Where Are They Now is designed for you if you are a football fan who is as curious as us to find out what happened to your favourite footballers after they retired from playing.
Have you ever wondered what happened to all of those players that you have seen come and go over the years? The heroes and the villains? The saints and the sinners? The stars that you talked about for years after they had retired and those you instantly forgot?
If so, Where Are They Now? is definitely for you!
Not all players end up running pubs or become TV pundits! It's no secret what Gary Lineker is up to these days but what about the many thousands of players who have slipped from public view? The first edition of "Where Are They Now?" uncovered some fascinating post football stories including the former Arsenal striker who became Iceland's Finance Minister; Millionaires; Bankrupts; Vicars; Comedians; Singers; a Phil Collins lookalike... and one or two publicans!
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Where Are They Now Books
This whole project began with a book entitled 'Where Are They Now? - Life After Soccer'.
This proved to be incredibly popular and led to the formation of this site as well as a number of club specific titles. So far, the series comprises of Manchester United, Chelsea, Portsmouth, Huddersfield Town, Aston Villa and Liverpool. Forthcoming titles include Arsenal, Southampton and West Bromwich Albion - watch this space!
Updated: 25-11-20 John Ashmore
How times have changed for professional football players today. In the 50s I watched Sonny play at White Hart Lane, you can imagine my surprise when in the 60s I was delivering to a firm in Enfield and I came across Sonny working as a welder making accelerator pedals for Ford cars. How sad to hear that he passed away at such an early age.Updated: 25-11-20 Christopher Johnson
I spent some time coaching football with John in San Diego in 1990/91 - a great time.Updated: 24-11-20 Ian Grogan
My Dad Johnny Grogan was Bills manager at Leicester non league side Midland Athletic during the mid 60s .My Dad who was an ex pro with Leicester City was so impressed with him.that he wrote to Matt Busby at Manchester United suggesting a trial. Much to my Dads annoyance he returned from one holiday to find out that Bill had been signed by Notts County who at the time had a bad record of developing good young players.It says a lot about Bills determination that he eventually secured a big money move to Chelsea after progressing to Southend United and sustained a good pro career therafter ..but I sometimes wonder what might have happened if he had ended up at Old Trafford.Updated: 23-11-20 Doug Scrivens
I was having trials with Blues in 1966. Jim Herriot would give me a lift from the training ground back to St Andrews most days. A gentleman with no big time Charlie ego. Thanks for the memory.Updated: 23-11-20 Dave
He used to run a public house in Leyland, LancashireUpdated: 23-11-20 Bob
Great player - makes me smile thinking of him playing for unitedUpdated: 23-11-20 Karen Gough
George was a Teacher at my Senior School in Oldham (Grange). I didn't have him as one of my teachers but, being a Man Utd fan, I spoke to him about Utd and his Brother Martin. He was a gorgeous looking man at the time.Updated: 23-11-20 Howard Bines
I'm trying to find out if any other people recall Viv's solo goal against Cardiff in August 1974. I still regard this as the best goal I've ever seen and just wonder what others may think and especially Viv if anyone is contact with him.Updated: 23-11-20 Tony Winder
I used to watch Bury when Tony played always wanted my hair to look like his, he had a great head of hair, jet black and styled just like Elvis's hair. I used to go into the boys stand at Bury with my mates.One of the match reporters who lived in the flat above ours called Karl Kershaw give me some great photo's of Tony and he always signed them for me, he always asked how did you get these great photos of me, I just wished I had kept them, loved my boyhood days watching Bury in the late 50s and early 60s, in my opinion they were the best days of the club, For information I trained as a barber and still run a busy salon, and still of the opinion Tony's hair was always well cut and always imaculate when he ran on the pitch.Updated: 23-11-20 John Graham
A family member informed me that Eddie (Graham) McCreadie was related. Tracing my family history from 1740 as a hobby. I lived in the same locale as Eddie in Glasgow. Traced Eddie to his current location in USA but was informed that he is a very private person, I was respectfully obliged to conclude my research there.He is still a legend amongst footballing officionados here in Scotland!
When we researched the first printed edition of 'Where Are They Now?' in the 1990's, footballers were already incredibly well paid by conventional employment standards but prior to that, players had to find a new career once they had hung up their boots.
This meant that we unearthed plenty of interesting and un-expected stories, many of which are found on the site. Sadly, there were some we could not re-produce for legal reasons - sorry!
Playing professional football, particularly at the highest level should ensure that modern players should not have to worry about money for the rest of their lives. Thankfully, this has not limited the number of fascinating tales for us to tell. For example, were you aware that former Sheffield United midfielder Curtis Woodhouse became British light welterweight champion when he took up professional boxing, having apparently 'fallen out of love' with football? If the rumours are true, he was not just a winner in the ring! At one point, he was considered to be 50 to 1 outsider to win the title and a successful £5,000 scooped him a cool £250,000 when he defeated defending champion Darren Hamilton.
As well as our regular club based pages, we also occasionally add more detailed player pages and would welcome your feedback. See: Ruud Gullit Roy Bentley, Trevor Francis, Gavin Peacock, Carlos Valderrama, Graham Potter, Matt Holland, and a look back at some of the best strikers to grace English football.
When do you think that the Premier League should re-start?
Where are they now? – Boro players who played League Cup’s season opening game 8 years ago.
If you know of any other stories that may interest fellow fans, please do let us know.