Style Exclusive with Joe Thompson

“Don’t live life to survive, live life to thrive”

Rochdale midfielder, Joe Thompson, has announced his retirement from football after playing almost 200 games for the club. The courageous two time cancer survivor made his extraordinary comeback by scoring the goal that kept Rochdale in League One at the end of last season.

After coming to the decision that he’d “pushed his body to the absolute limit”, Joe said goodbye to adoring Dale fans during the league clash against Coventry.

Since then, he’s been popping up on our television screens as a pundit and is now forging a career in motivational speaking.

As he celebrates his 30th birthday, Style caught up with Joe to discuss his remarkable story of sheer courage and overcoming adversity. We have to agree, there’s only one Joey T...

Style: How did you first become interested in football? Joe: When I moved to Rochdale at 8 years old I grasped the concept that everyone in and around Greater Manchester loves football, whereas I’d just been climbing trees and messing about! A friend’s dad had a local team at St Clement’s so that’s where it all started. For me, it was about trying to fit in with a new crowd, but I soon found out I was half decent at football. It was a natural path in a way.

What was the best moment of your footballing career? It has to be the last day of the season and that first goal back; I didn’t think it would be such an important goal and mean so much. It meant so much to the rest of the team too as they’d been with me through it all; they’d seen me becoming frail and build back up, watched me training on my own trying to get my strength back. There’s so much that has gone on behind the scenes. So the goal was payback for their patience and honesty. It was perfect.

Will you be keeping ties with the club? Yeah definitely. And keeping in contact with football in general. It’s everything I’ve known for going on 20 years. I love it… I must love it! I will always try to help out where and when I can.

We’ve seen you on the television a lot recently and you’re a natural - do you fancy being a presenter or pundit? Yeah, this is something that’s been proposed to me, so it’s another option. I do enjoy it. Sometimes I wonder how harsh I could be with my opinion though… everyone thinking I’m Mr Nice Guy, but I do have an opinion and people might not always agree with it!

What’s your focus for the future? Being a motivational speaker. I’m really focussing on how I can make myself a brand but keep the message that I want to get across to be authentic. My own podcast where I would talk about different topics would be great.

One of your recent talks was about resilience… Yeah, resilience is the buzzword. When someone asks me about my story that seems to be what they get from it. So I talk about resilience, setbacks, discipline, sacrifice, awareness, and being able to get yourself out of a bit of trouble from time to time!

Have you always had this unrelenting positivity or is it due to everything you’ve been through? Nature or nurture! I think it’s ingrained in my mum. I can see the similarities and same personality traits cause she’s not had it easy. She’s always made the best out of whatever is going on so I think that’s transferred to me. Football has taught me a lot; life has taught me a lot; and I’ve probably learnt lessons that I wouldn’t ever want my daughter to learn - but that’s life, it’s about growing and developing. You often find you learn more about yourself through hardship which is not ideal. Now I’m just trying to be as positive as possible. I can’t stand negativity. I used to entertain it and then I’d feel quite drained by certain people/ environments. Now I’ll just take myself out of the situation.

What advice would you give to anyone facing a cancer diagnosis at the moment? Find out what’s important to you and what you’re willing to fight for. Because that’s what it is – a fight. A lot of the battle is in the mind. Whether you go down the chemotherapy route, holistic route or try to do things a different way, it’s got to resonate with you. You’ve got to believe in it. When I got diagnosed I looked at my diet and went plantbased/vegan. I did that overnight. You need discipline going through it. It’s a way of life for me now and I can feel the benefits everyday in my energy levels and see them in my blood results. So that suits me, I believe in that.

You’re an inspiration to lots of people, but who inspires you? Obviously, I’ve got my football idols and I always loved Thierry Henry as a kid, and the old Ronaldo and the new Ronaldo! But I’ve always loved actors like Will Smith, Denzel Washington, The Rock, Reggie Yates. Those are people you probably wouldn’t associate with a footballer, but I look at what they do, the hardships they’ve overcome, their families and what they’ve created and I’m really impressed and inspired by them.

You’ve mentioned that Keith Hill has been like a father figure to you. How do you feel about him leaving Rochdale? There’s been some special times for Rochdale under Keith’s management. For me, I hold him up there because he’s taught me a lot on the field, but he’s also taught me so much off the field. A hard task master, don’t get me wrong, but there’s a good soul under there. Sometimes after training I’d be scratching my head thinking ‘wow why’s he being so hard on me today’ but when you step away from it and grow up as a man you realise why he did that. Incredible times; an incredible journey. Unfortunately, things do come to an end, but he’ll go away and have a rest and I’m sure he’ll have that hunger to get back into football. Time’s move on and I’ll look forward to seeing who takes over at Rochdale – I’m sure he’ll want to do it his own way and rightly so. When you look back and put it into perspective there’s a lot more good times than bad.

What advice would you give to young aspiring footballers? If that’s your dream, give it your all. Don’t let it be your entire identity, be open minded, but if you’re enjoying it, give it 100%.

Which team do you support? Arsenal! Thierry Henry, Iain Wright, the Invincibles! I take the rough with the smooth as well, but as long as they’re playing attractive football I’ll always love them.

Just to check you’re a Rochdale lad... do you know what cruckle means? Yeah, going over on your ankle!!

RAFC are hosting ‘An evening with Joe Thompson’ on 28th April. Are you looking forward to it? It’ll be quite an intimate one and might be quite emotional for me. There will be people in that room that have been major parts of my journey so I look forward to having the evening with them and answering questions. What the club have done for me – I don’t know if it can ever be measured. People might not understand the importance until I have my say on it. So yeah, I’m nervous but I’m looking forward to it. I was nervous with the book too, but I feel that as long as I’m being myself and I’m being honest that’s all that matters.

Following the success of your autobiography ‘Darkness & Light’, are you planning to carry on writing? Definitely. I’ve got loads of plans. I’m playing with whether to do another

chapter to the book or about the huge transition from football into my next chapter which I think is really interesting; I understand why footballers struggle after football if they’ve not got something in place, because you realise how structured your life has been. And I think footballers crave recognition at times, they get it through scoring, playing well, pats on the back, fans saying hello to them - but then it’s gone. So it’s not got to be your whole identity.

Is there a quote you live by? I have loads! I write affirmations as often as possible and myself and my wife try to get our little girl to write them too… if we’ve got enough time in between doing hair and bobbles before school. I thought to myself once I’d got over cancer, not once but twice, ‘I’ve done my surviving, now it’s time to shine’ in a way. But make sure you’re giving back and not making it all about you. I guess the main one is ‘don’t live life to survive, live life to thrive’. I truly believe the next chapter of my life is going to be so much bigger than my football career.

Ruth Parkinson

Joe’s autobiography ‘Darkness & Light’ is available on Amazon.