MattGardner15
07-17-2007, 12:49 AM
My name is Matt Gardner and I am a footballer for Wigan Athletic. I used to play for non-league side Halifax Town but Wigan persuaded me to join them for the 2007/2008 season. In my two glourious years at Halifax I made 61 appeaances for the club scoring 39 goals, including 22 in my final year. In both seasons I won winners medals as we were promoted twice and I moved on for £3 million, which solved Halifax's financial problems. I struggled to get used to the pace of the Premier League, playing against the elite, and I spent most of the year on the bench or not being included in the squad. One of our regular strikers picked up an injury and would miss a few games, so I saw this as an oppurtunity. I worked my butt off in training and the manager rewarded me with a place in the starting 11 against Aston Villa. I made a bit of and impact on a defence that had conceded just 15 goals in 18 games. I run at the centre backs who happened to be Micheal Dawson and Matthew Upson who I rate as very good centre backs. But they could not handle my pace. But being nervous I could not capitalise on the chances that were laid before me and I could not find my debut goal. In the next game I was confident that I could turn in a high quality performance and the manager had already declared himself pleased with my debut. I toiled away alongside my strike partner Svetoslav Todorov and he laid me in with the perfect oppurtunity. I hit the ball cleanly and the swerve took it away form the keepe. GOOOOOAL! I had started to do what I had done regularly in the lower leagues. My form continued and I scored twice more in the next three games. I was hardly expecting that kind of start to my career, but I was even more amazed to find out that I had a call-up to the England Squad. I was going to be able to play alongside the likes of Gerrard and Rooney. It was an amazing experience. But even more amazing was my debut against the old enemy... The Germans.
After going a goal down (typical England) we controlled the rest of the match. Rooney levelled it up and Rio Ferdinand popped up from a corner to head home. I was thinking that I had made a decent start to my international career as the clock ticked down. In the final minute a sloppy back pass fell into my path and I sprinted clear of a tiring German defence to finish off the scoring. 3-1 against the Germans at Wembley and I had scored. It had to be a dream, but it wasn't. This was really happening to me and I'm a national hero. wow!
I went back to Wigan and we where on a bad run of form. We had slipped from fourth and challenging for Europe to seventh and out of the race. I had scored 4 goals when we played at home to Liverpool, who where second and trying to hold on to there title which they had battled hard to claim. We knew that we would be lucky to scrape anything from that game on our current form. With only a few games of the season remaining we knew that we couldn't let a European place slip away and we decided to give every game, everything we had and against Liverpool we knew it would be tough. We started badly, conceding to a Peter Crouch header, how can you stop him from heading a ball, its impossible. 4 minutes later I levelled the match and it stayed that way till half time, actually it stayed that way till 20 minutes from the end. Dirk Kuyt scored a screamer and we all thought that that was it. We hadn't given up on a single game all season and we weren't going to against the champions. I managed to get on the end of an overhit clearance and slide the ball to Todorov who did the rest. 15 minutes to go 2-2. A point would have been good we thought and then Gerrard does, what he normally does and scrambles home the winner... or so everyone thought. Straight from kick off I runn at Liverpool and I get into the area when I'm hacked down by Carragher the referee blows his whistle and Dao steps up to convert the penalty. 3-3, 6 minutes left what a nail-biter. No-one looked like scoring again until a deflected cross bounced off the crossbar and rebounded into play. The keeper, who had tried to tip the ball over was floored and I raced in ahead of everyone to toe poke the ball home in the final seconds of the game. What a feeling. Newspapers described it as the game of the season and I was glad to be a part of it, we had won 4-3 against the Champions and I had been involved in all four goals. It was amazing and I couldn't believe it. The fans sang my name as we left the pitch and I could not believe the noise that filled the JJB that night. It was simply the best. I felt a part of the team for the first team and knew that following that performance we could beat anyone, but, ohhh no. Barely a week after the shock victory we were in action in the cup and I was a villian. After holding on for the last 20 minutes at the Emirates in a cup semi, we conceded to a fluke goal. The ball bounced over keeper as he slipped and rolled across the line. God, Wigan have no luck. There was no point in Extra Time we may have well as gone straight to penalties. There wasn't a single shot as two exhausted teams decide on a shoot out. We missed our first two pens and the missed there first, but then scored there second and we converted the next two. They scored their thrid and missed no.4. I was left with the task of making sure that they needed to convert there last pen to stay in the game. I stepped up to take the kick and hit it cleanly to the left of the keeper. He dived... to his left and got a fingertip onto the ball. It came back off the post and I had missed. I was distraught. I knew they would score there last pen and I would rather have given them the game then watch that last penalty go in. I walked off the pitch. My miss had cost us a place in the final. I sat in the dressing room filled with emotion. I had never been so angry with myself. The team knew how I felt and left me to do my own thing. I was a wreck for the week after. My confidence had gone and I was left out of the squad for the next game. I played my last game of the season, three weeks before the campaign finished and I didnt get a chance to say bye to the fans. I was stretchered of against Arsenal. They seemed to carry some kind of Jinx. I ended up in hospital and was told I had damaged my Achilles and would miss the end of the season. I had scored twice against Arsenal and my season total had finished at 10 league goals in only 15 appearances. I knew that I needed to be better next season. The team won their remaining games and finshed in our highest ever posistion 5th. It was a great year but a rotten end for me. I missed England's final qualifier but was told I'd be fit in time for the European Championship's, my first major international tournament. A week before the tournament the manager named his squad. There were no suprises in the squad except one. A player who had played 15 game and 1 for his country was included in the final squad. ME. I was IN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Euro 2008: Will England Go All The Way?
After going a goal down (typical England) we controlled the rest of the match. Rooney levelled it up and Rio Ferdinand popped up from a corner to head home. I was thinking that I had made a decent start to my international career as the clock ticked down. In the final minute a sloppy back pass fell into my path and I sprinted clear of a tiring German defence to finish off the scoring. 3-1 against the Germans at Wembley and I had scored. It had to be a dream, but it wasn't. This was really happening to me and I'm a national hero. wow!
I went back to Wigan and we where on a bad run of form. We had slipped from fourth and challenging for Europe to seventh and out of the race. I had scored 4 goals when we played at home to Liverpool, who where second and trying to hold on to there title which they had battled hard to claim. We knew that we would be lucky to scrape anything from that game on our current form. With only a few games of the season remaining we knew that we couldn't let a European place slip away and we decided to give every game, everything we had and against Liverpool we knew it would be tough. We started badly, conceding to a Peter Crouch header, how can you stop him from heading a ball, its impossible. 4 minutes later I levelled the match and it stayed that way till half time, actually it stayed that way till 20 minutes from the end. Dirk Kuyt scored a screamer and we all thought that that was it. We hadn't given up on a single game all season and we weren't going to against the champions. I managed to get on the end of an overhit clearance and slide the ball to Todorov who did the rest. 15 minutes to go 2-2. A point would have been good we thought and then Gerrard does, what he normally does and scrambles home the winner... or so everyone thought. Straight from kick off I runn at Liverpool and I get into the area when I'm hacked down by Carragher the referee blows his whistle and Dao steps up to convert the penalty. 3-3, 6 minutes left what a nail-biter. No-one looked like scoring again until a deflected cross bounced off the crossbar and rebounded into play. The keeper, who had tried to tip the ball over was floored and I raced in ahead of everyone to toe poke the ball home in the final seconds of the game. What a feeling. Newspapers described it as the game of the season and I was glad to be a part of it, we had won 4-3 against the Champions and I had been involved in all four goals. It was amazing and I couldn't believe it. The fans sang my name as we left the pitch and I could not believe the noise that filled the JJB that night. It was simply the best. I felt a part of the team for the first team and knew that following that performance we could beat anyone, but, ohhh no. Barely a week after the shock victory we were in action in the cup and I was a villian. After holding on for the last 20 minutes at the Emirates in a cup semi, we conceded to a fluke goal. The ball bounced over keeper as he slipped and rolled across the line. God, Wigan have no luck. There was no point in Extra Time we may have well as gone straight to penalties. There wasn't a single shot as two exhausted teams decide on a shoot out. We missed our first two pens and the missed there first, but then scored there second and we converted the next two. They scored their thrid and missed no.4. I was left with the task of making sure that they needed to convert there last pen to stay in the game. I stepped up to take the kick and hit it cleanly to the left of the keeper. He dived... to his left and got a fingertip onto the ball. It came back off the post and I had missed. I was distraught. I knew they would score there last pen and I would rather have given them the game then watch that last penalty go in. I walked off the pitch. My miss had cost us a place in the final. I sat in the dressing room filled with emotion. I had never been so angry with myself. The team knew how I felt and left me to do my own thing. I was a wreck for the week after. My confidence had gone and I was left out of the squad for the next game. I played my last game of the season, three weeks before the campaign finished and I didnt get a chance to say bye to the fans. I was stretchered of against Arsenal. They seemed to carry some kind of Jinx. I ended up in hospital and was told I had damaged my Achilles and would miss the end of the season. I had scored twice against Arsenal and my season total had finished at 10 league goals in only 15 appearances. I knew that I needed to be better next season. The team won their remaining games and finshed in our highest ever posistion 5th. It was a great year but a rotten end for me. I missed England's final qualifier but was told I'd be fit in time for the European Championship's, my first major international tournament. A week before the tournament the manager named his squad. There were no suprises in the squad except one. A player who had played 15 game and 1 for his country was included in the final squad. ME. I was IN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Euro 2008: Will England Go All The Way?