ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE: STUART JAMEStalks to a player who thought his playing days were behind him until a timely move to Birmingham City
THERE IS only so long you can wait for the telephone to ring and Stephen Carr had reached the point when enough was enough. Seven months had passed since he had been released from Newcastle United and he was no nearer to finding a new club. The lack of interest in him was galling and he was increasingly fed up with people asking if and when he would return to football. So he retired.
At least that was the plan. And yet, little more than 12 months later, Carr leads Birmingham City out against Manchester United at St Andrew’s today, revelling in his return to the Premier League where, in the words of his manager, Alex McLeish, he has been “absolutely awesome”.
It has been a remarkable journey and one that Carr could never have imagined taking when he was training in a gym this time last year wondering what he would do next with his life beyond preparing to go on holiday to Tenerife.
“It’s obviously surprising,” the former Republic of Ireland international says. “I was sitting at home and just doing what every other person does after Christmas, going to the gym to keep fit. I hadn’t touched a football since the summer and I’d had nothing to do with the game, so it’s quite a turnaround to be going out against Manchester United in the Premier League again. But, for me, I’m just buzzing to be back playing.”
Some players can see the end coming but Carr had no reason to believe he might have kicked a ball for the last time when he left Newcastle in the summer of 2008. He was 31, had 300 Premier League matches behind him and, although he had suffered more than his share of injuries at St James’ Park, particularly during his last season at the club, when he pulled his hamstring four times, he felt that the club had let him down rather than that his body had betrayed him.
Yet the harsh reality was his mobile phone might as well have been on silent in the months to come. “The season ends and June comes and you think that you will get some calls,” Carr says. “The calls don’t come and then you think ‘maybe July’. And it just kept going on. It got to September and teams were back playing, managers had put together their squads, and then it really hit home. I started thinking: ‘I ain’t getting a club’. It was frustrating because I thought I was still good enough to play in the Premier League, never mind outside that. But you’ve got to get on with it. There’s nothing much you can do. And I just wanted to put it to bed.
“I thought I’m not going to let this keep dragging on and people keep asking me ‘What’s happening with you?’ I thought: ‘No one has offered me a contract from May to December and that’s not going to change now’.”
Carr points to a number of possible reasons for being overlooked, including the reputation he picked up for being injury-prone, a lack of money outside the big clubs and the notion that right backs are not in demand like strikers. But then, as if realising he sounds like he is making excuses, he stops in mid-sentence. “I thought I would get another club. If someone had told me I wouldn’t get an offer, I would have said: ‘Good one, I’ll get something’.”
In fairness to Carr, one of his theories is not without foundation. McLeish had concerns about the defender’s hamstring problems before he invited him to train with Birmingham. His mind, however, was put at rest, when Ian McGuiness, who previously worked at St James’s Park with Carr and is now Birmingham’s club doctor, told him the player had been rushed back too many times and never got a chance to let the original injury heal.
Carr’s frustration with Newcastle is salient. “It was stop-start. Every year I had an injury. They were silly injuries that took a long time to diagnose and then I was out longer than I should be. And the last year, when I pulled my hamstring four times, summed it up. Basically it was a case of people not looking after you properly. Unfortunately you’re the one that looks like you’re injury-prone but the rehab was shocking. That’s the bottom line.”
Having proved his fitness to McLeish, Carr made his Birmingham debut against Crystal Palace last February. He had never played outside the Premier League before but remembers feeling nervous nonetheless. It was his first match in more than a year and he knew he would be under the microscope. “It was a massive game for me,” says the Dubliner. “I felt like all eyes were going to be on me but luckily I got through it.”
The former Tottenham trainee has been a revelation ever since, adding experience to a callow defence and helping Birmingham to adapt seamlessly from the Championship to the Premier League, where he has started every game but one. “This is the fittest I’ve felt for a long time and I don’t see why I can’t play for a lot more years,” says Carr, who has 18 months remaining on his contract and would welcome the chance to extend that deal. “I really love it here.”
Carr’s happiness at St Andrew’s is evidence of the appetite he has rediscovered for a game that used to “eat him up” when he was a youngster at Spurs before he learned to switch off in later years. What he has come to appreciate after being out of football for a period, though, is that without training and playing, life can be a little dull. The dressingroom banter was no longer there but it was pulling his boots on and doing what he has done since he joined Spurs aged 15 that he missed most. “I never thought I would say that I would want to keep playing until I was 36 or 37 but, if I could, I definitely would after having that break. I’ve realised how enjoyable it is.”
Birmingham are glad he made that decision as his actions on the pitch over the past 11 months have spoken volumes. “I knew I could do it,” says Carr. “But you still have to prove it to yourself a bit too because your pride gets hurt because no one is interested in you. Maybe I have proved a few people wrong but it’s not about that. It was about me getting back playing and, to be honest, it was a kick up the arse as well.”
- Guardian Service
