FC Halifax Town: “It got to the point where I couldn’t watch football on TV” - Matty Stenson on his fight to forge a career in football

He faced a two-and-a-half year battle to return to action, but since then, has worked his way up from the tenth tier to the top tier of non-league football.

Stenson joined boyhood club Coventry City’s academy aged eight, leaving when he was 15 and signing for a local side in Coventry before joining Hinckley United.

“I had a few off-field problems when I was at the academy, I just wasn’t enjoying my football at the time, so I decided to leave and go look for football elsewhere,” he says.

“I always wanted to play for Coventry but at the time I just wanted to enjoy my football, so it was a case of just leaving and falling back in love with the game again.”

And Stenson did that at Hinckley.

“Without a doubt,” he says.

But that passion for the game was to be severely tested when Stenson was sidelined.

“I’d made a few sub appearances for their first-team when they were in the Conference North and then this one day, I think it was Stalybridge Celtic at home, and I got told I was starting,” he says.

“I remember just trying that little bit extra hard in the warm-up, I overstretched in my groin, it felt like my groin at the time.

“I ignored it, carried on playing on it longer than I should’ve, and it led to a hip injury, which put me out for two-and-a-half years.

“I ended up seeing in the end about between 10 and 12 consultants, different physios, and they just couldn’t find out what it was.

“I had MRI scans, X-ray scans, I had two cortisone injections in my groin, I had a botox injection in my hip. And it still just wasn’t solving the problem.

“Then I went to see a consultant in Rugby and he said ‘look mate, you’re never going to play football again because we haven’t got an operation that can sort it’.

“With me at the time just being a young kid, I’d have had to just accept that, but luckily I went into the meeting with someone who had played football, he was my coach at the time, and he said ‘you’re looking at someone who could potentially make a living out of football, if he was a Man United player, you’d have an operation sorted, he’d have had it done already’.

“Honest to god, he walked out the room, he said ‘I’ll be back in five minutes’ and he came back in and said ‘we’re going to do an operation’.

“So they did the op and I was on crutches for about six months, then about six weeks of intense rehab, and I was back playing football.

“At the top of my hip, I had extra bone growing, so every time I lifted my leg it would take the cartilage off my ball and socket joint.

“In the end they managed to shave the bone and pin my cartilage back down.”

Stenson admits being deprived of doing what he loved most in the world was agonising.

“I just love playing football, whether it’s professionally or with my mates,” he says.

“I stuck it out, I was still going to training, trying to do my rehab, be in and around the lads.

“But watching them playing was torture. It got to the point where I couldn’t watch football on TV, it was just killing me because I just wanted to play.

“At that point, I’ve just been told I’m never going to play football again, I’m just leaving sixth form, I was in and out of jobs, didn’t want to work.

“I went to uni to study sports science, dropped out because I couldn’t do the practical side of the course because of the injury, so I started to give up on a lot of things.

“I was getting sacked from my jobs because my head was in a bit of a shed at the time.

“So coming back into football’s done a lot for me.”

Stenson credits his coach at Hinckley for still being a footballer at all.

“At the time, Hinckley United went bust and then formed as two new teams, one became Hinckley AFC and one became Leicester Road,” he says.

“I was only 18 when I got into the Hinckley United team, and my youth team manager at Hinckley took over Leicester Road.

“He was the same person who came into the meeting with me.

“When people ask me who my biggest influence is in football, it’s Neil Lyne, he’s the reason why I’m still playing football today.”

Stenson had no problems making up for lost time once he returned to football.

“I was a central midfielder at Hinckley, and Neil Lyne said ‘I need a striker’ and I said ‘you’ve stuck by me for two-and-a-half years, I’ll come back and play up-front’,” he recalls.

“He managed me perfectly, I started coming back into training, playing for the reserves and slowly eased my way in.

“When I started training at the end of my rehab, I was out smashing balls, running about like a headless chicken, and I got called into his office.

“He said ‘I’m sick to death of you running around and booting balls after you’ve been out injured for two-and-a-half years, you’ve got four weeks to get fit and prove to me that it doesn’t hurt, or else you’re gone’.

“I said ‘sound, I’ll be back within four weeks’. I got back fit within the four weeks, that was at the end of the season, so he said ‘right, I’ll see you next season’.

“So I came back the next season and I scored 42 goals in about 25 starts.”

Such red-hot form earned Stenson a move three leagues higher to Barwell.

“I originally went there and wasn’t picked at all, but one of the strikers got injured and I was told I was starting,” he says.

“So I put us 1-0 up and then in the last minute I set-up the winner, and I just kicked on from there really.

“I scored 20 goals, which got me my move to Leamington.

“I was still completely a non-league player, I was the unfittest player there in pre-season, I had a lot to learn.

“I scored eight in 12 at the start of the season, and that’s when Solihull signed me.”

But the move didn’t work out, with Stenson making 17 league appearances from October 2018 to the following April, but then only seven league appearances in the whole of last season.

“I came into a team who were top at the time so for me to come from Leamington and break into the team, it was tough.

“I wouldn’t say I got my fair shot at it but it happens in football.”

The striker says he had plenty of interest after leaving Solihull in the summer, but was sufficiently swayed by Pete Wild and Chris Millington to join Town.

“I had quite a few offers but I heard Halifax were interested so it was always in my mind,” he says.

“When my agent rang and said Halifax wanted to meet me I was interested straight away.

“When I met them, I instantly fell into the way they wanted to move forward, how they wanted to play, and most of all, what Milly (Chris Millington) and Pete were like as people.

“Straight away they were friendly, they were polite, they listened to what I had to say, so I liked them straight away.

“They went into detail on how I play and you could tell straight away that they love football.

“Then they started explaining to me their style of play and I just bought into it straight away.”

Stenson is sharing a house in Leeds with fellow new signings Jake Hyde and Tom Bradbury, having decided to move away from home for the first time.

“Even though Tom’s younger, he’s lived away from home for quite a few years, lived in Scotland.

“Hydey has live up in York.

“I’ve got a lot to learn, like I’m terrible at cooking so I’ve got the lads teaching me how to cook so I’m learning basically how to look after myself.”

The striker will miss the first few weeks of the season after picking up a hamstring injury, but is philosophical about it after what he has previously gone through.

“I’m still positive because the way the gaffer spoke to me, he told me this was my time now to get stronger and improve myself,” he says.

“That’s how I took it, that now is the time to get myself a better player and come back even stronger.

“Nothing can beat two-and-a-half years, so six weeks to me is not as bad.”

When asked what Town fans can expect from him this season, Stenson said: “I consider myself to be a bit like Jamie Vardy if I’m honest, hard-working and raw.”

Does he fancy his chances of a similar ascent through the leagues as the former Halifax striker?

“It’s one of the reasons why I’ve come, because there’s no reason why I can’t be compared to him and do the same thing,” he says.

“I’ve climbed up the levels like he has so my aim now is to go a step further, hopefully with Halifax, but if not, aim for the top and play in the Premier League one day maybe.”