Interview ~ Matt Lawrence

WWISC and 'Ch@irboys on the Net' Shared the last Interview of the millennium with, Matt Lawrence.

WWISC: Matt, you’ve had two spells at Wycombe, tell us how you first arrived?

Matt: I first arrived from Grays Athletic, who were in the Diadora Premier division and I had just finished collage. I was taking six months out as I had finished my degree quickly so that I could have that time in English Football and try and make it professionally. If I hadn’t made it here, I’d have gone back to America and played over there. As it happens I played about five of six games for Grays and scored a couple of goals for them as I was playing attacking midfield. Then Wycombe took me on a two-week trial in the January, I played in one reserve match, trained with the team and signed a six-month contract.

WWISC: Whom did you play for before Grays?

Matt: When I was 15/16 I played for Rothwell Town who are now in the Dr Martins Premier but I went off to collage at 17 so I didn’t play very much English Football when I was younger.

WWISC: Was there any particular reason that you left to join Fulham?

Matt: Yes! John Gregory wouldn’t play me. Alan Smith had signed me and perhaps he’s not the most popular manager Wycombe has had but he did really well for me by signing me and giving me my chance in professional football. I played under him and when Neil Smillie took over but the moment John stepped through the door I didn’t have a chance. I three months I played just over twenty minutes of football so I went and told to him that I wanted to play or leave. Fulham watched me play for our reserves and then signed me.

WWISC: So why did you leave Fulham to return to Wycombe?

Matt: I left because Fulham outgrew Matt Lawrence. I didn’t think that but Kevin Keegan did. Ray Wilkins and Frank Sibley quite liked me as a player and I played a lot of games for them but then Kevin took over as manager and signed a few ‘right backs’ but they couldn’t replace me. He eventually offered me a new three-year deal but the terms were pathetic and detrimental to me and I believed to my ability. I’d played 55 games for them the previous season and he put an offer on the table that nobody would sign. I knew that everyone else in the team was on a lot more money than me and if Fulham had offered me the same as Wycombe did then I would probably have stayed. I won ‘Young Player of the Year’ and was third for the player of the year title behind Paul Peschisolido and Chris Coleman so I thought I’d deserved better than that.

WWISC: You got on well with the fans there?

Matt: I got on well with the fans there and I think they liked me.

WWISC: You seem to fit in very well here, after you came back within two or three months it was as if you’d never gone.

Matt: Exactly! I’d been away for between eighteen months and two years at Fulham and I learnt a lot more there. I played with some absolutely fabulous players there.

WWISC: How do training sessions differ between Keegan and Sanchez?

Matt: Keegan was very much in the background, Frank Sibley was the main participant in training for defenders and of course as I’m a defender I did most of my work with him. I never really worked with Kevin as he spent most of his time working with the attackers. The training differs slightly, tactics were talked about more there but as I was saying we were split up into groups. Here there’s more emphasis on team spirit and a togetherness. We don’t have the money to spend here at Wycombe whereas at Fulham you had two million pound players in the side.

WWISC: Was there a lot of pressure at Fulham with players waiting in the wings to take your place?

Matt: Yes, and I enjoyed that and I much prefer it like that. I’m not very happy with the way I’ve been playing this season but there’s just not that pressure. There was me and Gary Wraight at the beginning of the season but now there just myself and sometimes it’s difficult to really build myself up for every game. I’m not saying that I’m not trying, and that would never be the case whereas at Fulham there were two or three right-backs pushing for your place. I don’t mean any disrespect to Wycombe but Fulham is a big club.

WWISC: How do you explain the difference between our home and our away form, and what can the fans do to help the team at Adams Park?

Matt: Since Lawrie Sanchez has taken over we’ve been excellent away from home; I’m not sure what it is. For one there’s not the pressure in away games. The fans a Wycombe are great, but there’s one thing that sticks out in my mind and that was last season, we were winning two-nil and there were a few minutes to half-time and we passed the ball back to Martin Taylor to waste a bit of time to go in with that lead as of course you don’t want to concede a late goal. And there was boo’s from some of the Wycombe fans and that really upset me and the rest of the players. We’re two-nil up, doing brilliantly and you’re trying to control the game and you get a lot of boo’s. It hurts but it has to be a naivety of the football watching public because that’s professionalism, that’s winning the game, tying up the game. There’s no point in trying to get a third and going and conceding one because that ‘game on’ again.

WWISC: Are the players influenced by the crowd at all?

Matt: You shut yourself off to a certain extent, you obviously hear certain things and if a thousand people are booing then you hear that. We’re not influenced particularly and if we were to find ourselves two-nil up with a couple of minutes to go, we’ll pass the ball back to Martin.

WWISC: Why does Wycombe always struggle against lower league sides?

Matt: Since I’ve been at Wycombe I’ve only played against Oxford City so I can only speak about that. Oxford obviously raised their game, they had nothing to lose, they went for it and fair play to them but then we should have killed it off in the first game. They equalized in the last few minutes and it’s one of those things that happen in the FA Cup. But all the same why did Wolves and West Brom struggle against us?

WWISC: Is it a superstition of yours that you always retie your bootlaces on the field, or are you just not very good at tying them in the first place?

Matt: I’m not very good at tying them, but for as long as I can remember whilst playing professional football I’ve pretty much always done that all the time. So yes it’s a superstition but only when I play right-back, not when I play in the centre or centre-midfield. I’ve no explanation for that al all.

WWISC: Do you think the standard of football is better in the second division is better this season then last season?

Matt: I think it’s quite similar. I know that we’ve lost the likes of Man City and Fulham who were extremely good sides and we beat City twice and drew with Fulham. So we’ve got rid of the two really big boys and we may still have the Wigan’s, Burnley’s and the Preston’s who’ll be up there at the end of the season. Everyone else can beat each other and even with those I don’t think that there’s anyone whose that exceptional. Stoke is a strong side but we had a very bad game against them but then again they have financial backing. The thing is it’s the teams with money behind them which makes a lot of difference. It makes a lot of difference right across all football, if you look in the Premier League there’ s the like of Wimbledon with not very much money and they struggle almost every season and just manage to stay up whereas the likes of Liverpool and Manchester Utd can pay forty thousand pounds a week wages. Or even like Roy Kean up to fifty thousand pounds a week at Manchester Utd, you just can’t compete with that. It’s all down to money, the same as everything else in life.

WWISC: Who’s the trickiest opponent you’ve faced this season?

Matt: Probably Andy Sinton, the gaffer gave me a bit of a rollicking at half-time, as I’d had a bit of a run-around from him, yes him and Kevin Kilbane. They’re both from the higher divisions so they’re probably the two best players I’ve faced this season.

WWISC: You were at a university in America. Did you do a football course?

Matt: I got a football scholarship which meant that if I went over there to play for their football team, they’d pay for my tuition, my upkeep and my meals. I did an American literature degree which is basically an English degree and I played football for the team. It’s quite professional in that the season only lasts about four months which has a lot to do with the climate over there. My degree was for four years but I finished it in three and a half years. I crammed all my lessons in to that time so as to give myself six months to give myself the opportunity to come back and try to make it professionally here. If I hadn’t made it I’d have gone back to the States.

WWISC: You enjoyed it out there?

Matt: I enjoyed it immensely, the standard of living, the people. Perhaps being a foreigner abroad I was treated very well. I stood out in the crowd, anywhere, like in a bar or a restaurant wherever it was. The Americans generally like the English I was treated very well over there and I’d have no hesitation in going back anytime.

WWISC: When I was in the states I was constantly asked if I was English or Australian.

Matt: Yes! It’s English or Australian all the time, although I was once asked if I was Polish.

WWISC: Before you turned professional, did you have any unusual jobs?

Matt: Not particularly, as I said I came back at Christmas and I signed professionally within two months. The time I was playing for Grays I was living with my parents and I was making peanuts playing for them but I was living rent free at my mum and dads. During the summer holidays when I was at collage I used to come back to England and I did lots of jobs then. I was a dustbin man for three days; I did a lot of agency work like packing books, containers and factory work just to earn my upkeep for at collage.

WWISC: Where about do you live now?

Matt: I live now in Burgess Hill, which is a bit of a drive in; I’m settled down there with my girlfriend and her little girl so I don’t think I’ll be moving just yet.

WWISC: Is there any special person in your life?

Matt: My girlfriend and her daughter Carla are very special to me. My mum and dad, my sister, my grand parents in fact all of my relatives are pretty special to me. I also have a few good friends in football, Paul Watson who plays for Brighton and Mark Walton who is also at Brighton both of whom I played with at Fulham. Probably my best friend is Ian Macintosh who I used to room with at collage and is now the head coach of a soccer team out there. He’s a good friend and I see him every now and again when we go out to the States in the summer and of course I still have my friends from school.

WWISC: Most of the players at Wycombe appear to have had this very short haircut and you seem to have had a bit of a trim as well, so have you been to the Sean Devine hairdressing salon?

Matt: No! I definitely haven’t! A few of the lads have but I’m not going in for that.

WWISC: Is it definitely Sean cutting it?

Matt: I was before, but now its not. I think it was Scunthorpe away and about six or seven had ‘skinheads’ but now they all go to their own hairdressers.

WWISC: There was a story in one of the local papers about the TV programme ‘they think it’s all over’...

Matt: Oh yes! They came down to the training ground to film us and they filmed the goal celebration which was Sean cutting everyone’s hair. They thought that it was ‘scalping’ but as Sean scores all the goals, he makes up the celebrations.

WWISC: What is your personal proudest moment since being at Wycombe?

Matt: The proudest moment so far was definitely staying up last season. Without a doubt the Lincoln game was immense, it was superb. I really didn’t want to play in the third division and I came back to Wycombe to stay in second division football. I want to go on and play in the first division, maybe even the premier division although that might be a bit out of my reach but I know I’m good enough to play in the first division. Whether that’s with Wycombe or somebody else I don’t know. I played a few games in the third division and I don’t want to go back down there. I don’t fancy trips to Hartlepool and Darlington and obviously the fans don’t either so that was definitely the best moment. Unfortunately the best moment was avoiding relegation, probably not a great moment but it was some moment. I’d rather it be getting into the play-offs but at the time it was a great moment.

WWISC: What are your tastes in music and what are those among the team?

Matt: The musical tastes of the player of Wycombe I have no idea about, but mine personally go back to my collage days, mainly indie music, such as Oasis even though they’re more main stream now, Primal Scream and I’ve been to about six of their concert, I’ve seen Oasis about three or four times they’re my main tastes.

WWISC: What about in the earlier days, did you go to many gigs then?

Matt: Yes, I’ve seen so many bands, Dodgy, Ride, Blur, so many. I saw Oasis when they were nobody’s at Glastonbury in the afternoon playing to about five hundred people and I’ve seen Oasis at Glastonbury playing to a hundred thousand people.

WWISC: That question actually came from a group of lads who used to write the fanzine ‘The Adams Family’ and are now actually in a group themselves which is an ‘indie’ sort of band.

Matt: Well that’s my tastes. Unfortunately last season after the Man City game I was in the Gym and missed Noel and Liam Gallagher when they were in the bar after the game.

WWISC: Do you every get to look at ‘The Ch@irboys on the Net’; we know that ‘Brownie’ is usually on there?

Matt: I don’t have a computer at the moment but I should be getting one around about Christmas time so I’ll be able to have a look then. My dad’s on the Internet at work so he sends me all sorts of interesting things. So I’ve seen most things.

WWISC: Are many of the other players ‘online’ yet?

Matt: There’s only a couple who talk about it at the moment, Playstation’s are a big thing with the lads at the moment. They seem to while-away their hours twiddling thumbs on those things.

Ted’s Note: The interview actually went on for quite sometime longer but at that point I ran out of tape but Paul was able to continue recording. The FULL interview will be on ‘Ch@irboys on the Net’ very soon and perhaps Paul will let me have the remaining text to put in the next issue of ‘The Wanderer’ for those of you who are not yet ‘Online’ I found Matt to be a very pleasant and ambitious young man. I very much hope that he gets the opportunity to play at a higher level and I hope that it’s with Wycombe Wanderers.