Lee Molyneux interview in the Times

[Louis]

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/sport/football/article1234777.ece

 

 

LEE MOLYNEUX has planned his next proper night out. He says it will be after the season ends; even then, it’ll be restrained. He reckons he’s a lucky man: lovely girlfriend, baby coming, professional football career on the up. What young dope would throw all that away?

 

Well, him, once. At 18 Molyneux was in an England youth side featuring Daniel Sturridge and Theo Walcott and an Everton substitute. At 21 he had no club and was starting a three-year prison sentence for a violent assault committed while binge drinking, when nights out were far more important than football.

 

He served 17 months, dedicated himself to the prison gym and won a contract at Accrington after his release last summer. At first he wore a tag, missing evening games because he was still on curfew. Now he’s being called “League Two’s Gareth Bale”. Having moved from left-back to an attacking role, Molyneux scored a spectacular hat-trick against Barnet last weekend. Suitors are watching. He’s “tunnel-visioned” about taking his second chance.

 

How did the soft-spoken, thoughtful and dedicated 24- year-old who sips latte and discusses the nursery furniture in Mamas & Papas once become a “jack the lad” who got into dark territory and so nearly never returned? “I’m still embarrassed to say where I’ve been,” he says of prison. “I remember my mum and dad on the first visit crying. I told them, ‘I got myself into this mess and I’ll get myself out of it’. They’d sacrificed so much, Dad driving me an hour to training at Wrexham three nights a week when I was seven, Mum getting up to make packed lunches, buying boots. I hope I can prove myself to everyone I let down.

 

“When I was sentenced I had all these crazy thoughts: jail, that’s a place for murderers and rapists and paedophiles. How can I go from captaining England at youth level to this? I wish it had never happened and I don’t want to say jail was a good thing because it’s not good for anyone . . . But I’ve learnt lessons, a harsh lesson, and hopefully I can look back and think one day, ‘Maybe that’s what I needed’.”

 

In all, 133 former professional footballers are in British jails, 124 of them aged under 25 and four serving life sentences, according to the players’ charity Xpro. Another former England junior international, Courtney Meppen-Walter, was jailed last month for causing two deaths by careless driving and Nile Ranger, also an England youth cap and released by Newcastle three weeks ago, will be sentenced for common assault on 9 April. He is 21.

 

Geoff Scott, a former Stoke defender who heads Xpro, says: “This is a football problem but football doesn’t have the solution.” Xpro backs Onside, an academy for released players and disadvantaged youths founded by Michael Kinsella, who was on Liverpool’s books and served seven years for drug dealing. “From my Liverpool schoolboys team 13 of us went to professional clubs but, of those, six ended up in prison,” he says. “The education side for young players at professional clubs is ridiculous.”

 

Kinsella and Scott both believe so many players hit trouble because of poor schooling, football’s incredible rejection rate (only 2% of players who sign their first professional contract are still pros past 21) and, chiefly, money.

 

“A first-year pro at a Premier League club will earn upwards of £1,500 per week and we know one current academy player on £10,000 per week. But if the player doesn’t [succeed] he goes into the big bad world and after a life of mollycoddling has to try and make it. And he has no meaningful qualifications and a £2,000-per-week lifestyle to replace,” Scott says. “Many turn to crime.”

 

That’s not Molyneux’s story. He had qualifications — achieving 10 GCSEs at school — and was well looked after at Everton’s envied academy. He didn’t “turn to crime” and blames nobody but his younger, reckless self. But he recognises the dynamics Scott outlines. As often happens with those who derail, it began with bad luck. At the start of 2007-8 Molyneux was promoted to Everton’s bench and was confident of displacing Nuno Valente, the club’s only senior left-back. Then, doing weights, a disc went in his back. David Moyes signed Leighton Baines and by the time Molyneux was fit again his first-team opportunity seemed gone.

 

Everton were willing to extend his contract but he was in a hurry to play and earn big. “I didn’t have an agent. An Irish fella I’d met twice had a word with me after a reserve game. ‘Do you fancy joining Southampton?’ ‘First team?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Go on then’. I never spoke to him again. He made a few quid out of the move, then did one.” Molyneux played four games in the Championship before Jan Poortvliet, who signed him, was sacked.

 

Poortvliet’s replacement, Mark Wotte, didn’t fancy him. “There were six or seven of us, frozen out. We called ourselves the bomb squad. You train, go home, pick up a wage. You’d be in on a Saturday for an hour, then you were free. You’re 19 and what do you do for the rest of Saturday? I got into a rut of going out drinking.”

 

He was a teenager living away from home for the first time who couldn’t cook for himself and, deep down, was depressed at not playing. “I was on 400 quid a week at Everton and went to two grand a week at Southampton. I was paying £1,100 a month for a flat I didn’t need and eating in restaurants just to spend the money. Even if I trained well I wasn’t going to play.”

 

Released in summer 2010, Molyneux was out in Liverpool city centre and after a 15-hour drinking spree got into a fight over a taxi and was accused of wounding with intent. He woke up in a cell, remembering little. When shown CCTV footage he was horrified.

 

He didn’t tell anyone he was in trouble except his mum, not even Peter Reid, who signed him for Plymouth, where he started well but lapsed into drinking habits as anxiety built before his trial. Pleading guilty, in January 2011 he went down. Jail? “The first few months were tough but I did a lot of reading. I got a job in the gym. I cleaned it, then could have a workout. I lived on tuna and porridge. I tried to look on it as rehab — ‘I’ve been injured and I’m going to get myself fit’.

 

“I was scared no club would touch me again and I owe Accrington, especially Paul Cook and Leam Richardson [the previous and current manager.]” What would he tell his pre-prison self? “I’d give that lad a kick up the a***. I’d say live your life properly. It’s a short sacrifice to get what you want out of the game.

 

“The cliche ‘I wish I’d known then what I know now’ is true. Life’s about learning from your mistakes.”

[Romey 1878]

Cheers for that, Louis.

[Dalziel Kane]

Yeah I read it also. Something to be learned for most of us there.

 

Surprised the player never turned out for Wolverhampton with a name like that maybe.

[Hafnia]

Blimey...a biography in a few paragraphs. Want the lad to succeed. We all know the billy keeny story, lets have a better outcome. Good link.

[Avinalaff]

The lad hurt somebody, and did time.

Lucky lad to get another chance. Most of the lads inside won't.

[Hafnia]

The lad hurt somebody, and did time.

Lucky lad to get another chance. Most of the lads inside won't.

 

Unless you are called Joey Barton, in which case he's got about another 4 goes.

 

I'm fortunate I never got into trouble like that when I was younger, I was more into having a laugh and chasing girls, none of this alcohol+testosterone+pack mentality.

 

I lilke to see people learn from their mistakes and turn the corner, especially when they have talent - some want them to fail, I find it a sad story when they do. A bit like having a winning lottery ticket and losing it/burning it.

[marcopaulo]

if you lose it then it's not your fault..if you burn it then it's your own stupid fault

[Avinalaff]

if you lose it then it's not your fault..if you burn it then it's your own stupid fault

 

I have visions of your reaction when you see the numbers and ask your ma (etc) where your jeans are.

[Hafnia]

I see Michael Owen wants to do a mentoring role for young players - he was talking as if he was managed wrong and played too much and wants to guide them away from his pitfalls???... I think he's clutching at straws there, he was played when fit and damaged his hamstrings because he was a fast twitch lightning player. Maybe he wants to look at his need to play for England when not fit after declaring himself unavailable for Newcastle.

 

Tremendous player in his first few years - Joe Average when his pace was gone. The difference between him and Shearer was Shearer was still great after losing his pace.

[marcopaulo]

I have visions of your reaction when you see the numbers and ask your ma (etc) where your jeans are.

 

i don't do the lottery often..when i do i do it online..i don't trust myself not to be an idiot

[pete0]

I see Michael Owen wants to do a mentoring role for young players - he was talking as if he was managed wrong and played too much and wants to guide them away from his pitfalls???... I think he's clutching at straws there, he was played when fit and damaged his hamstrings because he was a fast twitch lightning player. Maybe he wants to look at his need to play for England when not fit after declaring himself unavailable for Newcastle.

 

Tremendous player in his first few years - Joe Average when his pace was gone. The difference between him and Shearer was Shearer was still great after losing his pace.

He might of been rushed back for Liverpool a few times, he's alluded to it a few times on Twitter, but vague enough that the kopites won't kick up a fuss. (I'd guess he took injections rather than rest).

[Dalziel Kane]

It'll be a shame to see him retire at the end of the season (as with Shearer a few years ago) as I thought he was a great player, arguably the most dangerous center forward in the country for a time, and he's been blighted with injury, but still thought he had something to offer, and still a decent player. I remember when he first burst onto the scene around 1997 and he's really had some outstanding moments, so just wanted to say it'll be a pity when he finally ends his playing career in a few weeks. Liverpool or not, I've always respected him as a player.

[troy8]

Glad to see he's got his life back on track. Still remember a great goal from a free kick he scored for the reserves against Liverpool.