Interview with Matt Grimes

FLYNN DOWNES HAS MADE AN EYECATCHING START TO LIFE AT SWANSEA CITY. HERE THE MIDFIELDER LIFTS THE LID ON HIS NEW POSITION AT THE SWANS, HOW HIS BROTHERS HELPED KEEP HIM ON TRACK FOR A CAREER IN FOOTBALL, AND WHY HIS FAMILY’S SACRIFICES FOR HIM WILL ALWAYS BE A MAJOR MOTIVATION AS HE STRIVES TO REACH THE TOP OF THE GAME.

Flynn, you are about five or so months into your time at Swansea City. You seem to have settled in really well on and off the pitch?

I love it here, to be honest. The gaffer, the staff and the boys have been so good. I have found no egos here, like you can at other clubs. I didn’t know what to expect as this is a big club, but it has been great. It’s been spot on.

It’s been nice to settle into the city too. I like having my own space, my missus is with me so I have company and we live down in the marina with a lovely beach nearby. When the sun is out you can’t beat it. You can’t go wrong.

She has just got a new job which is happy days. We are really enjoying it.

On the pitch, we see you in a different role in terms of how deep you operate from and the way you link with the back three and Matt Grimes. How have you adjusted to that?

I have to tell you, I have loved it. Everyone has their own role on the pitch, and I like that. That role is my responsibility and my job. It’s down to me to perfect that position, and I feel like Grimesy and I can focus on our own tasks.

As a whole, the boys are great to play alongside. The style of play the gaffer wants is the best, it’s the best to watch, it’s the best to play and the task is to improve and get some more wins on the board. I enjoy the defensive responsibility as well as my job on the ball. I would be as happy to smash someone with a crunching tackle as I would be to score. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to score some goals to help the team, but if I do that a different way then I’m fine with that.

The first time we sat down and spoke about my role and worked on it on the training pitch you do sort of think ‘okay’… because it is so different and you don’t expect it. But I watched clips, and it felt weird to start with because your instinct sort of tells you that you are playing centre-back, but you’re not.

You work with the centre-backs, and once I got my head around it and got a feel for how often I got on the ball it’s something I have really enjoyed. It’s making me a better player, and I think it helps the team.

The style of play helps us and suits us. I want to be on the ball, I think that’s what every player wants deep down. Look at teams like Barcelona over the years, that is the best football to watch. I am not saying we are like Barcelona, but that is the best football to me and to try and play a style that gives the opportunity to use the ball is great as far as I am concerned.

Mistakes will happen, nothing is perfect, if we give the ball away at the back then the opposition are in on goal. So you have to be brave, and you have to make those sacrifices because when it comes together teams cannot get near you. It’s a joy to play in.

You started your career at Ipswich, joining their academy at the age of seven. How did that opportunity come about?

I was playing for my local team, Ongar, I played for them for a year, it was my first time in a proper team and I thought it was great. I was scoring goals, everything, I was a midfielder and I just loved running around everywhere.

I was doing well, I was flames!! The next year Steve Leslie, an Ipswich scout, came over and gave my father his card.

I didn’t think much of it, but we called up and got invited down to the development centre and it went from there.

It wasn’t totally straightforward because the day I had my trial I fell asleep in the car on the way there, and only woke up as we were there.

It threw me, I was still tired, and I just did not want to go in there. I started crying, and in the end the manager came out and sort of talked me around.

I was nervous because I was training with the age group two years above, and once I started dribbling round the cones in the first drill I was fine. I cannot even remember how they coaxed me to go in.

But I was always football mad. When I was a kid I used to change at home and put all my kit on and just dance around the front room. I couldn’t wait for it. I was so happy about it.

My family are West Ham fans, we used to go to Upton Park. It was such a great ground, everything was so close. I loved watching Alex Song, who had been at Barcelona and Arsenal. People said he was past his prime when he came to us, but I thought he was incredible.

No-one could take the ball off him, he kept it moving. He made it look easy, he was class. People had no idea how good he was.

The hardest thing to do is play simple football, and that’s why this suits me because I love that football.

From your home to Ipswich would have been a bit of a drive, so I’m guessing mum and dad were busy running you up there and fitting it around everything else.

Yeah, they did. Dad had his own construction company while mum did a few bits and bobs, and it was not always easy to go back and forth all the time.

It was over an hour each way and it was three or four times a week.

As a kid you don’t understand it, because you think ‘I have to get there and you have to drive because I can’t’.

But when I think about it, if I had a kid and I was doing that I would probably be thinking ‘you better make it here, lad’ but they never put that pressure on me.

Mum used to get everything ready and my Dad would take us there and back and I am aware of what they sacrificed, which is why I want to get to the top, top level. I want to repay them and make them proud. In your journey through the Ipswich academy, were there any people who were particularly big influences on you?

There were quite a few. When I was really young, Matty Smith and Sam Morgan were good to me. As I got older there was Brian Clue, Liam Manning – who is at MK Dons now – Chris Hull, they were unbelievable for me because I went through a rough patch with football.

I think you get a bit distracted at school and I did not really know what I wanted to do. I was travelling after school all the time, I would get home at half nine at night and then go to bed and do it again.

I was knackered all the time and I did not know if I wanted to keep doing it. I was about 14, but once I got through that spell I decided I was going to go at it 100 per cent and go all in.

I spoke to my brothers and they told me to go for it because it is everyone’s dream, and ever since then I have been striving to get better and make sacrifices of my own to get to where I want to get to.

I don’t know what else I would have done with life, I don’t recall ever thinking of something else to do, I just didn’t love football as much as I had as a young kid where I would just be playing all the time. It was all I ever wanted to do and I wanted to get better.

I just stopped enjoying it, but something clicked with me and I soon rediscovered that love of it.

Like I say, my two older brothers – Mike and Brad – helped. They had experience of life outside of school and they knew how tough it could be, so they wanted to encourage me.

Life is tough, and you come to realise that, and the other aspect of that is when you have a chance to do something you love and have the chance to really help your family by making some money so they are more comfortable, then you have to do it.

I want my family to enjoy life and not have any worries, and that drives me and it comes from that experience when you are younger of understanding that things are not always easy. I’ve worked really hard to get here, I have no intention of letting it go or having any regrets.

If I don’t give it my all, or I cut corners, it will bother me. If I tell myself in the morning that I am going to go to the gym after training to do some extra work, and I then didn’t do it, I would not sleep that night. It would bother me. It’s the small things you do everyday that get you where you want to be.

You got your chance at Ipswich under Mick McCarthy, you must be grateful to him for the opportunity?

Yeah I am, I know he is an exCardiff manager but he is a lovely man and he was great with me. He is a family man, he had kids and given how young I was he knew how I was feeling.

He showed me what the real world of football was about. Whenever I see him I say hello because he helped me so much and he gave me my debut. It was a massive moment for me.

It was a mad game as my friend Andre Dozzell started and he had come through the academy with I was on the bench, and he got injured after about half an hour and I was so nervous.

Mick McCarthy called me and said I was going on and I can feel my palms sweating now just thinking about it.

I went on and I had the game of my life. Everything came off, I was playing through balls without even knowing if anyone was there and there would be someone running onto it.

It was a dream come true. My parents and my brothers were there, we got in the car after and all I could think was that I had to step it up from there.

I had a taste, but I wanted so much more and I wasn’t going to stop until I got there.

You had a loan spell with Luton and you got to experience promotion as a teenager with them.

That was great for me, that was another stage where I wasn’t quite enjoying my football as I felt I was working really hard but I couldn’t get in the team regularly.

It frustrated me, but Mick McCarthy recognised it. He could see it, he spoke about it with me, and then told me there was interest in Luton and I wanted to do it.

It was one of the best times of my life. There were a few boys there who had grown up near me

in Brentwood and we shared lifts and it was so good. There was Oli Lee, Elliott Lee – who went to my school – Andrew Shinnie and Scotty Cuthbert.

It took me back to being a kid, I was playing and I was loving it. Nathan Jones put trust in me and at such a young age I got to experience promotion.

There was a bus parade, there were people everywhere and Luke Chambers, the captain, told me to take it all in and appreciate it because a lot of players never get to be part of something like that.

It was a mad experience, everyone was buzzing. It stuck with me, and I want to be winning things. I hate losing, and seeing something like that just adds to my appetite to have more of it. I would love to come and do that here. That’s what we are going after and what I want to be a part of.

I went back to Ipswich and felt so much more confident, I had more games under my belt which a lot of young players don’t always get. You have to play as a youngster because that’s how you learn.

Not too long after that you became Ipswich’s youngest captain, a record you still hold. Given the club’s history that must mean a tremendous amount to you?

That’s one of the biggest honours for me, so far. That made me realise the hard work was worth it because I never thought for even a second I could be captain.

I can’t describe how it felt to lead those 10 other boys out. I’m not a big shouter, I didn’t look to hype people up, I tried to lead by example on the pitch.

There are all sorts of different captains but you have to be true to who you are, you can’t fake it. I tried to be myself, but it was a mad feeling.

Obviously the way it ended there was not easy, but I have a lot of good memories and I will forever be grateful to them.

Just finally, how do you relax away from football. Do you have any hobbies?

I love reading, I find it just gets me out of my own head. It’s the first thing I do in the morning, I try to set aside half hour just to read.

I’ll read most things, but I enjoy reading about business, I like to learn about things I don’t know much about, even if it’s taxes or real estate!

I recently read ‘The Monk Who Sold his Ferrari’, I enjoyed that so I’m reading another one by Robin It’s good, I’m enjoying it and I would prefer to learn new things. I want to get better every day, I want to know more and understand things better.

That keeps me happy. I’m a simple bloke, I like to read, I like to learn, I like to get better.

It puts me in my own little world. I enjoy yoga and keeping fit, and I have got hooked on UFC.

I love it, Conor McGregor was the main guy and my brother used to tell me he was going to be massive, and Khabib Nurmagomedov has done so much for that sport.

I do like golf too, I did get into it, but I haven’t properly played since I came down here, yet. I’m sure I will once the weather starts to get a bit better again.