Terras Midfield Wizard Josh Wakefield Joined Ben Ashelford for Podcast #9, here are the highlights for those of you that missed it. The full podcast, also including Danny Webb, Ben Smith & Stephane Zubar.
BA: Hi Josh, we’ve just been watching the Take-Two from The Salisbury game and your goal from the edge of the penalty area…
JW: I’ll tell you what! Not bad eh?
BA: It was alright, was it a mis-hit?
JW: Do you know what? A few of the boys asked me that but NO it was a great goal. Calvin, I think it was who squared it to me, no doubt he thought to himself “I will give it to the better player” and I produced the goods. It was a good day, it was a really good game.
We call that one the Harry Baker game, it was a great game and with him to cap off with a goal, a scruffy goal like he usually scores, he never scores great goals, he just usually scuffs them in but it was a great goal and one of the highlights of our season for sure.
BA: Can you remember playing a hospital ball to Tom McHale? Danny Webb was just mentioning it earlier in the podcast.
JW: It is no surprise that Webby is trying to dig me out, he sends lovely clips of everybody else’s best bits but he always tries to highlight my flaws, but no, I don’t remember that actually but then I only try to remember my best bits.
BA: We have a question from Gilly she says you have just come upon her Facebook as someone she might know and she says the picture shows you with gorgeous hair looking very “Man from C&A” is there a story behind this?
JW: I had to make a separate Facebook page because I use the other one for my business with my father in law. I was looking good in that picture, but my hair looks very different to that now, for sure. I was a little bit slimmer little bit fitter, looking pretty good but nowadays….It’s a good job we haven’t had a game for a while, my hair is a travesty, I haven’t had it cut for four or five months. It is nearly shoulder-length would you believe?
BA: I think you should keep it going, I’d like to see that.
JW: I’ll tell you what I will do, I will keep growing it until I score although it might be four or five years. It might be down to my hips by the time I score, but we’ll give it a go for sure.
BA: Ladies and Gentlemen, an exclusive, Josh Wakefield is not going to cut his hair until he scores a goal. The business you mentioned is that the chimney sweep business?
JW: Yes, we are back open now, a nice little plug, we are Soot-Seekers www.sootseekers.co.uk chimney sweeps and solar installations from Weymouth to Lymington right across Dorset.
BA: Neil Carter asks “ The loan spells you had earlier in your career did you see it as a positive or a negative?”
JW: A few of them were really luck, like when I went to Dagenham & Redbridge when I was really young, 18 or 19. John Still was at the training ground to sell a player and he saw me play for Bournemouth’s Under 21’s I think it was against Gillingham, but I had a good game and he took me on loan. I didn’t get a single first-team game but I learned an awful lot about men’s football.
You go on loan to play football, when I was at Bournemouth my only goal was to play for Bournemouth so I went on loan to get more games, more experience and so I could prove myself to Bournemouth.
I went to Torquay when Chris Hargreaves went from Bournemouth to Torquay and I had a few games down there I learnt a lot from him, and the John Still, old school football kicking it long which was a learning curve coming from Bournemouth where I’d been used to playing football. You know, I learned lots of different things.
BA: What influenced your decision to come to Weymouth in the end? Was it something the Gaffer said to you or was it something you had in your mind, a target club so to speak?
JW: For sure it was the Manager. I don’t know if you know too much about my personal story but I basically quit football. I left Aldershot in the January and I went and signed for Poole for a month or two months, I didn’t get on well there, didn’t enjoy it but that’s probably no reflection on them, more a reflection on me I wasn’t enjoying my football, wasn’t enjoying anything so roundabout March I just quit football and thought I’d get on with work.
Then the Gaffer gave me a call and said: “why don’t you come and have a tryout pre-season?” I hadn’t done any running for a month or so, I was looking worse than Thommo is and that’s saying something because that guy has got a big belly, it’s a joke. I just turned up did pre-season and that turned out alright and it was Weymouth and the club that got the fire back for football and made me enjoy football really, so I will always have a lot to thank Weymouth for and especially the Gaffer because he gave me the chance and he gave me that opportunity.
BA: And would you say that the fire is truly back, that the passion for the game is truly back?
JW: Yes, I have always said, especially to my parents who often ask me, I will only play football if I’m enjoying it and I really do enjoy it at Weymouth and I really do care how we do at Weymouth and how everyone reflects the team especially and myself. I really do have a lot of fire and a lot of passion for Weymouth. It’s brilliant, I really enjoy it down there.
BA: Let’s talk about the Farnborough game, a milestone moment for the squad and the club as a whole, how relieved and proud were you that day, particularly after the season before when we had finished fifth on 97 points, to have secure the title in front of over two thousand at the Bob Lucas Stadium?
JW: By far the best moment of my footballing career. It was fantastic. The season before we arguably had a better season than when we actually won it. We knew we could go far, we knew we were the pick really to be up there and it was surreal really because we should have really won it a game or two before then it shouldn’t have come down to that game… but to actually do it at home with a great crowd and the pitch invasion and the celebrations afterwards. The best time of my footballing life for sure, no doubt.
BA: Do you have any last message for the supporters Josh?
JW: What can I say? Stay safe, don’t do anything I would do. You’ve been fantastic support all season and hopefully, we will see you again soon when it is safe.
