Ben Herd: The lowest point of my career

English Football League / Ben Herd / 12 November 2008 / Leave a Comment

The Shrewbury defender rustles up a mean Shepherd's Pie, eyes a job in the city and relives the humiliation of being knocked out of the FA Cup by the non-league opposition he said sounded "like a film" in last week's column.

This has got to be the hardest introduction to any of my articles yet - because we've been dumped out of the FA Cup by Blyth Spartans.

I was at my lowest point in my career when the ref blew his whistle at Croft Park. Humiliated is an understatement. I hate losing at the best of times but the way we lost this game was nothing short of embarrassing.

In football, you have to take the plaudits when things are going well and you have to be big enough to take flack when it's thrown in your direction. I could write a thesis on where it went wrong. We let down everyone at the football club - and also ourselves.

This sort of result shouldn't happen but FA Cup history is littered with these stories.

No doubt there will be some more 'David v Goliath' tales as the FA Cup progresses. Havant & Waterlooville were a prime example of a bunch of part-timers giving Premier League opposition a scare last year. You often hear commentators going through non-league team sheets before big FA Cup ties, rattling off a few of the occupations that the players hold down.

In pretty much every Q&A the lads do with school children, the most common question is: "What would you do if you didn't play football?". Well, all I've ever wanted to do is play football. At school, I would often look out the window, dreaming of playing football for a living.

Back then, if I hadn't been offered YTS forms I most probably would've ended up working for my Dad in the construction industry, along with my twin brother.

Obviously football is a short career, I realise that I will have to get a proper job one day. In the last 18 months or so, I've given this some serious thought and something in the financial industry really interests me. Being a City trader would be the goal and whether I get there or not is another matter but if you don't set yourself goals, you'll never achieve anything.

One job I do have ample experience of is tidying up. Let's just say my missus isn't exactly the tidiest of people. It's not like an episode of Footballer's Wives in our house, with gardeners and cleaners paying regular visits. We League Two players can only dream of such luxury. I am jack-of-all-trades when it comes to domestic chores, and most definitely master of none.

It's amazing how much my dog moults, I find myself vacuuming every day. To be fair to my missus, she does work long hours - but the one thing I insist that she does is clean the bathrooms. Did I mention I rustle up a decent Shepherd's Pie as well? Gordon Ramsay eat your heart out!

Going back to my school days, it was during a Spanish lesson that my teacher asked me which team I dreamt of playing for. I replied in my best Spanglish, as Tommy Mooney says in his column, that I would like to play for my boyhood team, Spurs. However, maybe it was the white kits that did it for me, but Real Madrid were a close second.

Now, I'm not stupid enough to think that I'll end up playing for those two, but it goes back to what I was saying earlier about setting yourself goals and aiming for them. I bet DJ Campbell set himself targets when he was playing for Yeading a few years back in the FA Cup and a few good games later he ended up playing for Brentford before his million-pound move to Birmingham. I bet he couldn't believe his luck; he was a painter and decorator only a couple of years previously. It just shows you - you never know what can happen in football.

Another striker who wasn't always a footballer is Kevin Phillips. 'Super Kev' has come a long way since unpacking boxes in a warehouse for a living. The former Golden Boot boy's Birmingham City are up against an under-pressure Alan Pardew and Charlton Athletic this weekend.

Charlton will come with a resolute, hard-to-beat approach, so go for Under 2.5 goals at [1.86] and for Birmingham to edge it, perhaps 1-0 at odds of [7.0].