Egerton FC might not be the first place you’d expect former international players, Champions League competitors and Premier League players to show up, and certainly not to participate in the dreaded “training with the kids”, but that’s exactly what’s happening at the Cheshire based club, and the former pro’s are loving it!
Lead by Dean Gorre, once of Ajax, Feyenoord and Barnsley, the club is building a reputation as one that has its arms open, for those looking to begin a career in the game, looking to get back in the game…or those on the way out.
“Football is my life, as a player, it was all I knew” says Gorre, while recalling fondly times of being signed by the likes of Louis van Gaal and Steve Bruce, “when it ended, there was a darkness”. A side to the game that doesn’t always get the highest of exposure, but scratch beneath the service and you’ll find plenty of stories of sportsmen and women from all sports who excel in their field, are championed by fans and looked up to by the next generation, then have the lights switched out on them from at retirement.
A pill like that is a tough one to swallow. You dedicate your life to a profession, training, eating, resting, sacrificing, then it’s gone. A select few will move into coaching or punditry, others, as is becoming more common, will plan for it and begin other education while still playing, but for others the time can just pass by until one day the emptiness arrives to darken their door.
Gorre recalls how the “project” – his words – at Egerton began.
“Jim Cherneski – an American who had a sports socks company rang me, he is football crazy, he used to go out with a bag of balls and cones on his own, he asked if I wanted to go training with him”, explains Gorre.
“At first I said ‘no, why would I do that?!’, but then I was rung by an old friend of mine who was asking what I was doing these days, to which I replied ‘watching Oprah!’, because that’s all I was doing”.
Recalling the struggles of stepping out of the limelight prompted the discussion of other players coming to the end of their careers.
“JLloyd Samuel started coming, Daniel Webber, Nathan Ellington, Emile Heskey comes to train now, we offer a routine here that is lost when you retire from the pro’s.” Gorre goes on to explain.
But it’s not just Football League veterans who play for Egerton. Along with offering structure, what’s happening at Egerton allows the likes of Heskey to pass on their knowledge of the game.
“It gives me the opportunity” exclaims former Liverpool striker Heskey. “You’ll never replicate the comrearderie you get with a football team anywhere else. Football, and sport in general provides a community for people to get together who would never usually meet, and that’s whats happening here at Egerton”.
J Lloyd Samuel is another at the club who has a vast amount of experience to pass on, but knows that having presences like his and others at the club means they’re a target for the teams in their division. “Other teams raise their game, they might go in a bit harder or have that extra determination about them, but we have a good blend here. We’re helping the guys who want to go and make a career in the game, as well as those who are struggling with injury, or coming out of it”.
One player who played for the club has now got a contract at Hartlepool United, and others are having eyes kept on them, as the team continue to be a force in their division. Granted the league is a few steps away from the league some of the coaching staff have become accustomed to, but this is the beginning of an ambitious, and hopeful chapter.
One could easily look at the likes of Ellington, Samuel and Gorre and claim the team should be winning games, but it isn’t because of the skill these players have with the ball at their feet.
The determination and desire that propelled them to such playing careers is infectious, and a magnet for aspiring young players, desperate to have a crack at the game. Gorre was quick to dismiss talk of long term goals and what division the club could be in come five or 10 years time, realistically the football pyramid is fiercely competitive at any level so it won’t be easy, but the levels of commitment prove Egerton should have plenty of reasons to cheer over the coming seasons.
