Former Wolves winger Steve Kindon talks about life after football once he had hung up his boots as a player.
How did you feel after retiring?
I was playing for Huddersfield Town and in the October of 1981, I got a cartilage injury. You’d usually be out for six days, but my operation had gone wrong, and I didn’t come out of hospital until the following March. Five months of my life was spent in hospital, which obviously finished my career. I always thought there’s no point in crying over spilt milk. What has happened, has happened. Obviously, I was terribly disappointed, because I’d started playing professional football at Burnley when I was 16-years-old and I retired in the October – or the March, depending on how you look at it – which was before I was 31. I had a very, very happy, successful and wonderful 15 years, but because I was a very pacey player and fast runner, I always envisaged with my physique that I would finish up as a centre-half, and with my pace, be able to give a few yards to the attackers and still catch them!
Did it take time for your life to adjust?
I was very fortunate because I came out of hospital in March 82 and I went into Huddersfield, who were a third division club at the time, and asked if there was anything I could do to help the club, and they told me they’re always short staffed in the office. They set me up in a little room with a telephone and I would answer the phones. But it got around town that Steve Kindon was answering the phones, so the calls into the club multiplied by five because the fans just wanted to chat to me! During this time, I also had a page in the Huddersfield programme called ‘Kindon’s Korner’, where if supporters had a problem with the club, don’t go moaning to your pals in the pub, give Kindo a change to fix it. There was one supporter who struggled to walk through the turnstiles so we widened the number 37 turnstile at Leeds Road by a foot, so he could get into the ground! We also managed to get the disabled fans in wheelchairs, who were getting soaked I raised the money to do that from a sponsored walk, as I also announced on Kindon’s Korner that I was going to walk to the first game of the next season – whoever it may be – from Huddersfield. Fortunately, it was Blackburn, 40 miles away, and we raised £17,000 which created that area for the disabled fans in the stand.
What did you miss most about football?
With the work I did with Kindon’s Korner, Huddersfield gave me the job as commercial manager and that meant I never really left football, even though I was retired as a player. The players used to get in for training about 10am, you’d get to have a good laugh with your pals, you’d put your training kit on, then jog down to where you were training, which would often be the horse racecourse about three quarters of a mile away, you’re happy, you’re fit, you’re with your pals, and then suddenly you’re 34, 35, 36, and you have to go cold turkey. You see your pals in the pub, but you’ve got to go out and earn a living, but I was fortunate that I was earning a living at the football club, so I would get in to the office at 20 to nine, 20 minutes before everyone else, and I would catch up with paperwork because I knew my pals were coming into the stadium at 10am, so I could go in the dressing room with all my pals for 20 minutes before they went out for training, so I didn’t have to go cold turkey. I was able to phase the best part of being a footballer out gradually.
Do you still watch and follow football?
I can be at Turf Moor in an hour, and I probably go to watch Burnley four or five times a season. I’m 90 minutes away from Huddersfield’s ground and I’m there two to three times a season. Unfortunately for me, I probably only get to Molineux once a season, but I do watch Wolves play when they’re in the north west, so I can usually get a ticket to watch them against Liverpool and Everton, so I do watch the lads and follow their results.
Do you still catch up with your teammates?
There’s probably about seven from Huddersfield who I still speak to every week on the phone, at Burnley, I know there is a certain pub if I go in there about 6.30pm on a Thursday, there will be half a dozen of the lads there, people like Frank Casper, Colin Waldron, Mick Docherty, Paul Fletcher and Ian Brennan. But Wolves have a very active Former Players Association, and their current chairman is John Richards, and only last week there was an event in honour Steve Daley and in the room was Geoff Palmer, Phil Parkes, Kenny Hibbitt, Willie Carr, Barry Powell, John and myself – all of my teammates who have not passed away, they were there.
If you could play again now, would you?
No. I wouldn’t be a footballer in the modern day. When I see the footballers warming up at quarter to three, the goalkeepers have more football sense and skill than I ever had! I was a rugby player, my father was a rugby player, my uncle played for Great Britain, we were a rugby family. I look at these footballers now and the skill level is five times greater than it was in our day. The only thing I’d like about playing today is the wage packet!
This article originally featured in Wolves' official 2023/24 matchday programme. Last season's programmes - as well as the ones published so far from the current campaign - are still available to purchase online through retailers Curtis Sports.
