Duncan Watmore: ‘My injuries gave me a better outlook on life. I don’t have any regrets’

Duncan Watmore is wondering what felt more sudden: the overnight rise that took him from non-League football and a university degree to heights he dared not imagine or the pain that shot through his left knee and almost forced him into early retirement. “The rise is something you just go along with. You’re young, fearless, and I loved it,” he says. “But life always teaches you lessons and mine was that I couldn’t take it for granted. That’s what the fall did. It gave me a different sense of perspective.”

Watmore is back now, somewhere close to his best and leading the line for Middlesbrough in the Championship, but the third act of his career is more occupational than all-encompassing. It’s not to suggest his love for the sport has dimmed but that, during the “dark times” and those long months of convalescence when he was left contemplating his identity, he began to feel the weight of that void. There was a sense of wider purpose that was missing; a yearning for meaning and motivation that would carry on long after his career came to a more natural end.

“I feel quite blessed that I don’t see myself as a footballer now,” he says. “I play football and I will always give 100 per cent. I still love that feeling of scoring a goal or helping the team, that emotional attachment never goes away. But I’ve become more aware of the impact I can have. There’s more to life and there are issues around the world that we can use football to help try and change. That’s the outlook I have now.”

In 2017, Watmore became one of the first English footballers to join Common Goal and donates 1 per cent of his salary to the organisation alongside his charity work. There are now over 300 members and the hope is that their collective strength can