For young footballers who have grown accustomed to playing on pristine pitches, trained with top-class players from all over the world and developed under the guidance of elite-level coaches, dropping down divisions to forge a career in the game can be a daunting experience. For many, it is sink or swim time.
“It is a bit of a bubble so it can be tricky when you do come out of it,” acknowledges Jordan Houghton ahead of Plymouth Argyle’s FA Cup fourth-round tie against Chelsea, the club he called home from the age of six until 22. “Football is a tough industry and you can come crashing down. There have been a lot of players that have dropped straight out of it.”
Now 26, Houghton has officially spent three-and-a-half years outside of the Chelsea bubble but in reality, it has been far longer; Houghton was sent out on loan four times during his time at Stamford Bridge, initially to Gillingham then Plymouth, who he rejoined permanently last summer and then on to Doncaster Rovers twice. All 209 of his career league appearances have come in either Leagues One or Two.
During a zoom call to preview the game, Houghton momentarily forgets one of the clubs he represented in those formative years. Given the whirlwind nature of English football’s loan system, you can hardly blame him.
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“All of the loans were good for me looking back,” he insists. “The first one I was just hoping to get a bit of experience and maybe come back and be closer to the first-team but it never worked out like that. So by the second, third, fourth loans, I was just looking at trying to get as many games as possible.
“I was coming out of my Chelsea contract at 22 and I had the best part of 100 games under my belt. I had the experience of going to Wembley [with Plymouth in the 2016 League Two play-off-final] when we were backed by 35,000 fans. So all of those experiences have helped me massively.”
While the prospect of leaving Chelsea in 2018 after spending so many years at the club was undoubtedly an unsettling one, Houghton had showcased his ability elsewhere and earned a permanent contract at MK Dons where he played for three seasons before returning to Home Park.
“In isolation, you think that the world has ended,” he says of being let go by a top club. “But when you zoom out… there’s that stat that 0.1 per cent of players who come through the academy systems become a professional player let alone have a career in the game. That sticks in my head. There are millions of kids that want to be in my position so that’s the way I look at it and have a bit of perspective.”
Houghton’s manager Steven Schumacher encountered a similar scenario as a player, establishing himself in the lower leagues after being released by Everton. “He will have been looking forward to this day forever in his career,” Schumacher said of Houghton. “He has been one of our best players all season, he’s really consistent, he has only missed a few games. He’s a big, important player for us. I don’t want him to go there and try and do anything different to what he usually does.”
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i's guide to the FA Cup fourth round as Kidderminster host West Ham and Plymouth face Chelsea27 January, 2022Houghton has fond memories of his time at Chelsea. He was making his way through the ranks during a period when the Blues were the pre-eminent force in academy football, winning seven FA Youth Cup finals between 2010-2018. Houghton started and scored during the 2013-14 final win against Fulham in a side containing current first-teamers Ruben Loftus Cheek and Andreas Christensen.
He lists Tammy Abraham, Dominic Solanke, Jeremie Boga and Ola Aina as others in that age category and cites the example of Charly Musonda – now 25 and in Chelsea’s U23 squad after two years out injured – as evidence of the role that luck, good or bad, plays within the sport. “If he hadn’t got injured I think he would be knocking on the door for the first-team or doing big things elsewhere,” he says. “He was on another level to everyone else, to be honest.”
Training sessions with John Terry, Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard also left a mark on him, quite literally in the latter’s case. “A couple of times he came in with some crunching tackles sliding in,” he recalls of his midfield battles with Everton’s new manager at Cobham. “No one in training was sliding at all because obviously nobody wants to get injured. I was about 16 or 17 and he caught me on the ankle studs up!”
It will surprise nobody that Diego Costa was another uncompromising figure on the training pitch. “I was marking Diego Costa from a corner and got tight with him and he’s just given me a whack straight in the ribs. They weren’t holding back,” Houghton says with a grin. Terry was Houghton’s idol growing up, while Deco and Eden Hazard are namechecked as two players who left an impression after witnessing their talent up close.
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Everybody connected with Plymouth will be eagerly anticipating Saturday’s meeting with the European champions. From Schumacher, who has only been in management for two months, to the loyal fans who travel thousands of miles each season to follow their club home and away. But given his connections to Chelsea and his support for the club – he switched allegiance after initially following Manchester United under his brother’s influence – it will be a particularly special occasion for Houghton.
“It’s going to be amazing for me and I’ll have all my family there,” he says. “I think it’s pretty much a sell-out so it’s going to be a realisation of how far I’ve come. Obviously, I would have liked to have been coming out in a blue shirt but now I’ll be coming out in an Argyle shirt which I’m very proud to do.”
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/8ADnfrR
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