“When I had a child it changed my whole life. I went from being selfish to saying, ‘I’ve got responsibilities now.’ When it was pretty hairy with Scarlett, it puts a lot of things into perspective. People say, ‘Oh, you must be nervous,’ before big games for Ireland, for Stoke when I was there, and the Chelsea game when I scored two own goals and missed a penalty [in 2013], but there are wars going on, children dying every day, so that puts me scoring two own goals into perspective.
“After that game against Chelsea, I go home and the wife and kids are taking the mickey out of me. When the ‘Premier League worst bloopers’ programme came up, the kids were watching it, laughing. Last year when Sienna was asking Eli who his favourite footballer was, he said, ‘Vardy’. Because Vardy was scoring all the goals, and my friend [Robert] Huth is at Leicester, Eli had the Leicester kit. ‘You can’t say that,’ Sienna said. ‘Daddy’s your favourite player.’ Eli said: ‘Daddy’s rubbish, he’s only scored one goal this year!’
“Everything I do is not for me. It’s for the kids, for my wife. When Roy Keane was manager at Ipswich, he had a rant in the dressing room. We’d had a bad game and Roy said, ‘You’re not playing for yourselves. You’re playing for your friends you grew up with, who say, “I know him, I used to play with him, I used to go to school with him.” You’re playing for the people you grew up with on the streets. You’re playing for cousins, uncles, aunties. You’re playing for all these people who are so proud of you.’ That stuck with me.”
His immediate family, and Irish cohorts, were in the Aviva Stadium when Walters scored the goals that qualified Ireland for Euro 2016. “We had a box for the Bosnia game and quite a lot of my family squeezed in,” he smiles. Keane’s words echoed in Walters’ mind. “They’re the people you’re playing for, they can then go into work, or school, and make them feel special as well.
“People say it’s like a second family when I go away with Ireland, everyone’s so close. I get the same vibe here at Burnley. Sometimes, when I meet people, they think I’m very arrogant. I’m not. I’m quiet. I’m not a loner but I’m happy to be alone, in my own space, listening to classical music sometimes [especially Johann Pachelbel]. I like any genre of music. When I was younger, it was dance, rap, hip-hop, and then I came across classical. I’d hear it in the big films like Gladiator, powerful songs like
Now We Are Free that gets me going pre-match. I’m close to Huth, great guy, so funny, and me and him had the iPod [at Stoke]. He’d bring in some German stuff, or a bit of Iron Maiden.
“I like going home to my wife and kids, my release. I’ve laid a bit of Astroturf in the back garden and my little boy is out non-stop with a football. I’ve got Eli into Everton. He’s got “Rooney” on his back. I’m an Evertonian. We went to Ibiza this summer, bumped into Jürgen Klopp, and Jo, who’s Liverpool, wanted a photo with him. So I went to the toilet. He went, ‘Oh, yes, you’re Jon’s wife.’ I said hello to him.”
But back to Eli. “I debate with myself whether I want him to go into football,” he says. “It’s been so good to me but then I see what’s going on in the game. I despise the way academies are with kids. I know one boy goes to Manchester City, Liverpool, United, every day of the week. He’s six. What are you doing to him? We’ve got a friend whose boy’s an unbelievable talent, and he’s at Wigan, which is a good thing, because the big ones are different. They have hundreds of kids, satellite centres here and there, then after a few weeks they say to the kid, ‘Sorry’. How can you say that to a seven-year-old who’s mad on football? Let them be kids, let them play.
“And they give them ridiculous money too young. Three years ago there was an 18-year-old at City on more than me at Stoke, and he’ll never play a [professional] game in his life.” During his time as a PFA representative, Walters would urge young players, “to not go out spending £10,000 a month on clothes, having five cars, paying for their hangers-on’s apartments and their nights out, [spending] £30,000 because they’re buying champagne. I know a lot of players within three years of finishing are divorced and bankrupt. I decided to pay off my mortgage, pay off my debts, put money into property and that will have an income when I finish. I won’t live an extravagant lifestyle. I’ll be happy driving round in a van.
“I’ve always worked hard, been hungry, given everything. The biggest thing I get from people I meet is ‘you look different on TV’. ‘Yeah, I look fat on TV, don’t I?’ ‘Ooh, you’ve lost weight,’ they say. No, I’ve been the same weight for the past ten years, between 81 and 83 kilos. I’ve always trained hard.
“I’m an honest player, never dived. [Jamie] Carragher said I dived once, when he was pulling me, I went down, definite penno. A lot of the times I stay up, getting pulled, and don’t get anything. Huth’s the best at pulling you. When you sprint alongside him, he gets hold of your wrist, and slows you down, but it looks like he’s still running. Jesus, Rob! But diving, no. I can’t.”
Walters is principled. “I’d like to set up a charity for families who are struggling,” he says. “You know the way things are at the moment with people going to food banks, families having to sell their homes, people falling on hard times. I’d like to give them refuge until they get sorted.” Helen Brady would be proud of her son.
‘We didn’t bully Chelsea – they were sore losers’
Burnley’s players were surprised by what they saw as Chelsea’s “indiscipline” and “lightweight” nature during the visiting side’s victory at Stamford Bridge last weekend, according to Walters.
The Ireland international came off the substitutes’ bench during the second half against the champions and claimed that members of Antonio Conte’s back-room staff berated Sean Dyche and his squad during the first period.
“I know a few words of Italian from [former Ireland coach Giovanni] Trapattoni and their bench was giving it loads to our bench. There was a guy hammering the gaffer, so I just gave him a couple of words back in Italian and he looked at me, and sat down. Just before we scored, they were going mad.”
Chelsea were particularly incensed by Craig Pawson, the referee, sending off Gary Cahill and Cesc Fàbregas and for other decisions. “Normally when you go to those places, you don’t get the free kicks you should get,” Walters says. “But the referee did unbelievably well, so they weren’t happy.
“With some of their players, their discipline was horrendous. All moaning. Generally when they all moan, they tend to get every decision, but they didn’t.
“We were 2-0 up and got a free kick on the edge of the area and the gaffer was just standing, watching, and this guy on the Chelsea bench said, ‘Hey, yeah, you want more, you want everything’.
“That’s rich. When we scored off that free kick, I was laughing at him, going, ‘Yeah, we want more.’ He gave me the finger. A few of the lads said, ‘Has he just done that?!’ So then I’m like, ‘Tranquillo, tranquillo.’ [Quiet, quiet] I was laughing at him.
“Then I was warming up, getting abused off the Chelsea fans. Grown men in front of their kids. Even women giving me abuse. Expletives, hand gestures, the lot. I love all that. It’s great. I spoke to the guy [on Chelsea’s bench] afterwards. It was a bit of banter.”
Burnley were impressed with Cahill’s response, coming in and shaking their hands, less so with the spiky Fàbregas.
“I’ll always shake hands afterwards with players, the manager, wish them the best,” Walters says.
“I always think, ‘Be graceful in defeat, don’t over-egg it when you win.’ You get sore losers but then they’re at Chelsea for a reason; maybe they’re sore losers and that drives them. Arsenal are the worst for sore losers.”
Walters was surprised by the ease with which they defeated Chelsea. “With a few of the players, the discipline was completely gone. They’re nowhere near what they were last year.
“I read a bit about he [Conte] maybe put a really weak bench to send a signal [to the board]. He said ‘no’, but I’ve seen managers do that. I was warming up and thinking, ‘I don’t know a lot of these lads’.
“Last year at the back, they were strong, big, and horrible with [Nemanja] Matic sitting in front of them, a tough lad. Serbs are hard. Most of the Burnley lads were very surprised he went, to [Manchester] United as well.
“They haven’t got Diego Costa upfront. Everyone hated him but you’d love to have him in the team, he’s brilliant, he’s the best at winding people up. But you could get to him in his head.
“Chelsea were a bit lightweight. We didn’t bully them either. I was watching our goals again, excellent goals, quick play, cross in the box, goal.
“It wasn’t like we lumped them in the box. Chelsea need to buck up a bit.”
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