Duncan Watmore: Relegations, awful injuries – it’s still a bonus to be at Sunderland
George Caulkin talks to Duncan Watmore, arguably the most upbeat player in the Football League
The Times: 26th December 2018
Welcome to Roker Beach, where Duncan Watmore hunkers down into the hood of his coat. Welcome to Sunderland, where life comes at you fast.
Two years ago, a gifted young player at a Premier League club was celebrating a tournament victory with England Under-21, but existence is different now, both diminished and enhanced. This could be a sad story but, as he ducks from the raindrops, dodging the surf, Watmore is smiling.
The first words from Watmore’s mouth? “I feel great.” Pinpointing his happiness on a scale of one to ten, he gives himself an eight. His relationship with perspective is humbling.
“When I was 19 and playing for Altrincham in the Conference North, that’s as high as I thought I’d get,” he says. “If you’d said then that one day I’d be playing in League One, I’d be, ‘Wow, cool!’ I never, ever thought I’d make it as a full-time footballer. This is all a bonus.”
It is a peculiar sort of bonus that has seen Sunderland flail down two divisions, that has brought Watmore two dreadful knee injuries, except that he has a “wow, cool” kind of personality and his positivity personifies the club.
With new owners and a new manager there is rejuvenation at the Stadium of Light, where more than 40,000 tickets have been sold for today’s fixture against Bradford City. “Incredible,” Watmore says.
It is not all sweetness. The journey to this moment has been traumatic, but Sunderland are third in the table (they lost away to Portsmouth on Saturday), and Watmore is back, four appearances into his latest comeback. “I haven’t felt like a footballer for two years,” the forward says.
“It’s almost like I’m relearning a skill and that’s a whole new challenge. Before my first injury, it felt so natural. Now it doesn’t. Everything feels new, different.”
On December 3, 2016, things felt different, too. Sunderland were beating Leicester City 2-1 when, in the 85th minute, Watmore heard a pop from within his left knee. “It was absolute agony,” he says. “As soon as I did it, I knew it was something bad.
“I’d never really been injured before and I didn’t know anything about knees, but I knew straight away it was my ACL. Everything was just wrong.”
There was swelling and surgery, damage to the meniscus, strong drugs for the pain, hard yards in the gym. Eleven months later, he was back in the team, his recovery six games strong, at home to Millwall in the Championship.
Half-time approached. “I’d been tackled but played on for ten minutes,” he says. “I went on a run, beat someone to the left and the same knee just went wobbly.
“It wasn’t painful, more a gut feeling. I got up and it was, ‘Am I overthinking this?’. Half-time was when it hit me, ‘I’ve done it again’. I just burst into tears in the physio room. I was completely distraught — all the work I’d put in to get there. Will I ever get it back? And you have such a good opportunity in this life to do good things. You can make people happy as a footballer. It all came rushing in.”
By the following morning, balance had returned. “I’d accepted it,” he says. There was less swelling this time and he embraced the routine of treatment and exercise, which helped. He was surrounded by chaos, which did not.
“It was miserable,” Watmore says. “You watch the team struggle and know you could contribute but can’t do anything. I knew how hard the lads were trying. I hated that feeling of being powerless.”
There was not much he could do apart from sweat and smile. “I always try to be happy,” he says. “It’s just me. I’d prefer my friends, my family, my team-mates to say that I was a positive and good influence rather than an unbelievable player.
“I mean, I’d like both, obviously. But it’s the one thing I can control, isn’t it? And I’m sure that the happier you are, the better you’ll be at whatever career you’ve chosen.”
Self-pity would have been understandable — why me, why me again? — but despair withers inside Watmore. “What gave me most motivation was the bigger picture,” he says.
“If I zone out of my life, look at what I’ve achieved at the age of 24, even with these injuries. I’ve got more out of this game than I ever thought; won a tournament with England, played 40 times in the Premier League, I play for one of the biggest clubs in the country.
“If you’d told me that a few years ago, I’d have laughed. I was studying at Manchester University and playing part-time for Altrincham. I went straight from there to the Premier League. What? Wow.
“I was scared, excited, everything you could imagine. So I’m already in such a great position. There are so many negative headlines across the world, so many people in bad situations. And I think to myself: at the end of the day, it’s only my knee.”
Away from the training ground, Watmore leant on the support of his family, of his girfriend, Sophie, and sucked up knowledge; he has a first-class degree in economics and business management.
“I did some online modules in business leadership,” he says. “So much of that is transferable to football.
“I read. I enjoyed learning. There must be science behind mental stimulation helping you physically in terms of performance, being alert.
“The degree helps in other ways, too. If football was the only thing I could do, maybe it would put more pressure on me to be fit and make me more upset when I’m not. It doesn’t mean I care less, it just provides me with a safety net.
“I know I could do something else. I want to be a footballer and I want to be as good as I can be. But, if my body didn’t let me, I can live with it, knowing I’ve given everything.”
Watmore is a long way from that point but he understands that his optimism will be tested.
“This is the best my knee has felt since before the first injury and I’m very happy to be back, but in terms of playing football it’s also the worst I’ve felt,” he says. “There’s been so little of it. I played 78 minutes of our FA Cup match against Walsall and it felt like every muscle was going to cramp. Running is such a big part of my game.
“It’s frustrating because I want to be at my best straight away, but it’s just not realistic. Transitioning back is going to be tough. So in some ways I feel stronger and in others there are more doubts, more anxieties about whether I can get back to where I was before.
“That’s where it’s harder. It’s not that I want to think about it, but in my head it’s like, ‘What if I did it again? Would that mean my career is over?’ I’m positive, but I’m also human.”
In those circumstances, aspirations have been realigned. “Something like this makes you realise you take things for granted,” Watmore says. “At 21, 22, I was playing in the Premier League every week. I just thought, ‘This is going to be me for the next ten years’.
“Now my ambitions in the short term are to stay fit and help get Sunderland promoted. I’d love that. We need that. There’s so much on the line for us.”
In the summer of 2016, Watmore was a member of the England Under-21 team that won the Toulon tournament. He played with Jordan Pickford, who is a close friend, and Ruben Loftus-Cheek. Gareth Southgate was the manager.
“He was great to work under,” Watmore says. “I had no doubts he would be successful when he moved up to the senior team because he was so detailed. I was buzzing to see England do so well at the World Cup.”
Did part of him not feel anguish, too? Regret? “Not at all,” he says. “I was sharing a dressing room with some of them quite recently: Pickers, Ruben, Dele Alli, Eric Dier, Marcus Rashford. Great lads. I loved seeing their success.”
He pauses. “It’s just crazy how quickly football can change. They’ve been involved in England’s best World Cup performance for decades and I’m in League One. Amazing.” For Watmore, this is a gilded life. He is back. And still smiling.
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