00:00Why do you think it clicked the way it did, and so soon, between you and the club?
00:17Good question. Good question. I don't really know the answer to that. Sometimes these things
00:25just happen. Again, on the flip side of that plane, as I said before, sometimes you find
00:32yourself in environments where it just doesn't click. For one, or Will, or whatever, it just
00:38doesn't happen. And you see that up and down the country with all sorts of players. So
00:44no, I think you've got to be thankful for that initial start. I went into the experience
00:54with just open arms, just willing to try and take on as much as I could and be positive,
01:02be good around the place. There was just an energy going on around the place, and I was
01:09just more than happy to comply and do the best that I could with whatever was thrown at me.
01:17I guess the environment, and that comes down from the manager, the chairman, David Downs,
01:23sometimes environments don't necessarily always entice sort of driving behaviour. But every day
01:30is a working day, certainly under the manager, and I really enjoyed that.
01:36How soon did thoughts about your future creep into your thinking? When did you think,
01:41well, I'd like to stay here next year or come back?
01:47Maybe towards the end of the season when questions were starting to get asked.
01:53I think, again, when you get to this age and then things kind of off the field with my wife,
02:01with my kids, it's almost step by step. And as long as it lends, this football career obviously
02:11doesn't last forever. And you have to be very thankful that you find yourself in a great
02:17environment and you enjoy these latter years while you still get to call yourself a professional
02:25footballer. But yeah, especially if it kind of lends itself to family life and the kids are
02:32happy and my wife's happy and I can go to work knowing that family life and home life is very
02:38consistent, then that feels like that kind of promotes and improves professional, not professional
02:46behaviour, but professional performance almost. You feel like you can really apply yourself and
02:51that was apparent last year. And yeah, I said before, long may that continue.
02:58Yeah, I'll try my very best to apply myself to Blackpool Football Club this year.
03:06And when I'm at home, I'll try and be a good husband and a good dad. And then, yeah, it's just
03:11a matter of when I find myself in the environments that I'm in, when it's football, it's time to go
03:16to work. And when I'm home, let's put my phone to one side and do the best that I can at home life.
03:22Well, on social media, there's always rumours flying around, they were linking you with
03:27different clubs in the last month. Was there any approaches from anywhere else that
03:33sort of caught the eye or was it always full focus on Blackpool?
03:37Do you know what? I'm not on any social media. So the things that you could possibly say to me
03:42now would be news to me and I've never heard before. No, there wasn't. And there wasn't
03:49really an appetite. We knew kind of what towards the end of the last season that there might be
03:56something that might be in the offing at Blackpool for next year. So until those talks
04:04happened, which successfully, which luckily they did. But if they happen to be unsuccessful,
04:10then it was very much let's speak to Blackpool first and see what can be done and see what
04:17possibilities might arise. So it was just very much courtesy of Blackpool. Loyalties were very
04:24much in Blackpool side. And if talks happened to break down, then perhaps it was to look elsewhere,
04:31see what the possibilities might arise. But no, there wasn't any sort of fishing around for anyone
04:37else. That's not the way we work. Of course, you've had successful periods at Huddersfield.
04:43Was your future there pretty much sewn up? Did you know what the future held there quite early on?
04:50Well, to be honest with you, as soon as I left there last year to come on loan to Blackpool,
04:57that first came away at Lincoln. In my mind, that was just my time at Huddersfield was done.
05:03And I know it's, you know, I was on loan and I was still technically Huddersfield's player and
05:09all that sort of stuff. But I knew my contract was running down there as well. And Blackpool
05:16pretty much had taken over that last sort of nine, ten months of my contract there. So it was just
05:23very much in my mind. It was just, yeah, I'm here at Blackpool for the rest of the season on loan.
05:29Let's see what we can do. Let's try our best and hopefully we can get in the playoffs. And
05:33it was just all focus and eyes on the Blackpool road for the season ahead.
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