Recently retired Darren Pratley on how football has changed, the impact of social media, and playing until 40 | OneFootball

“It can ruin you.”

A lot has changed in football and society since Darren Pratley made his debut back in 2003. The big social media platforms such as Twitter (X), Facebook and Instagram, which are now a regular feature of everyday life, were yet to even exist.

At the age of 40-years-old, the former Fulham, Swansea City, Bolton Wanderers, Charlton Athletic, and Leyton Orient midfielder has called time on a playing career which consisted of more than 700 games across more than 20 years.

Even playing in what would be his final campaign, Pratley featured 43 times in the middle of the park for an Orient side which reached the League One play-offs. He had offers to continue his playing career this season, and felt he could have done so, but instead opted to take up a role coaching Leyton Orient’s under-21s.

But those young players Pratley will now be coaching face a very different landscape than the one he did as a youngster.

“Back in the day, it was like, get the newspaper and see what rating you got, whether you got a 5, 6, 7 and that was it,” Pratley said. “You forgot about it after that. Now, there’s no getting away. Even if you play well, players are on their phone looking at what people are saying.”

Darren Pratley (right) playing for former club Swansea City (Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images)

Today’s young footballers making their way into senior football are part of the generation that has grown up with social media. Rarely will a footballer coming through into the first team now not have a social media account.

Every action by a well-known player on social media is dissected by thousands of fans. What does this mean? Do they want to leave? Are they happy at the club?

Players will also use social media to intentionally get their own message across as we have seen this summer. Something as small as changing your biography or profile picture is quickly picked up by online sleuths.

It is very different from the world of football which Pratley grew up in, and having experienced playing with players much younger than him, he has seen first hand the impact and growing importance social media has in football.

“It can ruin you if you’re not, it’s not even if you’re not mentally strong, but if you’re not prepared for it,” he said.

“I would say to young lads, if they say, ‘look at this, he said this, he said that’ I’d say, if ‘I’m you, I wouldn’t go on it’, because I don’t care how tough you are, people saying stuff about you and you’re reading it, it will have an effect on you.

“And that’s both ways as well. When you’re getting a lot of praise and you’re playing well and they’re speaking about you, you end up sometimes thinking you’re better than what you are or you played better than what you did.

“I always think the manager is obviously the one who picks the team and as long as the manager is picking you and your teammates are respecting you for what you’re doing, that’s the main thing.”

Darren Pratley in action for Bolton against Liverpool (Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images)

It is hard to envisage a world where young people no longer use social media, however, and Pratley knows this. He accepts that growing your profile and pursuing outside interests with the help of social media has its benefits but advises players not to spent time scrolling through the thoughts and opinions of strangers.

“I know now they’re saying about other outside interests, about being a brand and all that sort of stuff. Football doesn’t last forever, so I do get it. When you retire, you retire. No-one’s going to ring you up and say, do you want a job? My phone wasn’t ringing saying how are you and all that sort of stuff after you’ve finished.

“So I can see that side of it, if you’re trying to build a brand and all that side of it. But in terms of football and reading comments to see how you’re playing, I think that can have an effect. I don’t care how strong you are.”

It is not just the societal changes that have impacted football since Pratley started his career, however. There have also been some significant changes on the pitch.

The 40-year-old says he had become accustomed to exhaustive pre-seasons focused on running, cardio, and more running. But the increasing use of technology and data has instead shifted the focus on to player welfare and avoiding risk of injury.

“When I did my scholarship, it was a lot different,” he explains. “Even like GPS running stuff and that, you would run until you’re sick.

“Now, everything’s on data. You hit a certain mark, you get told to go inside and you’ve done too much today. Whereas, it was just run until you can’t run no more.

“You knew after training you were going to go straight to bed because you were exhausted. You’d max out every day.”

Pratley playing for Chartlton in the League One play-off final (Photo by Charlie Crowhurst/Getty Images)

Football has also developed into an all-year round profession, with Pratley detailing how time off during the summer is no longer viewed as such.

“Pre-season used to be, you do nothing for six weeks and then you come back and get fit. For the first week or two you never used to see a football in pre-season.

“Whereas on day one now, all the people coming back for pre-season, they’re doing possession drills, passing drills on day one, which never used to be the case because people were getting obviously fitter with the nutrition and the way they look after their bodies and stuff like that.

“You have to come back fit because everyone’s doing personal training now. Mainly, well some people do it for social media, but some people do it for themselves in terms of coming back fit. But everyone’s training now. You get a training programme and it’s competitive now, day one of pre-season.

“Everyone wants to win that first fitness test. Everyone wants to come back with the highest jump, the quickest sprint and all that sort of stuff. You’re actually coming back fitter than what you actually leave at the end of the season. It’s changing in that respect.”

Few outfield players now manage to make it to the age of 40 given the increased intensity of the schedule and also when it comes to the games themselves. An adapted and perhaps easier training schedule might seem necessary to achieving a long career, but Pratley instead insists that can be a slippery slope.

“I always thought that the older you get, the harder you have to work,” he says. “I know a lot of older players would, if there was ten runs, they’d do five or they’d do six or seven like that. I never ever thought like that. I always thought that you have to do the same as what everyone’s doing, or if not, a bit more.

“So sometimes the staff would say to me ‘perhaps you can stay in and do a recovery?’ and I’d be like, no, I’m not doing a recovery. I’m going outside and I’m working. Because I think once you get into that mindset, it catches up on you. I think you have to actually do more.”

Darren Pratley playing for Leyton Orient earlier this year (Photo by Pete Norton/Getty Images)

Pratley also says being disciplined in his recovery has been the “biggest reason” behind managing to keep going for as long as he did. “I don’t like getting in ice baths every day but I’d do it every night,” he said. “My missus would go to Waitrose and buy me five bags of ice every day for when I come home from training.

“It’s quite selfish now but I’d always put football first, whatever I did. So whether I was sleeping, eating or anything, where I was going on my day off, I’d always put football as my main focus. If I had a training session the next day and they (his family) wanted to do something that was going to use a lot of energy, I wouldn’t do it, and stuff like that.”

Now, Pratley hopes the wealth of experience he has accumulated will help the next crop of talent navigate the difficult and ever-changing world of professional football too.