“There would be days when we’d got away games, maybe at Chelsea or Arsenal in London, and I’d get back to the training ground at about two o’clock in the morning. There was no point in me going home, so I’d just sleep on a sofa in the training ground.
“It was six and sometimes seven days a week for £22,000 a year and I’d probably spend £7,000 in petrol. I was only just earning enough money to pay the bills, essentially.”
Nick Wadsworth’s recollection of his first full-time role at a Premier League club is phlegmatic. As he sees it, his story is nothing special. Having worked for two other top-flight teams and supervised trainee performance psychologists for over four years, he’s seen countless others tell of similar experiences.