Comeback kid Jansen: Football? I hated it but now I feel alive again

By Matt Lawton for the Daily Mail
Updated: 18:49 EST, 28 November 2008

Four years after a collision with a Rome taxi left him in a coma, Matt Jansen walked away from football vowing never to return.

He had grown to despise the game and despise what had become a torturous battle to return to a level that had so nearly secured him a place in England’s squad for the 2002 World Cup.

‘I was so exhausted by the effort i twas taking to get back, I was never going to get back,’ he said this week.

Striker Matt Jansen is hoping to make a sensational return to Premier League football with former club Blackburn

‘I ended up hating the game. Hated the feeling I had.

'Hated what it was doing to me.’

A further two years on, however, and Jansen, now 31, has taken the first few tentative steps of what could amount to a remarkable comeback.

He is not being paid but is training twice a day at Blackburn Rovers and has joined in with the first team a couple of times.

‘Paul Ince has told me that if I get back to 80 per cent of the player I was I’ll be very welcome at the football club,’ he said.

Blackburn’s manager remembers how good he was, you see.

He was so good Sir Alex Ferguson wanted to sign him for Manchester United.

So good he was measured for his suit for the World Cup in Japan.

He even received an invitation to the Beckham garden party before a depressingly pragmatic Sven Goran Eriksson opted for an extra defender in Martin Keown ahead of an exciting young forward from Ewood Park in his squad.

Jansen chose instead to take that till-fated trip to Rome and when the taxi hit him on the motorbike he and his girlfriend, now his wife, Lucy had hired, his head hit the taxi.

‘Some reports said I wasn’t wearing a crash helmet but it would have been game ove if that had been the case,’ he said.

Winner: League Cup final goal hero for Rovers in 2002

‘But it was serious enough. I suffered a brain haemorrhage and when I came out of the coma, they said I would never play again.

'Then, after a while, they said I’d need to take a break from football for 18 months.

'But I appeared to make rapid progress and six months to the day after the accident I was playing against Aston Villa in an FA Cup tie.’

He scored two goals at Villa Park but did not feel right.

‘In hindsight I probably did come back too soon,’ he said as he enjoyed a coffee in a bar close to his home in Alderley Edge.

‘They didn’t play me after the Villa game.

'They didn’t want to rush me. But I just found I was starting to doubt myself.

'Why wasn’t I in the team? Did they think I was missing something?

'Then I started thinking about it all too much.

‘There was nothing wrong with my brain. The tests showed that, and I had so many tests.

'But when you catch a ball you don’t think about it.

'I was thinking about things before I was doing them. It wasn’t automatic.

'I was thinking about how to control a football.

Jansen came close to making England's World Cup 2002 squad

'And the harder I was trying, the more I was thinking and the worse it was getting.

'And I was making more mistakes.

‘That was what I hated. The torment.

'I might have been physically ready but mentally I wasn’t.

'It just snowballed.’

Eventually, Graeme Souness thought it sensible to send him on loan to Coventry.

‘He thought it would do me good,’ said Jansen.

‘I’d play regularly, and at that level I’d be able to bang the goals in for fun.

'All I could think, though, was how crap I must be if they’ve sent me here.

'Maybe I wasn’t as good as I thought I was.’

He would part company with Blackburn, and then join Bolton on a short-term contract.

Sam Allardyce, with an impressive track record for reviving the careers of footballers, offered him the chance to resurrect his, but he soon identified a problem.

‘He’s the best player at this club,’ Allardyce told one of Jansen’s advisers.

‘But the only person who doesn’t believe it is Matt.’

In May 2006,  he drove away from Bolton’s training ground in tears convinced he would never go back.

He flirted with the idea of a move to Major League Soccer in the U.S. but quickly discovered he still had no appetite.

An intelligent young man who continued his education after leaving school and gained three A-levels, he instead chose to focus on his investments.

Matt Jansen had a spell at Bolton Wanderers before retiring

He built up an impressive property portfolio, even traded in currency, and for the last year has poured much of his energy into redeveloping the Cheshire home he shares with his wife and two children.

But he resented the fact that when he enrolled his kids at the local nursery, he had to fill out a form that asked for his occupation.
‘I had to put “retired” and it really p****** me off,’ he said.

'I was starting to get bored.

'I was getting out of bed every morning feeling I had no purpose in my life.

'I had to escape football and when I did I felt a sense of relief.

'But now I need to escape from the monotony.’

Two things then happened.

He played in a charity five-a-side tournament and then ran into his old mates at Blackburn when he was doing a question-and-answer session during their recent visit to West Bromwich Albion.

‘The tournament was the turning point,’ he said.

‘I got the ball and for the first time I wasn’t thinking.

'I was just playing and it was giving me pleasure again.

‘Then I ran into the people at Blackburn.

Jansen hopes that Blackburn boss Paul Ince will give him a second bite at the Premier League apple

'I saw the club doctor and he asked me what I was up to.

'I told him that I was getting bored, that I was thinking about playing again.

'He said all they ever wanted was a hungry Matt Jansen and he made the arrangement for me to go back there and train.’

Three weeks in and he is reluctant to make any predictions.

‘When you go back you suddenly realise how elite you have to be to be a top-class Premier League footballer,’ he said.

‘It takes time.

'I haven’t had a pre-season and I haven’t trained like this for more than two years.

'Aerobically it’s not a problem.

'But it’s the physical conditioning that takes time.

'When you’ve been out a long time there’s a deterioration of the muscle strength and it takes a lot of work to get that back.

'Probably three or four months. You get frustrated because you make basic, elementary mistakes.

'Because you’re fatigued. But I’giving it my best shot.

'I’m seeing where it takes me. My ultimate goal is to play for them again.

'But the key is not to put myself under too much pressure.

'I really am just taking it one day at a time.’

Matt Jansen factfile

Born: October 20, 1977 in Carlisle.

1998: Rejects transfer from Carlisle United to Manchester United. Considers it more prudent to secure regular first-team football with £1m move to Crystal Palace.

1999: After 10 goals in 26 games, moves to Blackburn for £4.1m. Rovers relegated that season but Jansen stars in return to the top flight, finishing second top scorer in the First Division with 23 goals.

Feb 2002: Scores first goal as Rovers beat Tottenham 2-1 in League Cup final. Selected in England squad for April friendly against Paraguay only to miss the game because of stomach illness.

Narrowly misses 2002 World Cup squad.

July 2002: Spends four days in a coma after a motorcycle accident in Rome.

Oct 2002: Returns to Blackburn first-team, but sent out on loan to Coventry after just two goals in 14 games.

Jan 2006: Joins Bolton on a free transfer after frustrating bit-part role at Rovers.

April 2006: Last game away to Liverpool.