The Bootiful Game Issue 2 The Bootiful Game Issue 2 | Page 13

Credit: Mike Gregory
for many players who have
returned to the higher reaches of
the football ladder. The likes of
Andre Gray, the Sky Bet
Championship footballer of the
year and most notably Leicester
City’s title winning hero Jamie
Vardy are two players who have
taken that route.
! After he was questioned about
the name on everybody’s lips at
the moment, Jamie Vardy,
Whiteside pondered: “For
someone like him to go from
Fleetwood and to go to the
European Championships is a
lovely step and
it’s not just for
him, its for the
kids that see
that and it gives
them inspiration
that you can go
from part time
football to that.
There are
dreams out
there and he is
one of them.”
! At the age of
just twenty-six
Whiteside
retired from
playing
professional
football
following long
standing injury
problems.
Despite
suffering such a
disappointing
end to his
playing time the
former footballer is content about
his career: “People feel a bit sorry
for you, but you can’t feel sorry for
yourself. I started at
sixteen so I got ten
years in the game
so I just retired
early,” added the
upbeat Northern
Irishman.
The man who can
list thirty-eight
international caps to
his name and nine
goals at that level is
now an after-dinner
speaker.
! “Doing a lot of dinners is great
especially at non-league clubs
because I think when little clubs do
it, it helps t he community and I do
lots around the country for clubs
this size (Whiteside was speaking
at a Cleethorpes Town F.C.
event).”
! Despite the financial support
that his after dinner speaking
already provides for lower league
clubs Whiteside feels that more
can be done for non-league
football.
! “Out of the latest T.V. money
that the big boys are keeping hold
of it, but even if they put, out of
that five billion a £100 million in
and it dwindles down to here and
even if teams get a couple of
thousand pounds out of it goes a
long way to keep people surviving.
I think they should divide the
money up a bit more.”
! Whatever problems youngsters
may face in British football heroes
will still be produced, but there is
unlikely to ever be another
footballer quite like Norman
Whiteside.
Whiteside: Club career statistics
Issue 02 @TheBootifulGame 13