Many people often question what ex footballers do after leaving the game; I came to central London to find out.
I walked into the unremarkable central London Recruitment companies head office, where I had arranged to meet ex Arsenal and QPR defender Matthew Hislop. It’s hard to imagine that this typically well dressed city worker had just five years ago been rubbing shoulders with World Cup, European Championship and Champion’s league winners and competing for a left back spot with a man who has twice featured in the UEFA team of the year.
Matthew Hislop, now 25, currently works in the city as a teaching recruitment consultant, but as a 16 year old he was the kid everyone wanted to be like. He went to school like a normal 16 year old, but come the evenings, he was playing out every teenager’s dream. Hislop was training with some of the greatest players in the world, just three years before the globally recognised “Invincibles” era began, Hislop trained with world renowned stars such as Thierry Henry and Ashley Cole. However, despite all of this, Hislop seemed happier with his current life than his past footballing days.
Hislop reflected on his time at Arsenal and despite being around superstars stars such as Thierry Henry and Cesc Fabregas, it was a less glamorous player that Hislop paid closer attention to: “As a full back myself; it was Ashley Cole who I took particular notice of. For me he’s the best left back this country has seen and he was definitely someone I aspired to be like. The coaches always tried to model myself like him from a young age as our styles were very similar in the way we both attack and having him so close to me definitely helped me improve my game.”
Hislop, however, wasn’t the only young footballer from his school – Jermaine Pennant, now with Stoke City and Jamie O’Hara, now at Wolverhampton Wanders, were both in similar positions with Arsenal. It was at the age of 14 when Hislop was in year 10 that Arsenal stepped in and started to change things.
“Arsenal ran a scheme that when you got to year 10, you dropped a subject from your GCSE’s and you trained instead. It was a sort of transition between training three times a week, which you do as an academy player, to going full time after you turn 16. At times it was difficult when we couldn’t go out and experience things such as drinking with friends as we were either training or had a match, but in the end it was just became a way of life because I started playing so young and as time went on it was just something I got used to and accepted”, Hislop explained.
A year later, at the age of just 17, Hislop moved on from the North London side and made the switch across to West London to Queens Park Rangers. The 25 year old puts a lot of the reasoning behind the move down to their manager at the time, Ian Holloway.
“It was Ian who wanted to sign me and he assured me that I’d be straight into the first team and would have opportunities to sit on the bench and make appearances, so at the time it made more career sense from a personal point of view.”
Sitting in the small, compact office, it was a far cry from Hislop’s previous working environment – “In regards to facilities it was a massive step to go from Shenley, Arsenal’s multi-million pound training ground, to sharing a training ground with rugby union side Wasps. It was a quite big step down and obviously the standard of football was lower, but at least I was playing first team football and still had the chance to play alongside great pros like – Danny Shittu and Dean Sturridge so it was still a great experience for me”, admitted Hislop.
Unfortunately for Hislop, injuries started to get in the way of making first team appearances at a vital stage, so much so that it cruelly ended his professional career as a senior footballer.
Hislop recalls the time his career came to an end: “I had a year or so when I was fit and made my first team debut against Leicester and also had the chance to play in a few FA cup and League cup games, but then the injuries really started to take toll in the end and I came to the end of my contract at the age of 20 and I had to move on away from football.”
Having come so close, yet so far, many outsiders looking in may have believed that such a cruel blow would be something he would struggle to recover from. However, despite his initial reaction naturally being one of disappointment, Hislop refused to sit around and think “why me?”, instead he started to think of his future career plans outside of football.
Footballers who have been in a similar situation to Hislop often find themselves with a lack of options away from the game, however from an early age, Hislop’s father was determined that if the worst did happen to his son, then he was armed with the qualifications to succeed in another industry.
An eternally grateful Hislop reflected on the influence of those who knew him best: “Luckily for me my Dad had always been pretty hard on me in terms of my education and made sure I was on form and on point with that. When I started to realise that football wasn’t going to work out, I didn’t muck about or feel too sorry for myself and I knuckled down and decided that I wanted to get into business and eventually ended up in recruitment. At the time it was very difficult but it was a transition that my family and close friends played a huge role in and helped me out throughout.”
Going from a professional footballer to a business recruitment worker is a drastic change and one in which many would struggle to cope with, but Hislop remains defiant and admits he regrets nothing and “thanks god and his lucky stars” that he was given the chance to play professional football, despite being the first to admit that he was devastated to have such a promising career taken from him he can look back with fondness on his time in the game and his memories are something that he cherishes.
“I’m just lucky that I had the chance to do so many amazing things as a young person – to play in a stadium in front of so many people. I don’t want to look back on it with any regret, I had an amazing opportunity to do some amazing things and I have some amazing experiences and stories which nobody can ever take away from me, but obviously going from being a professional footballer to someone who works in an office is very different. However, I will always try not to fixate on the past too much and just try to move forward and, if I’m honest, I don’t think about my football career too much until people ask me about it or someone mentions something about the game”, he smiled.
Despite being out of the world of football for over five years now, Hislop remains fixated with the game from a spectators point of the view and, despite his Arsenal connections, admits he’s a “massive Spurs fan”.
“Even though I did play for Arsenal, I am a massive Spurs fan and I have to admit that from about the age of 16 I got a little de-attached from being a Tottenham fan as part of being an Arsenal player we had to attend every senior Arsenal home game. I was big friends with Cesc Fabregas, Johan Djourou and Antony Stokes, so watching them do well and me cheering them was a little bit difficult.” He explained.
However, Hislop admits that despite the move to QPR being a tough one, it did help him fall back in love with his favourite side:
“Literally as soon as I made the switch to QPR I was back to being an avid Spurs fan again and finally got back in touch with my feelings! I continue to follow football down to a tee and consider myself to be a big, big Spurs fan”, said Hislop with pride.
If the Tottenham Hotspur fan Hislop does have one regret, it is, unsurprisingly, going to be the fact that he never had the chance to play for the blue and white half of North London rather than Spurs’ arch enemies Arsenal.
Hislop, regrettably, recalls his scouting process: “When I was 11 we had a really good football team and I got scouted by lots of teams– Arsenal, Wimbledon, West Ham – literally nearly every team in London, except for Spurs. They were the only team who never scouted me or wanted me to come down to the training ground to have trials with them. So, I never had the choice about choosing Arsenal or Tottenham and, if I’m honest, I would have been extremely tempted to choose Arsenal – purely because their academy at the time was one of the best in the world by far and it was quite well known at the time that Arsenal were the academy to go to.”
However, a few seconds later, Hislop changed his mind:
“Actually, I’m going to change my mind! For any Spurs fans reading and as a Spurs fan – I would have picked Spurs; I’m going to say that”, said a laughing Hislop.
His injury and fitness concerns now in the past, Hislop was free to continue playing football. However with work commitments, he was only able to do so at a part time level.
“Shortly after I started work, I signed for Hayes & Yeading part time in the conference south and in that particular season we did really well and got promoted, however the problem was playing part time was completely different to playing every day and financially I’d have rather focused on getting involved in business and get to 30 or 31 and, hopefully, be in a managerial position within the company. So for those reasons and the fact I started moving up in my job, it really was only a one season thing as I didn’t want to give up my weekends as when you work five days a week in the office your weekends are quite big and your Friday nights are quite important, so I decided for life satisfaction, that I would stop playing part time”, he revealed.
It was clear that despite being out of the game for a while, Hislop’s desire to win and sporting competitiveness hadn’t gone anywhere:
“The only time I play now is down the power league with my mates, which, by the way, we’re winning, but apart from that I don’t play professionally anymore.”
It was clear that Hislop was happy in his current role despite the fact it couldn’t be further from a football pitch and was more than happy to talk with pride and conviction about his new job:
“I work for a recruitment firm in terms of education and we (Protocol Education – the company Hislop works for) are.”) Are currently the leading firm for London and large parts of the UK. We provide teachers for schools, whether it would be to cover for a teacher during a training course or just a general sickness, schools would call us to cover that position and we’d supply them a teacher.”
Hislop confirmed that despite being just 25, he would not be renewing his passion for the game in the future and is 100% committed to the company and his business prospects.
The ex-Arsenal player revealed he had a chance to return to the game: “I’ve had opportunities, one of the ex QPR coaches, Garry McCann, is now the manager at Hendon and he’s been calling me telling me to get fit ahead of next season and I’ve had a think about but I could only see myself playing at that type of low level. I’m getting on a bit now and maybe it’s not the right time to be getting back involved in the game. I’m happy and content with the way my life is right now and I want to move forward in the ranks here and I wouldn’t give that up to have a crack at football – this is me for now.”
mikew1234 