Footballer turned academic: "I can"t imagine doing anything else"

After he gave up expert football, Charles West found a new passion for chemistry in academia. Photograph: Plymouth University

It is a question that young children are asked often: “What do you want to be when you increase up?” The most well-known solutions incorporate: astronaut, superhero, footballer, secret agent, actor, pop star and racing driver. Predictably, academic or even research scientist does not characteristic.

I always remember confidently replying “I want to be a footballer” and can still picture the faces of distant family members, teachers and one specific school careers advisor, who on a variety of events, nodded, smiled (apart from the careers advisor) and politely responded with the common “Yes, but what will you do when that isn’t going to occur?”.

My mothers and fathers had been far a lot more encouraging nevertheless also pragmatic, “Why not proceed your education and get your A-amounts 1st? Just in case it does not operate out. If a skilled club truly wants you they will wait.” Well, I did get my A-ranges and I did join a skilled club – albeit briefly.

The glittering occupation didn’t occur. In an finish-of-season game assisting out a regional non-league team I tore my ankle ligaments. I was 19 many years-previous. Fortunately that was not the end and I’m grateful to a amount of individuals who helped with my rehabilitation so that I was later ready to join Hereford United. For people of you whose football expertise doesn’t extend past the all effective Premier League, Hereford is a small professional club that has sadly (and for a significant proportion of its background) languished at or near the bottom of the football league. Hardly the stuff of dreams.

My brief time at the club was even significantly less distinguished. For me, the lifestyle of a lower league footballer proved to be absolutely underwhelming, lonely, nerve-racking, lacking any job safety and also extraordinarily tedious – this was my childhood dream? I started out to question my job selection, whilst continuing to perserve for a handful of months, not wanting to allow any person down. Deep down I genuinely was not happy. I managed only a handful of reserve games prior to lastly creating the selection to go back to schooling, get a degree and, hopefully, a career. But what to review?

I’d usually loved science at college, especially chemistry, so it was a all-natural choice for university. Despite a handful of preliminary misgivings, I actually located the transition back to academia very simple – thank you mum and dad for the earlier suggestions! By the time I graduated with a first class honours degree, I’d created a new passion – chemistry.

I grew to become fascinated by the analytical factors of attempting to unravel the chemical problems in front of me, and designed a certain curiosity in environmental applications of chemistry. I stayed on at the very same institution – Plymouth – and undertook a PhD, which has a surprising quantity of similarities to the issues I encountered as a footballer. At numerous points I experienced feelings of loneliness, self-doubt, stress (largely self-inflicted) and worry about what to do when I completed.

Buddies and colleagues have reassured me that these emotions are truly fairly typical for the duration of a PhD. And this time round, I was far greater prepared and motivated this time round to deal with this kind of hurdles. It was not a breeze, but I finished it.

As an early profession researcher, I’ve presently been really lucky to perform on a assortment of fascinating projects, mainly focused on elucidating the individual chemical structures of the numerous hundreds of thousands of compounds which still continue to be unidentified in petroleum. I recall currently being invited to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office a number of years in the past to present our team’s findings on a particular element of petroleum chemical profiling.

Waiting in the beautifully decorated corridors, realizing that in a few moments I’d be referred to as into a area full of critical and influential men and women intent on hearing what I had to say, undoubtedly received the adrenaline pumping. A situation of pre-match nerves? No problem, a final appear about at my colleagues who were there to help me, a short smile, a last exchange of words and I walked into the space.

Hereford United’s motto is “Our greatest glory lies not in by no means possessing fallen, but in growing when we fall”. Hopefully my fledgling investigation career will give me opportunities to rise yet again. I was delighted to just lately be awarded a United kingdom young researcher award, and with a bit of luck it may aid. I really like my new daily life in academia and cannot envision undertaking something else. Nonetheless, if it isn’t to be, racing driver does sound great.

Charles West is a postdoctoral study fellow at Plymouth University – adhere to it on Twitter at @PlymUni

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Footballer turned academic: "I can"t imagine doing anything else"