The Player-Manager Shares His Story: ‘We Have a Responsibility – Youthful Athletes Are the Ideal Target for Bookmakers’
The job is tough, demanding, utterly exhausting … yet I am passionate about my role,” remarks the Slough Town boss, sitting in an vacant locker area waiting for his squad to come to training. For the past two years, Davies has been the playing boss of Slough Town who, sitting third bottom of the standings, are the lowest-ranked team remaining in this season's FA Cup.
A Dual Role: Management and Outreach
Some players are delayed; training was moved earlier to teatime to accommodate a community side’s match. When the drills commences in torrential downpour, the sixth‑tier side are sharing the 3G surface with a junior team. “I long believed I’d love to be a manager of a non-league football club and work on the side,” says Davies. The 37-year-old has opted out, instead observing from the sidelines, with a tactics board propped up in front of him.
“We continually emphasize the significance that we’re not just managers: we’re life coaches, we’re counsellors, role models,” he states.
The day before, he is at a local school for his second role. Over the course of 45 minutes, he quietens a lecture theatre of sixth-formers with a harsh presentation on how a gambling addiction ruined his professional journey as a professional footballer, damaged his connections and brought him to the brink of ending his own life.
A Career Derailed: The Downward Spiral
After going into rehab 10 years ago, Davies has not placed a bet since and is now an educator on the dangers of gambling. He details to pupils how, when he scored a set-piece against a top goalkeeper in a summer match, he believed he had succeeded. But by then, at 21 years old, his betting was unmanageable.
The skilled player, then featuring in the second tier, was slipping away of training at the earliest chance to head to the betting shop, often making up excuses to leave. Upon being questioned by his manager to prove it, Davies was unable to. He was omitted by Reading again.
During a loan spell at another club, Davies was convinced he was on his way to Leeds. When he learned they had bought another player, he went to the bookmakers and squandered £7,000 in a single day. Subsequently, at Crawley, he started gambling on his own matches and would sneak off into a toilet cubicle at the interval to place bets. Then, at Oxford United, he would stay up all night to gamble.
The Turning Point
By the age of 26, Davies’s career was in decline. He fell three divisions to play for Dunstable. His first game was an road trip that passed his old stadium. “It was a moment of realisation,” Davies recalls. “I remember seeing the ground as I went past and wondering: ‘How did I get here?’ I’m never going to forget that moment.”
His mentor from that time is now his number two at Slough and the pair have created an atmosphere where players can speak openly about their issues, dismantling the walls of toxic masculinity that were prevalent when Davies was a youth and was too scared to discuss his problem.
An Ideal Target: The Vulnerability of Athletes
Each person's story is unique, Davies believes prospective professionals are vulnerable to becoming addicted. The money, idle hours, the competitive nature, and the perceived insider knowledge in wagering were all elements in his addiction. “Combining all of those things together, you’ve pretty much got the perfect customer for a gambling operator.”
Ahead of Sunday’s cup match, Davies is addressing two professional clubs’ under-21 teams. “I believe that we’ve got a moral obligation to safeguard the younger generation, the ones that are coming through, and which is why I do the work that I do,” he says.
Future Ambitions and FA Cup Dreams
Now settled, married and the dad to a 10-month-old daughter, Davies is has not yet hang up his playing boots and is aiming to start on his advanced coaching badge. “I have many regrets but the positive aspect of coming out the other side and moving on to management is that I aim to right the wrongs of my time as a player.”
Slough have already made it through four rounds but have never reached the third round of the Cup. Given the money involved, facing a top-flight giant in the next round could bring a windfall in millions for a team whose roster includes builders, personal trainers and educators.
The prospect of facing managers such as Pep Guardiola is a curious one for Davies. “It's unlikely there would be any complex plans. It’s one of those where you’d be happy to lose for the sake of the occasion.
“It’s incredible to see the non‑league teams that get paired with some of these giants. You see it and you ask yourself: ‘One day, can it be you?’”