Life in the lower leagues: what it’s like to be a part-time footballer He doesn’t care about football. He is only loyal to money. He is looking for one last payday. Despite the […]

He doesn’t care about football. He is only loyal to money. He is looking for one last payday.

Despite the usual criticisms levelled at modern footballers, there are still professionals who play for both the money and the love of the game.

None more so than part-time players in the lower leagues of Britain, and beyond.

In Scotland, nearly half of the country’s 42 professional sides can be labelled part-time, with players topping up their full-time job with a minimal wage from football, or simply playing for expenses.

Training sessions twice a week, staying in shape, Saturdays spent kicking a ball around in Alloa, Arbroath or Ayr. All on top of working more than 40 hours per week.

“It can be very difficult,” Colin McMenamin, player/coach at Stenhousemuir – and an electrician – tells i.

“I’ve got two kids, my wee boy plays football. I’ve got to take him to training every Wednesday night, I have training Tuesday nights, Thursdays nights. I am still doing my college work for being an electrician.

“I know a lot of footballers that have gone down the same route where they think football is going to last forever and they soon find out it doesn’t.”

“But I am very lucky that my two bosses are understanding of what I need to do to prepare for football. I also have a very understanding manager at Stenhousemuir. He lets me manage my body and manage my time.”

McMenamin is in a unique position: he knows what it’s like to make the transition from part-time to full-time then back again, with the added experience of coaching for ‘The Warriors’ in League Two.

The 36-year-old started in the youth ranks of Queen of the South, moved to senior football with Annan Athletic before going “straight into the first-team environment at Newcastle, which was an eye opener”.

Two years at St James’ Park, working under Sir Bobby Robson and alongside Alan Shearer, Kieron Dyer, Kevin Gallacher and Shay Given, was ample experience for a career which would take in eight clubs at full-time level before he made the decision to go part-time after leaving Greenock Morton.

“I left four years ago and went to play for a year down in the non-league in England at part-time level. But they were paying good money at the time,” he says.

A shock to the system

“But when I came back up the road to Stenhousemuir it was then that I decided that I needed to go and get a job as well.

“I know a lot of footballers that have gone down the same route where they think football is going to last forever and they soon find out it doesn’t. I spoke to a lot of different people, I had enquired about different things.

“My partner at the time, her dad owned his own electrical contractor company so he told me to come in with him. I had to go sit an adult trainee-ship for three years as an electrician and that will be finished in September.”

Since 2014 it has been a change in pace for the striker. Up to 60 hour works week, on top of his football work.

The life of a full-time footballer and the benefits that come with it are firmly in the past for him.

“It’s a real shock to the system but it is something I have enjoyed to be fair,” he says.

“I have a lot of respect for boys who have been part-time all their days now because it is not the easiest thing in the world to work a full-time week and then come to training on a Tuesday and Thursday night and be able to prepare yourself properly for a game on a Saturday.

“It’s a part of the game I had never seen before, I was always used to preparing through the week, and having lots of rest – everything was geared up to the Saturday.

‘At part-time level it is a hobby at times’

There is also a stark change in the mental side of the game.

“I have spoken to a lot of people about this before, it’s a massive difference in mentality”, McMenamin says. “When you’re a full-time footballer it’s your livelihood, it’s your living.

“I’m not being disrespectful to part-time footballers but I think it means more to full-time footballers. They know if they get relegated that season they are going to lose money, the money you need to pay mortgages and bills.

“I think at part-time level it is a hobby at times. It’s a wee bit extra money at the end of the month on top of their job. You see it a lot in part-time football where players dive about from team to team across League One and League Two. They have 15 clubs across their career.

“I think you’ll find the successful part-time teams are the ones that have a good nucleus of players that have been professional and been full-time and have that bit about them that knows what it takes to be successful.”

A day in the life of a part-time footballer/coach “I finish work at 4.45pm and get back to my house for 5.30pm, changed and straight to training. I like to be in for 5.50pm so I can sit down with the manager, we can talk about the session, we can talk about who’s training what we are going to do, get the notes up of who we are playing on Saturday, get everything sorted. “We start training at 7pm and the boys usually finish at about 9pm and I’ll sit with the manager again until maybe 10pm talking about how training went, the team for Saturday. I can get home for at 10.30/11pm.”

Within the Scottish league system it is common for part-time teams to come up against full-time opposition. When McMenamin breaks it down it’s easy to understand the disadvantages those sides can face.

Fitness, shape, diet and organisation can be much more difficult to implement. Players have different demands due to their jobs and from one training session to the next the coaching staff have no idea how many players they could be working with due to call-offs.

“You’ve got to understand that football is their second income, their second job and they need to do what’s right for them,” explains McMenamin.

“It can be frustrating. We sit and we talk about what we’re going to do in training and you get a phone call from two or three boys saying ‘we can’t make it’.

“Because you’ve only got two nights to work with the players you do need to make it fun for them. You need to make it an uptempo environment that they are going to enjoy coming in for.

“Full-time football on a Thursday and Friday you could spend an hour and a half doing shape. At part-time football you can’t do that because you’ll lose the players, they won’t be interested.”

The unique challenge of coaching part-time players

He adds: “In part-time football there has to be an element of trust. There’s not a strict ‘you must follow this’ because everybody’s life is different at part-time football.

“Some boy can finish at 2pm after working in an office, some person could finish at 4.30pm after labouring as a scaffolder all day.

“It’s difficult to tell them what to eat and when to eat when their shifts are completely different to a full-time footballers.

“They are coming to football at night, it’s a release, but at the same time they’ve got a responsibility to be able to prepare themselves for the Saturday.

“At this point we are just trying to be the best we can be and hopefully push three or four boys on who are then good enough to play full-time football.”