SMALL-SIDED

DARREN BENT:

FOOTY ADDICT

From the clay pitches in Thornton Heath to the Premier League 100 club, beating Spain at Wembley, and now to Footy Addicts. This is Darren Bent’s journey through football.

When you come along to a game at Footy Addicts, you’re always looking forward to who you’ll be playing with and against. Players with different styles from all over the world. North African flair. Dutch craft. And Italian... well, the Italians have got a bit of everything. Style and discipline.

But you don’t expect to look up and see a striker that scored 106 Premier League goals and led the line for England at Wembley, asking you for the ball. Darren Bent is that man, and we caught up with him at Archbishop's Park to hear about his journey through and love of the game. From those first memories, to those that inspired him, through to now, when he’s burying a couple of late goals in a high tempo, end to end 5-4 thriller at Footy Addicts.

TGP: Tell us when you fell in love with football and what your first memories of playing are? Darren Bent: I first fell in love with it when I was six or seven when I used to play in Croydon, South London in Thornton Heath. I used to play for a Sunday League side there, and my dad has always been a Chelsea season ticket holder. He took me to my first game, Chelsea v Palace. I remember it too, it was 2-2! And what an experience. My dad was a postman and every single Sunday morning he used to play with his mates in the park and I’d go along. So, I went and when I finally started playing it had made me stronger.

What do you remember about the facilities growing up in your local area? Darren: Where I grew up it was a clay pitch! Where we played there was no grass. It wasn’t concrete, it was clay. If you used to fall over, it would kill you! It was a big eleven-a-side pitch at the side of a park. I used to go down there, and obviously as my parents didn’t have a lot of money and they bought me a football, I knew I needed to hang on to that football! I was always playing football, out in the street. When you’re a kid you don’t care about the facilities. You’d play anywhere! As a teenager you moved to Cambridge and played for Godmanchester Rovers. Do you think playing in a more urban environment, and then somewhere quite rural, helped you? Darren: I’ve always said that. When I moved up to Cambridgeshire after being an inner-city kid where there’s so many good footballers trying to aspire to make it, it definitely helped. Even though I played for Croydon Borough (I didn’t get into the Surrey county team and even now I’m like “whaaaat!?”) but after we moved, the one thing I noticed when I moved with my mum is that there was green grass everywhere. When you grow up in South London, unless you go to the park, there’s no grass. Everything is concrete. I moved and it was like, grass behind the houses, patches of grass everywhere. I was never in the house. Just playing constantly. Practising without practising.

So you’d got used to the close control and physicality of playing in London, and then had the space to move into all of a sudden. Sounds like the perfect mix … Darren: Absolutely. When you grow up in London you have to have a little something about you. When I went to Cambridgeshire everyone was quite soft, and quite nice! It felt like the perfect environment for me to grow and nurture.

And to smash a few goals in? Darren: Yeah!

"My dad was a postman and every single Sunday morning he used to play with his mates in the park."

"I scored seven and we won 8-2 and I’ll never forget the scout saying to my parents, ‘Listen, forget the trial, we want to sign him!’"

Is there anyone that inspired you as a kid? Or looked after you as a player and person? Darren: Obviously you have your heroes on TV, like Ian Wright. Then my parents. My mum and dad played huge, huge parts. My dad would drive from London, take me to training, come and watch me on Sunday morning, and he never skipped a beat. Some of my teachers, Mr Havard and Mr Turnbull. I’m still in touch with Mr Turnbull and he used to push me and push me and it used to frustrate me but it all made sense a few years later.

Did it help playing there to get scouted? Darren: Of course. If you look at the catchment area of East Anglia there aren’t many clubs. We had Cambridge and Peterborough. In London, everyone is looking. When you start to score a few goals in an area like mine, the reputation is doubled. People see your name in the paper, and again, and again and it starts to peak interest. I might have made it if I’d have stayed, who knows? But it certainly played a massive part. Godmanchester Rovers was a five-minute walk down the road which took a bit of stress off my mum. The right environment and it just clicked. I scored twenty goals in my first six games, and then the next season I scored ninety-nine!

What happened with the last one? Darren: I know, yeah!

Do you remember the game where you were scouted and what it felt like? Darren: Yeah, I remember we played a semi-final and I scored two, but we lost 3-2 and the game was abandoned as a friend broke his ankle. I would have been thirteen, so quite late. That was the first time they came and spoke to my parents and they offered me a trial. I remember then playing in a Cup Final, and I scored seven and we won 8-2 and I’ll never forget the scout saying to my parents, “Listen, forget the trial, we want to sign him!” And so I went and signed for Ipswich.

And it was a happy time for you in Ipswich’s academy. Do you think grassroots football can offer more of a safety net for those that don’t make it? Darren: Yeah and I think that’s really important. You even look at young ages like eleven, twelve and they leave academies and they’re heartbroken. Dreams are shattered. I think Crystal Palace have started to do it now which is good. But there’s not enough of a support network. When they have been at academies for three to four years, they think it’s gonna go on forever. With grassroots football, you can get them straight back into football, self-esteem, mental health, all those aspects. And then you can start encouraging scouts to come back and watch them. That disappointment is tough and they need someone saying it’s not the end of the world, it’ll be ok, just keep playing.

So how important is grassroots football to this country? Darren: It’s incredible. Even things like this, Footy Addicts. When you’re in the professional game, you don’t notice, but once it’s over you start looking at the stats

"I love coming down here. Getting the feel of the ball. Can’t beat it."

of who makes it and the percentage is like 0.02%. It’s scary. Because I made it you think anyone can make it, but it’s so hard. Grassroots football is about getting that self-esteem, mental health benefits. You’ve seen something on Match of the Day and you want to go out and try it. Football takes you out of so many different places. The exercise, the mental health aspects. Grassroots football is so, so important.

Still got the buzz to play, then? Darren: Yeah, I love playing. I love coming down here. Getting the feel of the ball. Can’t beat it. I was lucky enough to have the best job in the world. But for every one of me, there’s millions of people that didn’t get to enjoy that. And that all started with grassroots and going to play football with my dad. That’s where these things start.

Why Footy Addicts and why now? Darren: Like many others, it fits around work with what I do. It’s also just a great time to get out with people to get together and play football. And I’ve been here loads of times now and I’ve never had any issues, there’s no one where I’ve even thought, “nah, I don’t want to play with him”. And once we start playing football, people just forget that it’s me, and we just play football. And that’s how you want it! At the end of the day, I’ve had my time. I’m not here to score eight, nine goals. Just to get the ball out of my feet and play with these guys and have a run around. TGP

Footy Addicts is open and everyone can join. Just download the app and get involved.

FORMULA FOR FUTSAL SUCCESS

With the FA National Futsal Series now available on BT Sport and some of England’s best futsal players entering the limelight, here’s a look into what makes those ballers tick.

In any sport, there’ll be players who are faster, stronger or more skillful; those skills or physical attributes are what make them great. When it comes to futsal, it can be tricky to pinpoint what makes a great player as opposed to simply a good one. But a while back, I spoke to futsal players across the UK and further afield to see what makes some players a cut above the rest, and here’s what they came up with…

"High-intensity physically and high-intensity mentally - the top players will be the ones who can cope with both"

01. GUILE

Cunning, ingenuity, a little bit of trickery - they’re all things which maketh a great futsal player. Working in a smaller area with fewer players means that teams are always having to come up with more elaborate set pieces, tricks or play rotations to get the ball in the back of the net. There’s a certain beauty to when they come off, but there’s also the inevitable embarrassment of when you’re meant to fake left and go right and end up body-checking your own player. The best futsal players are able to trick opponents as easily as you like.

02. QUICK THINKING

During a forty-minute match (plus stop-clock), futsal players will touch the ball on average six times more than in eleven-a-side. That means there’s no time to switch off, and even less time to decide what you’re going to do with the ball at your feet. Rotations become important in futsal partly for this reason - if you already know where your next move is before you even receive the pass, it makes it nearly impossible to defend against. Sounds easy, right? It’s not. High-intensity physically and high-intensity mentally - the top players will be the ones who can cope with both.

03. BALLS CONFIDENCE

There’s no easy way of saying this, but a bit of cockiness can go a long way in futsal. I’m not talking about slagging off your opposition before a game - of course not. Instead, I’m talking about having the confidence to try new skills, flicks and tricks. The best futsal players will have the confidence to take on a player one-on-one but keep it interesting - a nutmeg or a rainbow flick does not look out of place on the futsal court whatsoever. The kind of confidence that gets you two-footed in a Sunday league match can see you applauded on the futsal court... if, of course, you’re talented enough to pull it off! TGP

CAROL BATES: RENAISSANCE WOMAN

Women’s recreational football can appear to be the missing cog. Carol Bates isn’t having that. And through her enthusiasm and endeavours she has created something truly special with Crawley Old Girls.

Doting daughter, tea girl, supporter, coach, mum’s taxi, chair,

you name it - Carol Bates has ticked virtually every box there is when it comes to footballing endeavours. She grew up following her dad home and away whilst he was a manager and as a fan, before starting a family of her own with two boys who also had a keen interest in playing football. But when she reached the age of forty-eight she realised that the only thing she was yet to do was play.

Carol puts this down to being part of the “missed generation”, the girls and women who weren’t afforded the opportunity to play football whilst growing up in the 1970s and ’80s. But things were to change, and perhaps she didn’t realise at the time quite how monumentally, when her pal Sandra encouraged her to join her at a charity tournament for a local club, where rules stated you had to have at least two females in the team. Carol jokes, “I touched the ball about twice, I think, but absolutely loved it and knew I had to play again”. And therein lay the spark that ignited Carol’s belief that “there should be no barriers to any woman who wants to play the game” and the foundations on which Crawley Old Girls (COGs) were laid.

It wasn’t plain sailing to the welloiled machine you see now, however. With her interest piqued and what she calls “a twist of fate”, the Community Foundation at Crawley Town FC held an event looking for girls aged fourteen and up to join a football session. Fantastic, thought Carol, an opportunity to play more regularly and she was keen to get involved. She was stopped right in her tracks, though, as the maximum age was twenty-five, but as is the case so often with Carol, she wasn’t to be deterred. If you ever have the absolute privilege of meeting her, she has an infectious energy, unafraid to ask questions and delve deeper. She is tenacious and strives to give chances to those who haven’t been afforded them before.

So after some to-ing and froing, she secured ten weeks of funding, convinced some pals to come along and the rest, as they say, is history. Before long, they were working with the FA to help promote women’s participation in football, which in turn garnered some media attention and more and more women got in contact about playing or setting up their own rec football group.

Fast forward to today and COGs are approaching their seventh birthday and now have more than 200 women attending sessions every night of the week. Whether you’re just starting out like Carol was back during that first session with her ten mates, or if you’re feeling a bit more confident and want to challenge yourself at one of their advanced sessions, COGs pride themselves on welcoming women,

COGs are approaching their seventh birthday and now have more than 200 women attending sessions every night of the week

regardless of ability, shape, size or fitness to get involved.

Your typical COG session starts with a warm welcome, Carol assures me. Rec football is never about being competitive; it’s about entering a safe space in a non-judgemental environment that combines the social element of football as much as the physical. Carol quips, “we laugh with each other, especially after mishaps, and the most important thing is for the women to have enjoyed themselves and want to come back!”. For her and the rest of the COGs, it’s fairly simple: “The benefits of being out in the fresh air and being active does wonders for mental and physical health, especially during midlife and menopause. It’s really just moving with a football and it’s for everyone.”

Carol expects the arrival of the UEFA Women’s EURO 2022 to skyrocket the participation of women in rec football just as it did during the Women’s World Cup in 2019 and is already preparing to accommodate the interest. But as Carol notes, that interest is a sticking point - many will already know how challenging it is to find suitable and available facilities across the country.

The future looks exceptionally bright for COGs, though. As we motor towards a home tournament, they’ll be embracing the competition as they host COGSEUROFEST22, a National Women’s Recreational Football Festival for no less than forty-eight teams. Why run a festival when you could just watch the games, you may ask? Carol was clear with her response: “The women’s recreational community is such a positive environment and everyone is working together to not only increase participation but to increase watching women’s football too, so we thought it would be a good idea for anyone who wanted to, to combine playing with watching.”

So whilst that final cog may have been missing before, it’s ever-present and whirring full steam ahead now. You’d be remiss not to take a closer look. TGP