Five words often muttered while fans seek a consoling shoulder to cry on. Everyone will have been guilty of over emphasising the importance of the national sport but once in a while, everything is placed in a solemn perspective when you realise there is more to life than football.
For Chris Humphrey, a summer transfer to Motherwell signalled a new beginning for him and his soon-to-be-expanded family, his wife Kerry expecting the birth of their first child. The dream move turned into an unimaginable nightmare for the young winger, however, after she suffered a miscarriage. For Humphrey, football was the last thing on his mind.
After being told to take as long as he needed to console Kerry, the 22-year-old is ready to make his return to the Motherwell side and has his sights set on repaying Jim Gannon for helping him through the most difficult period of his fledgling career.
“It was really hard, not just because of what happened but to see Kerry in the state that she was in was harder,” Humphrey said. “Until she was sorted, that was the most important thing for me. The gaffer said ‘just don’t worry about football, sort that out first’. It will never be forgotten but I am at work so you have got to not think about those things while you are at work.
“The club has been terrific and all the players have been brilliant, they have really supported me through it, the staff have been excellent. All I want to do now is concentrate on football, get back to fitness because I missed so much and then repay the gaffer. That is all that is on my mind.”
Humphrey was one of a plethora of new faces recruited by Gannon after a close-season exodus. The former Shrewsbury Town winger served his apprenticeship at Walsall and West Bromwich Albion, impressing enough in the lower reaches of the English game to entice Gannon to bring him north of the border as he attempted to build a squad capable of competing in the top flight. With just one defeat in seven games, the new-look outfit have more than competed but will encounter their biggest test when they travel to Parkhead this afternoon, for a fixture Humphrey is eagerly anticipating.
“I can’t wait for it, it’s probably going to be the biggest game of my life,” he admitted. “I played in front of 60,000 at Wembley a few seasons ago and once before that but that was only for 10 or 15 minutes so this is going to be bigger than that, this is going to be a massive game for me to play in. Because I have never been there, I don’t know what to expect. It is a bit nervewracking but sometimes it is good to have nerves I think, it gets you through a game. When they play Rangers, the atmosphere looks brilliant, it really does.”
With reported interest from Aston Villa and Blackpool in recent years, the talented 22-year-old’s stock was high as his Shrewsbury contract neared its summer expiration date. The move to the Clydesdale Bank Premier League could therefore have been considered somewhat of a risk for Humphrey but he believes he has made the right choice and has been pleasantly surprised with the standard of football he has signed on to play for the next three seasons.
“I didn’t have any doubts, I wanted to come up here because of the manager and just for a change of scenery” he said. “Obviously having games like Saturday makes you want to come up even more. I didn’t really follow it [the SPL], apart from when Celtic and Rangers were playing on TV I would watch it but other than that I didn’t really follow Scottish football.
“People say you get a mixture of League Two and a mixture of League One [in Scotland], I think it has been a great standard. People in England underestimate the standard of Scottish football. I didn’t follow it, I just heard things from other people and it has been nothing like that to be honest, it has been good.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article