FC Halifax Town: “I appreciate every day that comes now” - Woods enjoying being back in the thick of the action

Martin Woods has had enough time out of the game to make him appreciate being back in it.
Martin Woods. Photo: Marcus BranstonMartin Woods. Photo: Marcus Branston
Martin Woods. Photo: Marcus Branston

The midfielder, who turns 35 on New Year’s Day, joined Town this summer after going the whole of last season without playing.

Woods has played in every game this season for Halifax, who are his 12th club as a professional.

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The former Scottish under 21 international has made more than 350 senior appearances in his 16-year playing career.

Martin Woods avoids a challenge from Xabi Alonso during the match between Liverpool and Sunderland at Anfield on August 20, 2005.  (Photo by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)Martin Woods avoids a challenge from Xabi Alonso during the match between Liverpool and Sunderland at Anfield on August 20, 2005.  (Photo by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
Martin Woods avoids a challenge from Xabi Alonso during the match between Liverpool and Sunderland at Anfield on August 20, 2005. (Photo by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)

Woods was at boyhood club Celtic from the age of 11, but joined Leeds as a teenager.

“All my family are Celtic fans, but I had it in my head I wanted to go down to England,” he said.

“It was a big thing to leave because it was my dream to play for them when I got older but, at the time I just felt it was for the best for my career, I felt like I’d get a better education in England.

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“Celtic also wouldn’t allow you to play with Scotland until you signed as a professional. I think the thinking was so nobody else saw you and they got into competition with Premier League teams.

Martin Woods battles for the ball with Jermaine Jenas during the match between Tottenham Hotspur and Sunderland at White Hart Lane on December 3, 2005.  (Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images)Martin Woods battles for the ball with Jermaine Jenas during the match between Tottenham Hotspur and Sunderland at White Hart Lane on December 3, 2005.  (Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images)
Martin Woods battles for the ball with Jermaine Jenas during the match between Tottenham Hotspur and Sunderland at White Hart Lane on December 3, 2005. (Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images)

“My headmaster at the time was unbelievable, he just said ‘we understand you want to be a footballer, we’re going to back you as much as we can, so any time you need off school, you can go down to England’.

“It was a great experience, sometimes I was a wee bit homesick and I missed just doing normal things with my pals.

“But it was great. When I was 14, 15 I was lucky enough to have a few choices of quite a lot of the Premier League teams.”

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“ went to Liverpool, Tottenham, Man United, but I got the best feeling for Leeds.

Martin Woods celebrates winning the League Cup as Ross County beet Hibernian 2-1 during the Scottish League Cup Final at Hampden Park on March 13, 2016. (Photo by Mark Runnacles/Getty Images)Martin Woods celebrates winning the League Cup as Ross County beet Hibernian 2-1 during the Scottish League Cup Final at Hampden Park on March 13, 2016. (Photo by Mark Runnacles/Getty Images)
Martin Woods celebrates winning the League Cup as Ross County beet Hibernian 2-1 during the Scottish League Cup Final at Hampden Park on March 13, 2016. (Photo by Mark Runnacles/Getty Images)

“I like the Yorkshire people, they’re very similar to what it’s like in Scotland. When I went to the teams in London it was out of my comfort zone, a lot more big time and it wasn’t for me.

“Brian Kidd was in charge of the youth set-up at Leeds, they had Warren Joyce, who was my under 17s manager when I first went in, and was Man United’s reserve team manager for years.

“They had Andy Ritchie in the academy, the ex-Oldham striker, they had Bryan ‘Pop’ Robson, who played for Sunderland and Newcastle, as one of the coaches.

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“They had Roy Aitken as reserve manager, Eddie Gray was there, and David O’Leary was the manager, so it was a great set-up.

“In the youth team there was James Milner, Scott Carson, Aaron Lennon. My best mate Matt Kilgallon was a couple of years above me.

“We won the league, but it was just a shame what happened to the club, to go from being in the Champions League when I signed to then being in the Championship when I was leaving.”

Woods moved down to West Yorkshire when he turned 16, and was soon mixing with some household names,

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“We would train on different pitches but on the same complex, and you’d hear that certain teams were coming to the training ground who Leeds were due to play, at like four or five o’clock,” he recalled.

“So we’d stay in the complex and watch these teams, which was ridiculous with some of the teams they were playing at the time.

“Even watching Leeds. I’d get called back and forth to the first-team when I was about 17 and watching some of them training, they had an unbelievable team and unbelievable players that showed you the ropes, what it was like to be a professional and what kind of standards you had to get to.

“Some of the finishing sessions, you had Robbie Keane, Mark Viduka, Alan Smith, Harry Kewell, Robbie Fowler, you’re watching them finish and you’re thinking ‘jeez, I need to seriously work on my finishing here!’

“And that’s not changed since!

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“They were all great with the younger boys. If they saw someone working hard they liked to help them out. It was a great place to grow up.”

Woods’ first taste of senior football was a loan spell at Hartlepool, then in League One, in September 2004.

“They were great with me. I got called back by Leeds a couple of months later to basically make the numbers up in the squad, travel to games and be the skivvy!” he said.

“At the time, I loved my time at Leeds but the change around in the management, ending up with Kevin Blackwell, he was just somebody who was not good to the younger boys at all.

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“I found myself up against it from the word go when he called me into his office and he said ‘you’ve had it too easy here, I’m going to make you work hard for it’.

“I’d always worked hard, it wasn’t a matter of that, but he put it on me from the word go. A couple of things were said, and even at Hartlepool, he sent me there but I found out that summer when I signed for Sunderland that they had asked me to go on loan but he (Blackwell) had said only Hartlepool were in for me.

“It was just things like that which meant I wasn’t keen on him.

“They offered me a contract at the end of the season which was less than I was on and I decided to move on to Sunderland.

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“It was really good to work with a guy who was really honest and up-front in Mick McCarthy, he was brilliant.”

Woods’ Leeds debut came as a late substitute in a Championship game at Sunderland in December 2004.

“Before I went on, I got sent to warm up, and the first-team coach, Aidy Boothroyd, who is now the England under 21 manager, he said ‘put Woodsy on on the left’ and Blackwell said ‘are you trying to kill me or what?’” Woods recalled.

“Then five minutes later I went on, so I’m thinking ‘that’s what I’ve just heard the manager say and now I’m going on’.

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“We were winning the game and he wanted to see it out, but we did end up winning.

“But he just had no faith in young players. It should have been a great feeling going on but that’s why I couldn’t wait to get away in the summer really.”

Woods joined Sunderland at the end of that season, and made his Premier League debut as a substitute in a 1-0 defeat at Liverpool.

“That was amazing. We lost 1-0 but Steven Gerrard was playing, Xabi Alonso.

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“It was just crazy, you’re watching players like that growing up. That first season, I just felt like I wasn’t ready, I was out of my comfort zone,” he said.

“I was probably a bit better than playing reserves but not quite ready for anything like that, especially in a struggling team.

“I just felt totally out of my league to be honest. It was because of my lack of game time, a few years later when you’re playing and training you’d love another crack at it.

“But at that time, I enjoyed certain times but the manager’s turning round and you’ve got four boys hiding behind the dugout hoping he doesn’t put you on!

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“It came too soon for me, but still an amazing experience and I’ll never forget it.

“My first start in the Premier League was against Tottenham at White Hart Lane, that was unbelievable.

“I came off at 2-2 and we ended up losing 3-2. It’s just surreal in a way, it was everything you dream of as a kid.”

Woods’ first start for Sunderland had been in the League Cup at home to Arsenal.

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“Before the game Mick McCarthy said ‘they’re playing some young players so I want you to get all over them’.

“A couple of us were still young but their young players turned out to be Cesc Fabregas and Robin van Persie!” said Woods.

“I swapped shirts with van Persie. Well, I took his, he probably put mine in the bin!

“We lost 3-0 and the manager came in and slaughtered everybody. But I think he’d take that back now if he saw the Arsenal team.”

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Woods left Sunderland after they were relegated that season, and joined Rotherham United in League One.

“At the end of the season Mick McCarthy was sacked when I was away with the Scotland under 21s,” he said.

“He’d promised to play me in the last few games. We were basically down but he said I’d earned my chance.

“Then I rolled my ankle on a dodgy pitch in Scotland and I missed a month or two, during which he was sacked.

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“We hadn’t done well in the league but that was down to the budget he had. The years after that, Sunderland were flying because they were chucking money about.

“If he was given a budget to work with, I feel he’d have made it work and kept them in the league.

“It was a really tough year for everybody. We just didn’t have a good enough squad.

“The manager got sacked, which I felt was a bit harsh because he’d won the Championship the year previous.

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“Mick wanted to offer me a new contract but my agent had said ‘let’s wait until after he plays these games’.

“So (leaving) was quite a bitter pill to swallow.

“At the time, Sunderland didn’t have a manager or a chairman, so Niall Quinn stepped in as both.

“Before that, over the summer when they were trying to sort out the takeover, the chief executive was saying to all the players he couldn’t give contracts out, so my agent was saying ‘well you promised it’.

“I was only 19. The chief executive said ‘well if you want an answer then it’s no because I can’t give contracts out’, so that was it.

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“Because of my total lack of game time at that age, people want certain things but I couldn’t offer that and I end up at Rotherham.

“If I’m being honest, it was the best thing that could have happened to me because, when you’re growing up in academies, you don’t know what it’s like to win games for men, that families are dependent on win bonuses or new contracts.

“As a young lad, you don’t understand all that, you just chase the dream.

“So going to Rotherham, it was either sink or swim, either prove I can go and play men’s football or end up dwindling away.

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“So I fought back and it was the best thing for me. It was time to man up.

“Everything was against us that season, we had a points deduction, financial problems, but I had a good season personally, won the player of the year award.

“I had a relegation clause in my contract that I could leave for free, and I spoke to a few Championship teams, but the feeling I got at Doncaster, I just wanted to sign there.

“I got a great feel for the manager and the way he wanted to play. It was a new stadium and just the set-up in general, how ambitious the chairman was, I went for it and I was really happy I did.”

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And Woods would go on to play 136 times in seven seasons for Rovers.

“My first four seasons at Doncaster, in the Championship, we were doing really well,” he said.

“We had a style of play that suited me down to the ground, the manager (Sean O’Driscoll) was an exceptional coach, he demanded from you but he gave players responsibility.

“The boys we had there, they were great times. I don’t think many teams liked playing against us in the Championship, we’d have a lot of the ball.

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“One season we were probably one striker off being right up there in the league, and the following couple of seasons we were probably a really good centre-back off being right up there.

“We weren’t far off whatsoever but it was really enjoyable. It’s a really good club, it’s where I live now, and I made a lot of good friends there.

“I had an absolute nightmare in the last couple of years with a groin injury.

“If I’d got any half-decent treatment I’d have been back in no time, but whoever was in charge of making the medical decisions at the time just kept putting me in for operation after operation.

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“It was my first real injury and you just go along with things. The last couple of years at Doncaster was hard. It went from a lot of teams putting in bids for me to, six months later, I basically missed the next two years.

“I’d signed a three-year contract because of the bids that were put in, they’d offered me a new contract, but then I hardly played any games from then on, which was really tough.

“I was struggling mentally with it. It was as if I’d signed a new contract and then all I wanted to do was play football, and I was trying everything, but the treatment I was getting just hampered that next couple of years, which was hard to accept.

“I eventually got back, we won League One. I only played 20-odd games due to being in and out with injury.

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“My name got called out for getting the trophy and the fans were there at the stadium but I just felt like a spare part.

“I was quite embarrassed to be honest, getting my name shouted out, because although we’d won the league, I just felt as if I hadn’t contributed as much as I’d liked.

“That summer, I went away and got proper treatment and ended up signing back with Doncaster on a month-to-month contract and played a few games in the Championship for them.

“That took me up to Christmas and I signed with Barnsley.after effects on the injury.

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“I had a couple of games when I signed back with Doncaster but I felt like I lost what I had previously because of the injury.

“My game was getting about as well as being comfortable with the ball, but I was then known as being comfortable with the ball but I was training my legs up again to deal with the day-to-day grind and game-after-game, which I wasn’t ready for.

“At Barnsley we were in a relegation dogfight. You’re trying to juggle getting fit, getting your legs used to things plus the mental side of things, but I was struggling with not being able to do certain things I could do before.

“It was pretty difficult.

“I went up to Scotland and I was totally fine, over my injuries. I think I was at Ross County for three seasons, which I enjoyed.

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“We won the cup, which was great and I really enjoyed my time up there.

“It’s a bit of a mission to get anywhere because it’s so far away from everything, but we had a great bunch of lads.

“We finished top six and won the cup, which was brilliant.

“I went to Shrewsbury at the end of my first season, played the start of the season there but something happened back home which I wanted to go back for.

“So the manager said ‘do you want a couple of weeks to go back?’ but I said it was more long-term so I went back to Scotland and was there for the next two-and-a-half seasons.

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“The next couple of years after that were a bit of a grind because I signed with Partick late in the day, who were bottom of the league.

“We finished second bottom and we lost to Livingston in the play-offs so we got relegated.

“When I signed in the November we had six or eight points.

“It was the same at Dundee. What they wanted was someone with experience, but you go into a dressing room that’s downhearted, started the season really badly, you’re joining a team that’s a bit doom and gloom and everybody’s on their back.

“At the end of my time at Dundee I wanted to get back home, my kids are in England and I’d done my spell in Scotland and had enough.

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“You’d win a game but you’d have no-one to enjoy it with, or if you’re losing games, who have you got to take your mind off it?

“I had a year’s option at Dundee but I wanted to get back down to England.”

Woods then almost embarked on an entirely new chapter in his career.

“I was going to go to the Indian Super League. I met Phil Brown with my best mate, who ended up going over to India,” he said. “But things didn’t work out. We were speaking to Phil, everything was set, the club got taken over with new owners, but it worked out that I didn’t go and I ended up going to Doncaster again would you believe.

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“I had hardly any injuries during my time in Scotland, I was totally over the groin issue I had before.

“I trained well at Doncaster, I was there for two or three months, but financially, unless someone got injured that was in the team, the club had said I couldn’t sign.

“So I was basically hanging about like a spare part like the grim reaper, hoping someone got injured, but they were all good lads so on the other side of it, I was hoping they didn’t.

“That took me up to Christmas time and I started thinking ‘I can’t keep waiting about so I have to get proactive’.

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“I started messaging a few people and the manager (Pete Wild) was one of the ones I messaged.

“The club weren’t sure where they were going to be during the lockdown and the manager was thanking me for my patience and stuff.

“I spoke to a few clubs but got a great feel for the manager and Milly (Chris Millington) when I met them.

“They came very prepared about everything that had happened in my career and clips of me, talking about what would suit me and suit the team, how I’d work with how they’d play and their philosophy.

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“Other people I’d met around that time, they blew them out of the water. Their preparation and attention to detail, I thought ‘that’s a bit of me, they’re saying the right things about the club and they’re doing things properly’.

“I came away thinking ‘that’s the one for me’ and I’m glad I did because nothing’s changed. Their attention to details is superb on a daily basis.

“The manager puts things together that I’ve not had before in previous teams, they’re constantly trying to improve everything going forward, every single day it’s something different.

“They’re always looking at the opposition, or how we can improve. That’s something I need, I don’t need to be going to a rabble where you’re turning up and boys are thinking they’re playing for the banter.

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“I need things to be done properly and they certainly do that day-to-day. I’m glad I’ve signed here.”

Woods’ debut for Town in the 2-0 win over Dagenham and Redbridge on October 3 was his first competitive match since May 2019. And now he is back in the thick of the action, he is enjoying every minute.

“One of my pals who I played with for years, James Coppinger, I speak to him quite a bit and he’s big on his mental health and how important your mindset is,” said Woods.

“Things he says to me stick with me, like ‘just play as long as you can’ because as long as you feel as if you’re still contrinting on the pitch, you’re never going to recreate the feeling of football.

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“You might have other things you get enjoyment from, like your kids and different aspects of life, but that buzz of playing football and enjoying going into work every day, why would you want to walk away from that?

“I still feel fit and strong. I see it as those couple of years I missed out on at Doncaster through injury, I’ll get that at the end of my career.

“I missed out that mileage so hopefully I can put that on at the end of my career and go into my late 30s.

“I think I’ve still got a good few years left in me. I would really miss it if I stepped away from it.

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“I appreciate every day that comes now, getting paid for a job that people dream of. It’s a great thing that you don’t want to let pass away.

“Every day going in I have that mentality of a younger guy that you want to improve daily and learn things, try to keep the standards high.”

Woods now finds himself as one of the senior figures in the dressing room.

“I remember what certain lads said to me back then,” he said. “Sunderland was the last time I had that feeling of being the young boy, because when I went to Rotherham pressure was put on me to do something.

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“That last feeling of being proper nervous and needing an older guy to say the right things.

“I love helping the younger boys out so any experiences I’ve had in the past, like making my debut or playing against Tottenham, Gary Breen, the ex-Ireland defender, came up to me and said ‘this is a bit of you out here, look at the pitch, this is where you should be’. That makes you settle right down.

“We always had high standards at Doncaster, which was driven by the management, but he would want players to take responsibility in training and games.

“He made me captain for a spell aged 23, 24.

“Even if training wasn’t going well, he’d want us to stop it and say ‘this ain’t right’, so I’ve had that in me since I was a young age, where, if things aren’t getting done right, then you say it and you demand from each other.

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“The boys here work hard every day. There’s not one bad guy at all, there’s nobody who you need to watch out for that he’s not doing his bit.

“That’s not often I would say that about a club, there’s always been a few that you need to get on their case, but it’s a great bunch of boys.

“That’s not me just saying that, they’re honestly a great bunch of boys. It’s so easy to settle in, they all work hard, they’ve all got the right attitude and they all want the right thing, which is to succeed.

“The only times you do say little bits of advice is ‘what about when this happens, could you maybe try that pass?’ or ‘could you do this or that?’, that’s just everybody. That’s where standards get higher because you start to build relationships, knowing that player wants the ball there.

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“You can see that from game to game I think, that people are starting to understand each other, because it’s a new bunch of boys put together, bar a few the manager kept hold of.

“Relationships are starting to form and standards are getting higher. I think that’s going to stand us in good stead for the rest of the season.

“Standards are getting driven from the coaches and the management, and the players are really determined to succeed.

“We all want to get better every day. It’s not as if I’d need to say to them ‘pull your finger out’. I think you can see that from the way the boys have played, everybody puts a shift in and works hard.

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“It’s just maybe that final third that we need to take our chances. I feel that in the main, we should have won probably most games we’ve played, going off performances.

“If we keep doing the right things I’m sure we’ll get right up the league and challenge at the end the boys deserve to be.”

Woods says Wild and Millington are relentless in their pursuit of improvement and progression.

“They leave no stone unturned, they’re constantly trying to get wee bits to improve the team, sending you through things online to look at,” he said.

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“Everybody’s got a Hudl (football performance analysis app) thing we’re always looking at on the opposition and how we can improve on and off the ball.

“Their attention to detail is great, they’re two good guys, and they’re desperate to do well. They know how important it is for the club to do something good this season.

“They’re constantly talking about it. It’s been a tough time for everybody so if we can help raise spirits around the area by doing well on the park then that’ll be a small part we can play going forward.

“If we can get a smile from somebody on a Saturday then that’s what we’re after going forward.”