Ben Herd: 'Nurses and soldiers deserve to be paid more than footballers'

English Football League / Ben Herd / 16 April 2009 / 1 Comments

Shrewsbury Town's right back reflects on missed opportunities against mediocre opposition, tells us why he's a devil for detail and how he always knew Helder Postiga was destined for greatness.

The last two games didn't go to plan and we took only one point from the Easter programme.

Bury and Rochdale, the two teams we played, are nothing special and not many of their players would get into our team; perhaps that shows this season we've missed an opportunity this to go up automatically.

On the positive side, we have three really good games coming up where we will be looking cement our place in the play-offs. To be honest, I'm a bit of a football geek, a statto, and more often than not, I know the kind of team we are playing, the personnel and the manager's different styles.

I thrive on detail, read scouting reports and could probably compose a dossier on each team in League Two. Last season there was an amusing incident when Peterborough left their dossier on us in the away dressing room - it was less than complimentary about some players.

If I come across a player I haven't heard of while watching a La Liga game on Sky, I look him up on Wikipedia. In my younger days, when I wasted many an hour on Championship Manager, I used this as an indicator as to who was the next 'hot prospect' for the future and, on one holiday in Portugal with my good mate Liam Walsh and his dad Mickey Walsh (ex-Porto player), I tipped them on the potential of Ricardo Quaresma and Helder Postiga like I was a chief scout or something!

As any footballer will probably tell you, it is nice to get away from scouting reports and the nitty gritty of football. I am a big fan of documentaries and the National Geographic channel is definitely on my favourite channels list - it takes your mind off football for a few hours at least.

I have massive respect for ex-players and current players but there are people outside the game who I also think highly of; entrepreunerial types like Sir Richard Branson and probably my favourite, Sir Alan Sugar. Especially in Sugar's case, because it really is the boy done good, going from a market stall to a multi-million pound corporation.

It's ironic that when I first had a season ticket at Spurs, I used to shout "Sugar out!" in protest of his chairmanship at the club. In a way, the chairman at Shrewsbury is another entrepreneur to be admired. I gather he started with relatively little and has gone on to deliver the funds and the stadium for Shrewsbury Town for many a year to come.

A little more in touch with reality are people in the emergency services and the armed forces. If Rio Ferdinand and Frank Lampard deserve £130k a week, then the people in these services deserve a damn site more for what they do.

Going back to attention to detail, it is well known that Jose Mourinho hands each of his players a detailed report on their opponent in the next match. Mourinho is of a new breed of top-flight managers who have a original ways of looking at the game due to having not played at a particularly high level themselves.

Arsene Wenger, Steve McClaren and Sven Goran Eriksson have all gone on to manage top teams after inauspicious playing careers. I'm not saying that I will ever get the chance to work with the Special One, or any of the other three, but I wouldn't mind being a fly on their changing room wall for a season, just to see how differently they go about their work and how they interact with players and, I suppose, just to see how they operate and implement their ideas on a day-to-day basis.

One player I spotted without the aid of Championship manager or Wikipedia was a young Leighton Baines. It was a memorable day for me as it was my first time travelling with Watford's first team on an away trip to rainy Wigan. The game finished 1-1 but the stand-out player from my point of view was definately Baines.

Injuries early on in his Goodison career hampered his progress but this season he has established himself as first-choice left-back and even got himself into the England squad. As a full-back, I try to get up and overlap my winger and get as many crosses as I can. Leighton Baines excels at this for Everton and has assisted in many goals this season.

The Toffees take on Manchester United at Wembley in the FA cup semi-final on Sunday. Without the risk of blowing my own trumpet I have done quite well in my betting predictions in the last few weeks. I see enough value at [2.6] to place a FA Cup final bet for the score to be 0-0 at half-time, then for United to nick it in the second period at [1.78]. For a further selection, I can't see this one being a goal fest so get on [1.8] for Under 2.5 goals.

Comments (1)

1. Nick Buxton | 21 April 2009

   Ben,

   Who would have thought it? I'm living and playing football over in america at the moment...i just sat down went on betfair to check some odds out and saw your information!! I couldn't believe it!!

   Seems like your doing well, keep up the hard work!

   take care

   Nick Buxton