For Colin Woodthorpe football still matters, it's just that life has that way of putting things in perspective.
The former Chester City defender, who made 155 Football League appearances for the Blues between 1985 and 1990, is back in the game after a brief hiatus since leaving AFC Fylde back in October.
The surroundings may be slightly more humble, the challenge very different, but taking the assistant manager job at Northern Premier League Division One North West side Runcorn Linnets gives the 51-year-old the balance he needs in his life right now, working alongside Chester FC academy coach Calum McIntyre as he takes his first post in senior men's football.
A professional career that has seen him up sticks and move to some of the most remote places in the UK - Norwich and Aberdeen - means that a commute from his Northwich home to Runcorn for a part time post aligns with what really matters.
For Woodthorpe and his three sons, Nathan, Elliott and Ashley, the past 21 months have been unimaginably difficult following the death of his wife, Karole, from breast cancer in 2018.
"From October 2018 to now it has been a difficult journey," admitted Woodthorpe.
"I lost my wife and the boys lost their mother and life completely changes.
"You don't realise how much how much your wife being organised allows you to be organised in your own life and to thrive and achieve what you strive for. I used to be able to get out the door as and when I needed to but now there are a whole set of different challenges that you don't expect and where there is only you to deal with them.
"Christmas I found difficult as she used to take care of that. After she died I was petrified that first Christmas because I didn't want to drop the ball, I didn't want to forget people and I wanted to be able to do all that stuff that I used to take for granted because Karole did it. I know people were understanding but you want to do it for yourself, you want to show you can step up, but sometimes the little things can be so hard."
McIntyre was already friends with Woodthorpe having got to know him and Dave Challinor, who Woodthorpe worked under as assistant, successfully, at both Colwyn Bay and AFC Fylde. He wasn't expecting any interest from the former Norwich City, Aberdeen, Stockport County and Bury man in the role.
"Cal didn't think I'd be interested at all but he asked anyway," said Woodthorpe, whose youngest son Ashley has a rare genetic condition called Koolen De Vries which means he needs 24/7 care.
"I was happy to. It fits what I need right now and where I am at.
"My youngest, Ash, has special needs and is in his last year of high school so it all fits in geographically so I can be around and be a support to him, Nathan and Elliott.
"I can't tell you how proud of my lads I am.
"From when Karole was diagnosed through to her death and all the pain that comes after that they have been through A-Levels, GCSEs and Nathan has just been awarded his first professional deal at Crewe Alexandra, he's a left back like I was.
"For those lads to go through what they have done and still achieve just fills me with pride. I want to be around as much as possible to provide that support and right now this Runcorn role allows me to do that and I'm excited about it."
It's 35 years this year since Woodthorpe made his breakthrough in the professional game, emerging through the youth team ranks at Chester before being handed his debut by the legendary Blues boss Harry McNally.
What had been a tough decision whether to take on an apprenticeship with the Blues turned into a 23-year playing career that saw him clock up over 600 appearances, play in the Premier League and play in the UEFA Cup - including away at Inter Milan.
"I decided against an apprenticeship at Chester first off and went to the local college to study A-Level economics," recalled Woodthorpe.
"After a few days I thought 'no, not for me' so I went back and signed my YTS forms at Chester and started from there.
"It's quite something when your first manager is someone like Harry McNally. You don't know any different as a kid at that age, you think that all the things that went on there were normal, that it happened at every club up and down the country.
"It wasn't until I went to Norwich that I realised how mad Chester was.
"I loved it. The people were fantastic and people like Barrie and Pam Hipkiss, to see diamonds like those two still involved at the club is wonderful. It was a really friendly club with some superb people around it.
"As players we had that kind of Crazy Gang mentality, a bit like Wimbledon did. Harry helped forge all that and it was what was needed at the time as we weren't flush with cash and we had to make the most of the tools we had.
"We had tough lads like Graham Barrow and we did things our own way because that's what we had to do to make sure we gave ourselves the best chance."
Some of McNally's antics at Chester are the stuff of legend.
From being arrested in his underpants climbing a chimney in the Faroe Islands to breaking his leg on a friendly tour of Scotland because he didn't pull out of a tackle 'because it would have sent the wrong message', there will never be another like McNally.
Woodthorpe himself was at the centre of one of McNally's famous moments, when the Chester manager literally threw him back on to the pitch in a Freight Rover Trophy match at Wrexham when he was injured, following up the flash-point after the match with the declaration to the media that 'with minutes to go in a cup tie at Wrexham you must be prepared to die for the cause'.
"God, yeah, I remember that," recalled Woodthorpe.
"I'd been on the end of this heavy challenge and I was winded and felt like I'd cracked my ribs. I was ready to get up and get back playing but needed some time to compose myself.
"Out of the corner of my eye I see Harry storming up the touchline with a face like thunder and think he's going to give the ref some or have a go at their lad. He then throws me onto the pitch and screams at me.
"My mum was watching in the stands and started to make her way down as she wanted to hit him with her umbrella. She was furious.
"That's what it was like, though. You expected the unexpected.
"I remember when we were winning 4-1 against Bury, I think it was in 1987. We ended up drawing 4-4 and he comes back in the changing room at the end of the game and he is absolutely furious. I mean he is literally frothing at the mouth.
"While he's frothing at the mouth he's getting undressed and shouting and screaming at everyone. By this time he'd told everyone who wasn't a player to get out, including the lad who was running the bath.
"He jumps in this bath that is just scolding hot and lets out this blood curdling scream. He then storms around the tunnel looking for the volunteer who ran the bath to get him sacked, even though he told him to clear off and the poor fella had tried to tell him he hadn't finished running the bath and put any cold water in yet!"
As well as the pre-season tour to the Faroe Islands being full of tales to tell, the annual trip away would often elicit much of the same.
"We went to Ireland for one tour," said Woodthorpe.
"We played a couple of games, Cork and Waterford, but the thing was a massive booze up. But it was very much of its time back then, that's what it was.
"Anyway we have a night out in Dublin, all we do is drink Guinness. We can't find Harry and it ends up he's holding up traffic in Dublin city centre doing the dying fly on the floor. You're thinking 'that's my manager, that'.
"He'd tried to make us do this challenge to show how brave we were which involved eating the plate of food and then the paper plate and paper napkin. Nobody was going to do it, it was nonsense. But Harry's there, finishing his food and then starts chomping down on this paper plate and eats the lot, red napkin and all. It made him pretty poorly.
"We get the ferry back to Holyhead the next day and everyone is rough. Harry has a horrific hangover and he is just lying down on the floor of this ferry and all these kids who are on a school trip are just prodding him and he's there fast asleep, flat out. You're thinking 'what is going on here?'
"But that was Harry, I suppose. When it came to football he was dead serious and I found that he helped me in a big way and prepared me well.
"Was he demanding? Yes, very. But surely people would say that Sir Alex Ferguson was demanding or that Marcelo Bielsa was demanding. Now I'm not putting him in that bracket but managers who succeed and get the best out of players are demanding."
By the summer of 1990 Woodthorpe had attracted considerable interest from big clubs.
It was Norwich City who would be the ones to show their hand as they paid 225,000 for the services of the talented left back.
Still just 21, Woodthorpe headed to Norfolk to begin a new chapter with the Canaries.
"It was tough to start with and I had some pretty miserable nights and didn't know if I'd made the right choice," said Woodthorpe.
"I was staying at the Landsdowne Hotel for a few weeks but I ended up getting my first house that August and then things became easier.
"I mean it in the best way but I always felt that it was like the land that time forgot, Norwich.
"I got there and they had punks! I hadn't seen punks for about five years!
"It was horrific to get to but once I settled I just didn't want to leave. The people were brilliant, the lifestyle was brilliant and I was enjoying playing for a big club on the big stage.
"I'd gone from not knowing if I'd take up my YTS at Chester to playing Inter Milan at the San Siro. When you are a kid growing up you dream of things like that, to play on that kind of stage in games like that and that is something I'll always have.
"We had good lads at Norwich, too.
"David Smith ended up being my best man, then you had lads like Mark Bowen, Jeremy Goss and Ian Crook - the most gifted footballer I have ever seen. He was an absolute magician with the ball.
"It was a great time in my life and me and Karole were happy down there."
The idyllic life in Norwich that Woodthorpe and Karole had built for themselves would be turned on its head in 1994 as the Canaries accepted a bid from Aberdeen for his services.
It was a move that Woodthorpe didn't want to make.
"It's not like nowadays, if you move clubs you move your life there too," he said.
"I was in Norwich and of all the places to go it was somewhere even more remote. I had to flick through seven pages of the atlas to find Aberdeen.
"I'd heard there was interest but I used to avoid the phone. If I thought someone might come in I'd go for a walk or something so that nobody could get hold of me, I didn't have a mobile then. I thought if I don't speak to anybody then I don't have to move. It doesn't work like that, though.
"So we moved to Aberdeen and, again, the people were great.
"To drive up there took forever so we still had roots in Chester and whenever we would come back I would get this little propeller plane from Manchester.
"It would take in a few stops as you'd pick up riggers heading up to Aberdeen from Newcastle and Humberside.
"I remember Ricky Tomlinson being on board with us, he had his banjo with him and we had a right good time. I think we ended up drinking our fare."
Woodthorpe stopped in Aberdeen for three seasons, taking in another UEFA Cup adventure during that time, before deciding to head back closer to his North West roots, a move to Stockport County following before a switch to Bury, both of which would see him clock up over 300 Football League appearances between the pair.
Woodthorpe's final game as a professional arrived in 2008 at Bury, a club where he did link up with Barrow once more after the former Chester boss took the reins at Gigg Lane from 2003 to 2005.
Coaching and management wasn't always at the forefront of his mind but when his old teammate from Bury, Challinor, asked him if he wanted to join him as number two at Colwyn Bay following the departure of Neil Young to take up the role of Chester FC's first boss in 2010 he couldn't say no.
"We had a great run together and we were gutted with how it ended at Fylde," said Woodthorpe.
"We'd been at Wembley twice in a week just a few months before we left, losing in the play-offs and winning the FA Trophy. For me personally it was a year of a rollercoaster of emotions.
"I'd took a bit of time away but I happy with where I am right now, to be there for the lads, and happy that I'm able to get back into football and have it as part of my life again."
Original post:
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