'Dreams are fine but you need to apply yourself,' says Blues boss Ward

Last updated 17:30, Sunday, 25 May 2008

I always wanted to be a footballer for as long as I can remember. I was born into a footballing family. My brother played it and my father was the chairman of a local amateur club.

John Ward with his trophy after being named League One’s Coca Cola Manager of the Month for March

It was natural that I would have an interest in the game.

My uncle would always say I was easy to buy for when I was a kid. For presents, I’d always get a football for Christmas and then for my birthday in April.

My first school was called Monks Road Junior School, although it was a primary.

I played in the school’s under-11s football team when I was seven and when I look back that must’ve been quite good. I went on to become the captain.

It is the sports master Peter Harrod I remember the most. He supported me throughout my years in the school.

I’m in touch with him now via email even after all these years but I’ve known him since I was around eight years old. He is now a man I consider my friend.

We lost touch when I moved on through school and it was only when I entered the game professionally, and played for my home team, that he came back into my life.

I passed my 11-plus and followed my brother to The City School.

It was one of two grammar schools in Lincoln but it was the one that did football throughout the season. The other would do a mix of rugby and football. That probably influenced my decision to go there.

Academically I probably didn’t pull my weight and possibly didn’t achieve what I could but I played football throughout, both in and out of school. I was the captain of the school team and I played for the county.

One of the things about the grammar school was that you played county football so I got used to travelling around for games.

At that time I was playing against the likes of Duncan McKenzie, who went on to play for Nottingham Forest.

I left secondary school with two O-levels, English and History.

In 1966, I was asked by the Lincolnshire FA if I wanted to go to Lilleshall national centre to do a training week. It was great because all the World Cup winning team had been training there just before they’d gone out.

I left school at 16 with the O-levels but didn’t go straight into football.

I got a job as a screenprinter. I was there about eight months. I was stuck in a room doing the same thing every day and I wanted variation.

I got another job for a Nottingham wholesale firm which had a branch in Lincoln. It was mainly tobacco, not the greatest advert when you think of what I do now.

I had a job driving around the area with a car, I was a young man of 18 and it was brilliant.

At this time I was playing amateur football for Lincoln City. I was offered a contract and I didn’t have to think twice.

I was getting £13 a week at the firm and Lincoln offered £14. But it wasn’t the money.

I always remember, like it was yesterday, going to talk it over with my mum and she said: “It’s what you want to do, isn’t it?”

It was the culmination of all that going back to when I was seven years old and there I was at 19 doing what I always wanted.

I played there for eight years before going to Watford in 1979. I spent two years there and then went to Grimsby and finished off playing my last game back at Lincoln in 1982.

I’d also helped set up a coaching association at Lincoln, I was the secretary. There I was given the chance to do my coaching qualifications and I managed to become a full badge [qualified] coach by the time I was 27.

I really enjoyed learning about the thinking behind the game.

We could all play the game but it was great to learn about techniques.

I was playing full-time and had been coaching under-11s at the same time.

I returned to Watford, where I got my first coaching job, before I became assistant manager at Aston Villa in 1987.

The job I do is out of the ordinary although it is something that lots of people say they’d love to do.

Dreams are fine but you need to apply yourself to do it if you want to achieve.

I say to everyone “do not have regrets, just try your best”. I say that to the lads today at the club.

It is better to say you have tried than not tried at all.

I think that applies to all different walks of life, not just football.

I’d put much of my success today down to my parents who have always supported me by doing all the things from buying football boots for me when I was small to telling me to go for my first professional job in football.