Alex Smithies experienced Wembley success and Premier League dressing rooms, but one of his most important achievements was preparing well for life beyond the pitch. Now, he's helping other footballers do the same.
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“I was at Leicester, third-choice, and my knee finally got the better of me.”
Former Huddersfield, QPR, Cardiff, and Leicester goalkeeper Alex Smithies was 33 when he was forced to step away from the game he knew all his life, following almost 500 senior games, a promotion with his hometown club in fairytale circumstances, and eight surgeries.
However, unlike many who find themselves at a desperately and dangerously loose end regarding their football careers, he was more than prepared.
“I now work with the financial planning firm that I was a part of throughout my career, now helping the current crop of players set themselves up financially for the future,” Smithies, now Business Relationship Manager at Brooks Sport, explains to Goalkeeper.com.
“A lot of the resources there are now weren’t around when I started playing professional football at 17 - you see players at the highest level going bankrupt, and they need the right advice around them.”
While we’ll soon tap further into his burgeoning career in the sporting world of financial planning, Smithies was foremost an established goalkeeper who was thrown into the spotlight far earlier than most.
Still maintaining the broad West Yorkshire brogue, he made his debut for boyhood side Huddersfield Town in a defeat away at Southend United before he was old enough to buy a local ale to celebrate it.
“My debut was strange, really. It came at 17, and I wasn’t ready for it at all. We had a goalkeeping crisis. It was a real baptism of fire.
“It probably did accelerate my career path, though, because I was exposed to the level of those big games with first-team players. It’s likely the reason I became first-choice at 18, which is unusual for a goalkeeper.
“One coach who stands out for me is John Vaughan at Huddersfield Town. He saw something in me and really pushed me. As most goalkeepers will know, having a coach on your side in meetings when you’re not around, having your back - that’s massive.”
Fast-forward to May 2012, and the pinnacle of hometown memories occurred for Smithies, who lashed home the last of 11 Town penalties in the most agonising of Wembley shootouts against county rivals Sheffield United - in front of former classmates from his village of Golcar, no less.
He and opposite number Steve Simonsen swapped places mere seconds later, and the Blades goalkeeper blazed over to send the Terriers into the Championship.
“It’s fairytale stuff. I’d been injured with the start of the knee issues that I’ve had, and I managed to get back around the play-offs. The emotion after that game is something I’ve never felt since.
“The shootout went on longer than any of us expected, and I thought I’d have to save another one in a minute before I ended up taking one. Then it happened.
“As I put the ball down, I remember seeing people I went to school with behind the goal. It was completely surreal. In the end, I just essentially took a goal-kick, and the rest is history.”
A sudden move south came about in 2015 when Huddersfield accepted a Queens Park Rangers bid for Smithies, who had to move to the capital just days after becoming a father - but a former England number one was able to act as a key mentor.
“Everyone thinks goalkeepers get better with age, and that certainly happened with me,” he recalls. “You become more reliable with experience and with your decisions. One of my regrets is that I left Huddersfield at 25, because I don’t actually think they saw the best of me.
“The way the QPR move came about was bizarre actually, because I’d had my first daughter that week, and had been at Huddersfield all my life. They told me they’d accepted a bid, and suddenly I was driving down to London - it was an interesting conversation with my wife.
“Rob Green was there and he was actually supposed to leave, so I at least had some time in the background to get settled. It was great to see how he worked, too, given his career.”
Aiming for the bright lights of the top flight, Smithies spent four years over the Severn border at Cardiff City, operating under Neil Warnock.
While he was unable to dislodge Neil Etheridge as the Bluebirds’ Premier League stopper, he insists his time in South Wales served him well - and the stats back it up. Smithies went on to become Cardiff’s Player of the Season in his final campaign at the club following nearly 100 appearances. It led him to reminisce on some of the other iconic individuals for whom he has kept goal down the years.
“Cardiff had just been promoted, and Etheridge was there who had done really well. However, he ended up playing the entire season and won Player of the Year. It was difficult to take as I’d have loved a Premier League opportunity, but the goalkeeper union was so strong.
“Working with Warnock was an eye-opener. We’ve all seen the YouTube videos; he was that entertaining. He was actually tough on the goalkeepers! But once you had him onside, he was great”, Smithies reminisced.
Whilst no Warnock-era story from the Cardiff dressing rooms Smithies was a part are deemed PG for half past ten on a Tuesday morning, the Englishman admits that “one thing I’m grateful for now that I've retired is that I’ve played for so many of the game’s big character managers: Neil, Mick McCarthy, and Ian Holloway.
“Mick’s honesty was great - you’d even feel valued if he told you that you were awful in a game. Ian, I could write a book on his stories from QPR - on his first day, he made us watch Coach Carter from start to finish. There are a lot of stories I could tell about them, but they’re not for daytime!”
A switch to Leicester City followed, and for a ‘keeper who’d begun at such tender years, Smithies was struggling increasingly with the knee issues which would later curtail his 17-year professional career.
He identifies the ideal role he was given under Brendan Rodgers, and how that contrasted with the arrival of future Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca.
“At Leicester, realistically I knew where my body was at,” he admits. “I was 32 - it may be a prime for goalkeepers, but I’d started at 17 and my body had taken some big hits. I’d had eight surgeries, and I even almost retired when I was a lot younger. I wasn’t going to be Craig Gordon, playing into my forties.
“I told Brendan I’d be ready to play if needed, but I knew the role, and he was keen for me to mentor some of the youngsters. Brendan had the tactician and man-manager balance spot on.
“That changed a bit when Enzo came in - he needed me to train like an 18-year-old; I couldn’t because of my knee, so I had to call time.”
While recent retirees evading the coaching pathway often explore the media route, Smithies, 36 in March, has stepped into the world of sporting finance - an increasingly vital aspect of player care - with employer Brooks joining forces with an ever-growing network of clients.
“I was always thinking about what I wanted to do after. I’d been sensible with my financial planning during my career which bought me some time, and I’d worked with the company I’m with now as a player,” he divulges.
“Ultimately, I want to help other people. I know the people who guided me, and I knew we could broaden that by using my network. Footballers are vulnerable - with some bad people circling around them if they’re earning certain money each week. You want to keep them grounded and protected from what can honestly be a murky industry.
“The group looks after almost 300 players now, so a lot of people are benefitting. I’m a case study of the company myself - I was disciplined to be comfortable for life after football, and we’re looking to spread that advice. A lot of them might not appreciate it at the time, but they certainly will later on.”