“I’ll never forget it on January the 26th 2012. As a grown man, I cried in another grown man’s office and I didn’t even know the bloke.
“He just said, ‘Mate, you’re never playing again.'”
Shane Duff made just 15 appearances for his new club Bradford City before his childhood dreams were shattered.
“I went to catch a football in the warm-up for a game and I never played since. That was it.” Says Duff, as he recites the movement that abruptly brought his footballing career to an end.
He sat up in his chair before recollecting his emotions at the time. “I was shocked, thinking, oh my God, I’m a grown adult, I’ve got a mortgage, a car, I need to put food on the table. It was hard watching on Sky Sports News in early July or late June, all the players going back to start pre-season. I sat in my front room going ‘That should be me.’
Embed from Getty ImagesFormer lower league players like Mathieu Baudry, Gareth Griffiths and Peter Vincenti are examples of players who have had early visions of what the next step was after a professional playing career, whether that’s careers in finance or insurance. But for Duff, it was unclear.
“I ended up having a bit of a pension that I was able to use and go back to university as an adult, which was the financially the worst decision of my life”, he admits.
“I had big outgoings every month, but I wasn’t putting any money in. I always had the ambition to go back to university, but it wasn’t the experience that I wanted.
“I was the old guy stood outside, I would come in last. Whoever leading the lecture would say ‘Right, we’ll get into pairs now’, and I’m thinking – no one wants to work with the old guy. It was a very weird existence, but I actually really enjoyed it because in my dissertation, I actually studied my own life”, he says with a beaming smile.
“I retrained to be a sports psychology teacher at college over in Hartpury, but then in the background, I was always getting into property.”
After many life lessons learnt, it was a comfortable and new fresh slate for Duff, who now finds himself working in property. He has gained a healthy following of almost 3,000 people on Instagram as he shares his advice on what knowledge he has collected throughout his years. In just five years, he’s turned over 23 million pounds but his inspiration to kick-start a new chapter feels like something out of a story.
“Property was something I was always interested in. In afternoons I used to love watching Homes Under the Hammer. That is where it started.”
His eyes light up as he recalls his first financial output in what would become his new career. “I brought one house by the train station in Cheltenham, worked really hard, sold it and realised it works.”
The 42-year-old believes players need to have an insight, a view into what they want to do next after football, whether that’s because of a natural retirement or an occasion similar to himself, where one injury derails everything you once knew.
He explains: “It must be really hard for those players that have played at a much higher standard than I have and may think they’re set. That’s why so many of them go into punditry as it keeps them in football, they play on their character and I can see why so many these days go into social media, where they’re trying on clothing or influences. Because at the end of the day, what have they got?”
His brother, Michael Duff, currently at Huddersfield Town, has proved his worth as a top level, lower-league manager with success at Cheltenham and has gathered experience in the Championship with Swansea City. However, this career path was never on the cards for Shane.
He shakes his head and disapproves the idea of coaching, almost in disgust. “There’s so many people that are willing to do it for nothing. Cheltenham came to me and they said ‘Oh listen, do you want part of coaching within the academy?’ And I said, ‘For what? What’s the rate of pay?’ And when he said, I’m like no chance. I just couldn’t afford at that time to give more hours up for nothing. I was leaving work at this butcher place at half seven to start a training session at eight thirty and then the university day would start, and then I’d be going out in the evenings.
“It’s not a great life to be a coach. Let’s say whoever’s at Cheltenham as a first team coach now. But ultimately, their job is so precarious – if the manager gets sacked, what happens to them?
“Very few will go and make a career out of it. But if they want to, they’ve got to sacrifice so much”, he says assertively.
“They’re basically a slave. If you think about it now, it’s got to be the worst job in the world. It’s brutal, so I’m not unhappy I didn’t go into coaching.”
He diverts back to his current career position, where he replaces his serious look for an appearance of relief. “I put myself through pain going to University. But I’m okay now, if I didn’t go back, I wouldn’t have what I have now. I wouldn’t have met the mother of my kids now. I’ve got my two young boys. I’m doing alright. Everything happens for a reason.”
