This is the story of the boy who became a star. A star who, having narrowly
missed out on a place in the England squad for the 2002 World Cup, ended up
taking an illfated trip to Rome to get away from it all. A star who was
thrown off a motorcycle, suffered a brain haemorrhage and ended up in a
coma. A star that never shone so brightly again and ended up hating the
sport he had loved. A star that was burnt out at 28 and disappeared from the
sporting firmament but is now, suddenly, flickering into life again.
An interview with Matt Jansen has been three years in the chasing. When he was
in the miserable final stages of his career at Blackburn Rovers and,
finally, Bolton Wanderers, fighting a losing battle against the doubts that
were driving him to despair, he preferred not to share his private torment.
After he returned from training in tears for the final time in May 2006,
saying that enough was enough, he had no wish to tell a story that had
become a sporting tragedy. It is only now, having regained his appetite and
returned to training with Blackburn with a view to a possible comeback, that
he is ready to open up.
Bounding into a bar in the footballers' enclave of Alderley Edge, Cheshire, on
Thursday lunchtime, Jansen was smiling. After a week and a half of intense
training with Blackburn, his body was aching, but his mind was clear. “It
feels great, different to before,” he said. “I'm back there out of choice,
whereas back then I was going into training every day hating it.”
Hating it? “Yes. After the accident and four years of trying to get back to
where I was just before, in the England squad and so on, I became totally
disillusioned. I was mentally exhausted at trying to live up to what I had
been. Before the accident I loved going in to training every day, but, when
I stopped, I thought I would never go back. I hated it that much.”
To many in the game, it was a mystery. At times there had been signs that the
old Matt Jansen, a cultured forward, was back. Seven months after the
accident, in January 2003, he scored twice on his return to the Blackburn
starting line-up for an FA Cup tie away to Aston Villa. Later that year came
a spectacular goal against Liverpool. Even in his penultimate appearance for
Bolton, in February 2006, weeks before he walked out on the game, he won the
man-of-the-match award against Arsenal. But while others saw the old magic
returning, Jansen saw only doubt.
“I always felt I wasn't quite right,” he said. “Both those goals against Villa
were instinctive goals, where I had no time to think. When it happened
automatically, I was like the old me, but, if I had time, doubts would creep
in, whereas in the past I had always played automatically, off instinct. I
couldn't work out why it was happening. At one point I asked to have more
tests because I thought I was brain-damaged.”
In one sense, he could have been. Jansen was considered lucky that his 5mm
haemorrhage had been on the frontal lobe, the part of the brain used for
“higher-order functions”, rather than movement or balance. But those
functions, the ability to make complex split-second decisions, had always
formed an integral part of his game. The injury healed, but it left deep
scars of self-doubt.
“I was making basic mistakes, struggling to control balls that a park player
could control,” he said. “I was thinking so much about it, about whether the
ball would bobble. It was a snowball effect and I couldn't deal with it. I
was even thinking about it on the way into work. It became a nightmare.”
Within weeks of that man-of-the-match performance against Arsenal, Jansen was
walking away from football. “I went in and saw Sam Allardyce and said, 'I
can't do it any more.' He was brilliant, really sympathetic. He said: 'If
you ever need any help in the future, give me a shout.' But I needed a clean
break.”
Jansen went on trial with a couple of Major League Soccer clubs, contemplating
a fresh start in the United States, but his heart was not in it. An
intelligent and articulate young man, who had always invested his money
wisely, he did not need to return to the game. He spent time developing his
property portfolio and even trading in currency. He felt liberated, no
longer struggling to live up to the expectations that he and others had of
him. Best of all, he immersed himself in his family life with wife, Lucy,
and his two young children, Minnie and Arthur.
Gradually, the wounds have healed and the hunger has returned, but there was
an uncomfortable interim period. “It would be embarrassing,” he said.
“You're filling in forms and you are asked for your occupation. I would
write: ‘Retired.' People would look at me and I would say, ‘I used to play
football.' I was getting up in the mornings with no purpose in my life apart
from Lucy and the kids. There's only so many episodes of Pepper Pig
and Dora the Explorer you can watch. There's that aspect, too. I want
to do something for my kids as well.”
The seeds of the comeback were planted in the unlikely surroundings of an Asda
charity event, where he found himself in charge of a five-a-side team. It
started badly (“we lost the first game and I thought, 'I really have lost
it'”), but over the course of the day he felt the old competitive spark
returning. “For the first time in ages, I enjoyed being a part of it,” he
said. “I actually wanted to have the ball. I enjoyed helping the team.”
Jansen, 31 last month, drew up a strategy for a possible comeback, but it
gathered pace when, attending a question-and-answer session before
Blackburn's match away to West Bromwich Albion a fortnight ago, he bumped
into Phil Batty, the Lancashire club's doctor. Jansen said: “I told him that
I had got my hunger back and was planning to give it another go. He said, ‘A
hungry Matt Jansen? That's all we've ever wanted. I'll have a word.'”
Within days, Jansen was back at Blackburn's training ground, taking the first
steps on a journey that he hopes will lead him back to top-class football,
ideally at Ewood Park, where he is still revered.
“I don't know how far it will go,” he said. “Blackburn have said it may take
three months or even longer, but the important thing is that, having had
that break, I'm not trying to live up to what I was before the accident,
when I was in the England squad and so on.
“Maybe what happened - missing out on the World Cup and then having the
accident and not getting back - was fate. But maybe it's fate that I go back
to Blackburn, get a contract and start scoring goals again. Maybe my best
years are behind me, I don't know. But I feel like I'm ready to give it
another go.”
Career of triumph and tragedy
1998 Turns down the chance to join Manchester United and leaves
Carlisle United to join Crystal Palace for £1million.
1999 Palace agree to sell him to Blackburn Rovers for £4.1million and
he scores on his debut against Tottenham Hotspur.
2002 Called up to the England squad for a friendly against Paraguay but
misses the match with a stomach illnesss. A motorcycle accident while on a
short holiday in Rome leaves him in a coma for four days.
2005 Struggles to regain his form and fitness and signs a
pay-as-you-play contract at Blackburn after visiting a sports psychologist
in the United States.
2006 Joins Bolton Wanderers on a six-month contract but is released in
May. Final competitive appearance is in a 1-0 defeat away to Liverpool. Has
a trial with New York Red Bulls, but a move does not materialise.
2007 Trains with Carlisle while taking his coaching badges, dabbling in
property development and training to become a currency trader.
2008 Starts training with Blackburn in an attempt to become a
professional player again. “It is a very casual arrangement,” John Williams,
the Blackburn chairman, says. “He wants to see if he is capable of making
another go of it and we are delighted to help him.”
Words by Kaveh Solhekol
