TIME UP?…Is it time I hung up the boots for good?

SPARE a thought for the Old Brigade. As I slog through another season I have come to the realisation that in footballing terms I have come full circle.

When football started to become serious for me, say at around minor days or thereabouts, my indiscipline off the field in relation to my diet and training regimes would have held me back a bit.

At that stage football was more of a pastime to me rather than an obsession. I trained but just did the bare minimum and my diet was atrocious so, naturally, my football suffered.

I played on county minor and u-21 teams but never really reached my potential due to my lack of drive and dedication at that time. I remember actually dreading going to play games due to my lack of fitness.

Anyone out there that has played any kind of sport at any level will tell you that there is nothing worse than preparing to play a game when you know you are going to struggle due to your lack of fitness.

I had a brief spell with the county seniors when I was 18 but it wasn’t until I was called into the panel by Mickey Moran as a 20-year-old that I began to become obsessive with the whole thing.

My attitude to training and my diet became that obsessive it was more akin to a military regime rather than a sport.

For the next 10 years or so my life remained this way. Yes I enjoyed myself but when it was time to knuckle down and train everything else revolved around that. My diet became a priority and if I put any bit of junk food into my system I would have to be sick in order to feel normal again.

When your body is pure then you will do whatever it takes to get it back to that state.
During that time I just couldn’t fathom how any player couldn’t be in the best possible shape, it wouldn’t happen that often at county but with club you would see it more regularly.

You would see players maybe having a few pints a few days before a game or maybe coming out of a takeaway and I would say to myself “is that fella for real how the hell can be expect to play when he’s carrying on like that?”

Like I said football was my obsession and everything else came second. You miss weddings, stag parties, conformation, christenings the lot and you don’t give it a second thought.

When you would see a player heading off on holidays or heading to a wedding you would question was he for real. I just couldn’t understand how people could put anything before training and games.

Since I have moved away from county football obviously things change and slow down, training is not as serious and the older you get the more other things start to come first.

At the start of this year I decided to give it one last full crack at club level so I have been training hard since in an effort to get into my best possible shape but along the way I have encountered an old friend from the past. That same young boy that struggled to fully commit during minor and u-21 days is trying to reappear.

Missing training, eating what I want, having a few beers is becoming a habit and I know more than most that it’s either all or nothing.

We have played two league games and I would have been better putting my twin 5-year-old girls in my place. You can’t do the runs you want to do and it doesn’t come as easily as it once did.

In both of those games I have played with the idea that perhaps my time has come and this is where the cowboy should ride away but as you look deeper you realise that you are not being honest with yourself.

Life gets busier and it’s your football and training that has to take the hit. Children, marriage, work all come first now so naturally something has to make way and at my age it’s normally the sport. I now realise looking back at those lads who struggled to fully commit and to play the way I know they could play that their lives just got busier and other things became more important I can appreciate that now.

I have been at many a crossroads in my life and I now face another one. Do you take the easy way out and say enough is enough? Do you continue to be untrue to yourself and your teammates by half committing? Or do you knuckle down and tap into what you have done for the last 14 years or so and go out on a high?

I’ll keep you posted on how it goes but in the meantime take it easier on the older fellows in your club as they struggle to get up to match speed.

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