Waking up to the reality after living the dream

We also look at the advice PFA Scotland have been offering to their members as the harsh reality of life as a professional footballer in Scotland start to bite.

PAUL LAWSON

HE knows he has been living every boy's dream for well over a decade. He admits that he has been lucky enough to have, in his words, the best job in the world.

It is not something he is willing to let go of easily despite the voice in his head telling him that the often brutal realities of modern-day professional football in Scotland may now dictate that it is all over.

Paul Lawson has moved back to his native Aberdeen after becoming one of the 16 players cut loose by Motherwell in the week leading up to their victory over Rangers in the final of the SPFL Premiership play-offs.

The thinking is that he will be able to look for work in the oil industry should he find himself unable to secure a full-time contract for the season ahead. He has not quite got round to digging out the suit and knocking on doors yet, though. The hope remains that his agent will call with some news, any news, that will postpone that much-dreaded day when it must be accepted that the game in which he has grown up can no longer be the central part of his daily existence.

"Despite the recent downturn, the oil and gas sector is a massive thing here in Aberdeen," the 31-year-old midfielder said. "I know a lot of people involved in it and getting my foot on the ladder in that line of work is something I would look towards in the longer term, so there are big decisions to be made. I just don't know how long I should hold off to wait for a club. If I walk away from full-time football now, I understand that's it for ever.

"I think I still have a lot to offer in the full-time environment. I think I have a good few years left in me as a player and the frustrating thing is that it could be taken out of my hands. More and more players find themselves out of contract in the summer these days and clubs are reluctant to pay wages when they don't have to, but this is the best job in the world and you want to do it for as long as you can. There are more downs than ups, but the ups are so good that they keep you wanting more.

"A lot of it is going to come down to finances and I am having discussions with my agent about whether or not I should maybe go to train with a team over the course of pre-season in the hope of earning a deal.

"It is not easy not knowing what the future holds. There is nothing in the pipeline for me and that is quite hard to take. This is the first time I have ever really thought about not having football as my life and livelihood."

Lawson's brother-in-law, Russell Anderson, retired from playing last season and was given a bus- iness development role at Aberdeen. Anderson had prepared for the future by studying to be a financial advisor and Lawson admits he will lean heavily on him for advice in the weeks ahead.

"He seems OK about being away from playing, but whether his feelings will change when pre- season starts, I don't know," he said. "Is that whenyou start to miss it? I am lucky in that I have him to speak to."

Moral support is something Lawson looks likely to require.He concedes he does not always handle the uncertainty surounding his immediate future particularly well. "There is no huge rush for me to decide what I am doing," he said. "I don't have any kids and I understand boys elsewhere with families must be desperate to get something sorted soon.

"I have tried to be calm about it, but I find my emotions change from day to day. Your agent tells you there is a bit of interest and you feel more relaxed, but the phone doesn't ring for a couple of days and you begin to get a little panicky again."

Lawson has a CV that would surely have earned him work in more prosperous times. A good grounding at Celtic was followed by four decent years at Ross County and a further couple of seasons, albeit ones hampered by an Achilles tendon injury, at Motherwell.

He has not earned untold fortunes from the sport, though, and hopes the message is beginning to get through to the public that the majority of professional footballers in Scotland are not insulated from the realities of life by large amounts of accumulated wealth.

"A lot of supporters assume you are earning more than you actually are and there is a lot of talk about players having to show loyalty to clubs, but I don't think there is often a lot of loyalty shown the other way," he said.

Take his departure from Motherwell. Lawson fears the fitness problems that dogged him last season may, taken into consider- ation with his age, put off potential employers. He still cannot help but feel he left Fir Park without the current manager, Ian Baraclough, really being able to judge his abilities.

"I was injured when he came in and it was hard to be told I wouldn't be given a new contract, because I felt I had never been given a chance," Lawson said. "It is part of the game and it is just getting worse."

DAVID ROBERTSON

FOR David Robertson, the hard work starts here. And his friends don't think twice about rubbing it in.

The former Dundee United and St Johnstone midfielder made the decision at the beginning of this year, after signing a short-term contract at Ayr United, to look for a longer-term future outside football by enrolling in a course that would provide him with the qualifications required for writing energy efficiency reports on properties.

A matter of months later, still aged just 28, he is setting himself up in business on a self-employed basis and happy to accept that his days as a full-time footballer arealmost certainly a thing of the past.

Robertson joined the Tannadice youth programme as a 14-year-old and helped United to the second Scottish Cup win of their history in 2010, scoring a last-minute winner against Rangers in the quarter-finals. Despite being offered a new contract the following year, he was enticed to Perth by Derek McInnes to begin what should have been a bright, new chapter in his career.

A broken leg sustained against Hibernian in November 2012 put paid to that. Complications created by bone bruising during his recovery meant he would never play for St Johnstone again.

A short stay at Morton was then followed by a transfer to Livingston in time for the start of last season with Robertson already realising by the time he switched to Somerset Park that he needed to take some positive action over setting himself up for the future.

The round ball game is a ruthless business. When you are operating in an environment such as in Scotland where money is in short supply and contracts are rarely more than 12 months long, it creates a deep-lying uncertainty.

Robertson saw the writing on the wall. He had to form a Plan B. Now that it is in place, he hopes to find a team that will employ him on a part-time basis for the campaign ahead, but he admits to a certain relief that he has found a trade he can depend upon after witnessing just how quickly your fortunes can change within football.

"I always joke with my pals," he said. "I tell them that I have done well to get to the age of 28 without having worked a day in my life.

"They have a good laugh about it and I don't mind. This new job I have is a good way to earn money and I quite enjoy it.

"You will never beat football, but this is all new to me because I have never experienced going out and working and I find it exciting.

"The football has been secondary this summer because I have been busy getting things sorted out, but I want to go back and play part-time and have put myself on PFA Scotland's list of available players in the hope that might help. I know I can still do a job for someone.

"When I left Livingston last season to go to Ayr, I decided that I wanted to go down the route of sorting myself out for the future because there is so much uncertainty in football. There just isn't a lot of money in the game in Scotland.

"I have my qualifications now to do energy reports for properties that, for example, have the likes of solar panels or bio-mass boilers being installed as part of the government's Green Deal programme. I can also do the energy- related element of home reports for properties being bought and sold.

"I will be self-employed, but I have some good contacts. My best mate runs an energy company in Bathgate and I am going to do reports for him.

"If a full-time team did put something forward, I would definitely have to consider it, but my ideal scenario would be to play part-time while I get this up and running.

"There are maybe six or seven clubs at Scotland at which you can make a great living, but, even then, most players are going to have to find another job after it's over.

"A number of the full-time teams in the SPFL Championship are not paying great wages at all. You are probably financially better off being a part-time footballer and working in a day job.

"There will be loads of players out there right now who are capable of doing a good job, but squads are being cut, budgets are being cut and wages are being paid at some of the full-time teams that you cannot really live on.

"I would love to be playing at the highest level in Scotland and making good money, but the thought of not having something to fall back on in future years was quite scary."

Robertson's brief taste of part-time football at Ayr over the closing months of last term merely confirmed his growing belief that he had to learn new skills in order to be sure of providing for his family in the years to come.

"It was an eye-opener," he said. "That was my first time outside full-time football and most of the boys, some cracking players, were working during the day and training at night.

"It convinced me that I really had to have something behind me just in case.

"I am married and my wife and I would like to have children somewhere down the line. I want to be sure I will always have a job and that my family will be all right."

THE PFA

PFA SCOTLAND have cited a lack of support from the Scottish Football Association as one of several reasons they are steering many members away from coaching and into alternative industries.

Concerns over a lack of opportunity as clubs cut costs in all departments have led to a greater proportion of footballers using their trade union's Education Fund to subsidise studies in other fields.

However, PFA Scotland point out that the SFA's refusal to offer any kind of discount or financial backing for players interested in taking their badges has proved to be a real bone of contention.

"It used to be that the overwhelming majority of players came to us for grants to cover coaching courses, but there has been a noticeable change in that, which is encouraging," said Stuart Lovell, the organisation's player liaison officer.

"The cost of courses with the SFA has absolutely spiralled. I did my A and B licences around 10 years ago and both courses cost more than double now. What's more, there is no kind of assistance for professional footballers to take part.

"We think there should be special dispensation for footballers as the SFA would benefit from them getting their qualifications, but we have spoken to them until we are blue in the face and they are not prepared to do that. We are getting to the stage where players will find the cost of trying to move into coaching prohibitive.

"We are asking players why they should put good money after bad because there are no guarantees that getting your coaching badges will lead to employment. How many jobs are really out there?

"Clubs are already asking senior players to multi-task, taking on coaching responsibilities as well as being part of the squad. In years gone by, you would never have had that.

"It costs thousands and thousands of pounds to do your licences and I think that is why more players are looking to get into other industries.

"Football is the comfort zone for players. If it is all you have known for 12 or 15 years, it stands to reason you will look at coaching or management, but how realistic is it to get on to the coaching ladder? We try to encourage guys to look at other industries they may be interested in working in and consider the transferable skills that they do possess."

It is no secret that wages are not what they were in Scottish football either. Outwith a select number of clubs, it is generally accepted that £1000 a week is a good wage for the Premiership with £500 a week or less the kind of salary offered to full-time players in the Championship.

"It is no secret that the money has filtered out of Scottish football," Lovell said. "There are a number of clubs in the Conference in England, for example, who are paying wages commensurate with the Premiership in Scotland and certainly higher than the Championship.

"I signed for Hibs in 1998 when they had just been relegated. I think back to what I was earning then and it would be a very good salary in the Premiership now. The TV deal collapsing with Setanta in 2009 was a huge blow that the game has struggled to recover from.

"It is not beyond the realms of possibility that clubs, and perhaps more importantly players, will take decisions to go part-time should money continue to empty out of the game," he said. "If players are being paid £400 a week for full-time football, is that enough to sustain them?"