Memoirs Of A Professional Footballer

Vital Manchester City have an exclusive which we at Vital Central thought would be of interest here!

Matthew Robinson has played with and against the very best within the English Football League pyramid and now he tells us his story.

Position: Left Back
Age: 35
Previous Clubs: Southampton, Portsmouth, Reading, Oxford United, Forest Green Rovers and Salisbury City.

Full article: Exclusive: Memoirs Of A Professional Footballer

Second part: Exclusive: Memoirs Of A Professional Footballer 2

Extract:

On the razz!!

There were old school hard honest characters like Terry Hurlock, Mickey Adams, Dave Beasant, Ian Dowie, Kerry Dixon and Neil Ruddock to name a few. That first year as a pro was an eye opener and if you got a day off these guys would literally drag you to the pub for an all day session and you were made to feel like you had to go. The day would be paid for by the senior lads and more often than not I would end up tucked up in bed at my digs come 8pm. As for a night club - no chance.

The day after in training it was a case of spot the player who hadn't been out the night before as all one had to do was look around the dressing room at see the blood shot eyes. Yet the old school generation would work hard in training, stick a black bin liner on and run until they had sweated the beer out of themselves. This was par for the course and no one really batted an eye lid as this was what how footballers acted back then.

I remember the injured lads would get a bit of treatment from the physio and then be told to go for a run around the common. This run would incorporate the pub at the edge of the common and then the lads would return an hour later feeling more refreshed that when they left. I am not saying this happened every day but it was not uncommon. Yet these older generation players trained very hard and played hard when it mattered on the pitch.