plagued by cronyism, short-term thinking and cut-throat self-interest. Family and friends, the anchors of any balanced life, are often sacrificed for an itinerant existence of sterile hotel rooms, rented apartments and lonely evenings. Meanwhile, every action is dissected on social media. Maddison, the classic luxury player, took more stick than most and was even sent a death threat last year.
Understanding that you lack the ruthlessness and resilience to thrive in that environment is no different to the realisation that you lack the courage to be a firefighter or the compassion to be a nurse.
Darkness
Sadly, very few young footballers possess the self-awareness of Robbie Dale. Most, like Maddison, are simply sucked into an industry for which they are illequipped and then left to fend for themselves, often with dire consequences.
Thankfully, many are now speaking out. In recent years, Marvin Sordell, Chris Kirkland and Billy Kee quit the game before the darkness closed in.
Their stories - of anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts - shatter the narrative that football is a dream factory where wealthy men live out childhood fantasies.
Happiness is not fostered by your bank balance, fame, or trophy cabinet, as Kee, now contentedly working as a bricklayer, will attest.
Maddison must now decide whether he would be better off out.
From a selfish perspective, I hope we see his talent again but nobody should twist his arm, nor warn of regrets and missed chances.
Because it is far healthier to be a happy barman with a sideline in Non-League football than a disillusioned pro who can’t dredge any joy from life.