IT’S 400-UP FOR SMITH AS HE EYES MORE VALE TARGETS
WE’D planned to speak to Nathan Smith straight after the game at Oxford, but a 4-0 defeat was the wrong stage for a player who had just brought up his 400th career appearance.
After all, a weak team performance, with a porous defence, was exactly opposite to everything Smith has exemplified since coming through the club’s youth system and breaking into the side in 2016.
Three days on from the Oxford game and Smith is in the Vale home dressing room for the interview with the local media, talking through his 400, a tally that also includes his loans at Stafford Rangers and Torquay before Bruno Ribeiro gave him his Vale debut on the opening day of the 2016/17 season.
“It has flown by,” he said. “You set short-term goals. When I first broke through and got a professional contract it was whether I could get my first appearance for Vale. It took me a couple of seasons to do that, going to Stafford Rangers then Torquay and then finally making my breakthrough.
“You don’t really look ahead and say, ‘I want to make 400 appearances’. If you make it that far, I am sure a lot of people would say you have done quite well. But I am not going to ponder on it. I want to try to clock up a few more and see how far I get.”
Smith, now 26, says those loans at Stafford and Torquay put down some foundations for his career.
He explained: “Stafford Rangers was my first taste of men’s football. I had been playing in our youth team against people my own age and probably been one of the strongest on the pitch.
“Then going to Stafford Rangers and playing against grown men at the age of 18, you find that you are not the biggest and strongest out there. You have to try to adapt your game and play a little bit smarter against bigger strikers.
“Then going away to Torquay was when I grew up a little bit. I moved out from home, mum wasn’t there
to do the washing, cleaning and cooking. I do back myself in the kitchen though, it was more the washing and ironing, we had to do our own kit there.
“That season was definitely a rollercoaster. I think we were about 12 points adrift at Christmas so it was about mentality. We had to stay strong, all together, and I think that taught me a lot.”
His strong mentality became obvious in his first season in the Vale first team when he played every league game and was about the only consistent part of a club whose fortunes fluctuated wildly from pushing for the play-offs in November to being relegated with a goalless draw on the final day at Fleetwood.
The local lad, from Madeley, won the player-of-the-year award that season, 2016/17, but says he still felt responsible for the relegation, a stain that was finally removed when he helped the team to promotion back to League One via the play-off final in May.
He said: “My worst experience is definitely Fleetwood away. We could have stayed up with a win, it was in our hands but we didn’t do enough. That sticks with me still, it is a feeling I never want to experience again so I use that to drive myself.
“I had probably played more minutes than anyone so more responsible than anyone else. It is a team game and everyone has their input but, no matter what accolades you get personally, a relegation is not something anyone wants on their CV. Unfortunately I have one from my first professional senior year at Port Vale.
“It is something I have always wanted to rectify with a promotion.
I want to go and overshadow the relegation with more (promotions).”
One description often used for Smith is ‘horrible to play against.’ He’s just as strong as much bigger centre-halves and appears to have such an effect on centre forwards that several have been red carded, departing to a grin from their nemesis after snapping and attempting to clobber him off the ball.
He added: “From football, to a game of Monopoly, I don’t play to lose. I want to win at everything. Even if I am playing against my kids I find it really hard to let them win. To win a game of football is the ultimate experience as a footballer.”
Good games or bad games, and there have been far more of the former, no one has ever accused Smith of giving less than his all for the Vale.
He confirms he’s out of contract in the summer and reveals he is using that as a personal motivation.
He said: “This is the last year of my contract, another reason to try to play to the best of my ability. You are always playing for a new deal. There isn’t always security in football so it is always something that is in the back of your mind.
“You use it as motivation otherwise it can get you down. You are always playing for your position, auditioning for next season and hopefully you are rewarded at the end of the year.”