Sam Sodje: I believed I could play for Real Madrid! | OneFootball

The professionalism of non-league football has come on leaps and bounds in recent years, so much so that it is nowhere near as unfamiliar as it once was to see players plucked from outside the EFL perform well within it.

When a risk was taken on a player and it paid off, instant cult hero status was cemented.

Sam Sodje’s time at Brentford certainly solidified that status for him in west London.

Born in London to Nigerian parents, Sodje moved to Nigeria at the age of four and spent his childhood in the west African country before returning to the UK to pursue a career in football, first joining Stevenage, then Conference outfit Margate in 2002.

Though it was only part-time, he treated it as a full-time job.

“My mentality when I was playing for Margate was all about being a professional footballer,” Sodje explains. “I used to do a little bit of painting and decorating, but it wasn’t really work.

“The normal non-league player would go to training at 5pm, but I was there at 2pm. I would do extra and leave late.

“I didn’t concentrate on getting a job because I knew what I wanted to do. The boys would think I was crazy, but I really wanted to be a professional footballer.”

It was during a game against Barnet - then managed by Martin Allen - that the wheels were set in motion for that to eventually happen.

Sodje says: “Martin Allen didn’t like that I was playing so tough, so hard against his striker, the late Junior Agogo, so he came onto the pitch at half-time and screamed at me to stop kicking his players!

“I didn’t know who he was, so I didn’t care who he was - and I even tried to fight him! I think that’s what he liked.

“After that season, I got a phone call and the first thing I heard was, ‘Stupid boy!' It was Martin, and he said he wanted to sign me as he had just joined Brentford - and that was it!

“I didn’t care how much I was going to get paid. When I signed, all I wanted to do was play football.”

Both Sodje and Brentford were unaware he was due to serve a three-match suspension carried over from his time at Margate, with the oversight meaning it was not until the sixth league game of the season - a 4-1 defeat away at Bristol City - he made his debut.

Even then it was in midfield, with Scott Fitzgerald and Michael Turner having started the campaign reasonably well at the heart of the defence, with three wins and two clean sheets.

There was no stopping Sodje after that. He started the next 39 League One games, playing the entirety of all bar four. His and Allen’s energy were the ideal match.

Sodje smiles: “Whenever I do interviews, I try to downplay my arrogance about my ability because I wasn’t arrogant in a bad way, I was arrogant in a very positive way and that’s why Martin Allen was really good for me. I thought I should be playing for Real Madrid, that’s the mentality I had!

“Eating the right things and the professionalism was what I was struggling with and I was always late! But when it came to the actual football, it was better for me because we passed the ball more than we did in non-league and I had the talent to do that.

“Martin is a motivator and he was like a dad to me. If it was any other manager, I probably wouldn’t have made it, not for my ability, but for the issues off the pitch. He understood that football is not everything and you need to nurture every player differently.

“People underrate how good he was as a coach, He made us believe. He made us believe Diego Maradona had nothing on us.”

Sodje’s first season at Brentford ended in defeat as the Bees were beaten 3-1 on aggregate by Sheffield Wednesday in the play-off semi-finals. However, no doubt helped by the “perfect” partnership with Turner that had developed, he was handed a Nigeria call-up in November 2005.

“The invitation went to the club and, during training, Martin called everyone around and said, ‘Guess who just got called up by his country - SODJE!’, we were all so happy,” he recalls.

“We played on the Saturday and I travelled on the Sunday or Monday - Martin drove me to the airport on the way to my first international game. Do you see why I would go through a brick wall for him?

“I knew how massive it was to play for Nigeria, so when I got the invite it was really big. But I thought that was my level. I didn’t feel I was stepping up - this was where I should be! Thinking about it now, to come from Margate and play for my country within two years, wow. I think differently now, but that was my attitude at the time.”

During Sodje’s two seasons at the club, Brentford were one of the FA Cup’s surprise packages. In early 2005, they forced Southampton to a fifth-round replay - with Sodje scoring in a 2-2 draw at St Mary’s - and reached the same stage in 2005/06, where they were beaten by Charlton.

It was the fourth-round replay at Hartlepool in February 2005 that Sodje remembers most.

“Hartlepool were on top of the game on a Tuesday night. It was cold, the dressing room was small. But that was one of my best games,” he recalls.

“People always talk about the Southampton game - go back to the Hartlepool game. Me and Mickey T were incredible. I was in the car with my family and I could hear on the radio, ‘Sam Sodje and Michael Turner are the best!’, that felt so good.

“Martin Allen would beat any manager in a one-off game, I would bet my last penny, so that’s why we had two great FA Cup runs.”

The downside to that for Brentford was that it put Sodje and his team-mates in the shop window, most notably in January 2006. DJ Campbell scored twice against Sunderland at Griffin Park and, three days later on January 31, he was sold to Birmingham for £500,000.

The very same day, Sodje turned down a move of his own.

“I don’t know if it’s true - and Martin Allen might correct me - but I think Birmingham came to watch me play the day they saw DJ,” he reveals.

“I turned down Southampton. It would have been three times my pay, but I couldn’t leave. I thought I was a traitor if I left. That’s how deep it was. I wanted promotion that badly.”

But it did not happen. A second successive 3-1 aggregate defeat in the play-off semi-finals, this time to Swansea, denied Brentford a one-off shot at promotion to the Championship.

“Losing to Swansea in the play-offs was worse than Sheffield Wednesday the year before,” says Sodje.

“Even today, not being able to get promotion with Brentford kills me every day. It would’ve made my life a little bit better.”

With promotion out of the question for a second straight season, the writing was on the wall.

Allen resigned on 30 May 2006 and within an 11-day period at the start of July, Sodje, Turner and Jay Tabb were sold to Reading, Hull and Coventry, respectively.

The departure of three of Brentford’s most influential players was an undeniable factor in the miserable relegation season of 2006/07 - but, much like how Allen said he had “taken the club as far as he could”, the trio were objectively too good to spend another year in the third tier.

“It wasn’t really in our hands to say we had pushed the club as far as we could, but if Martin said that, I believe him,” Sodje states.

“It was a natural thing to happen and Brentford knew they couldn’t keep us. But if we went up, are you kidding me? If we went up, I was going nowhere!”

It is clear Brentford still means a lot to Sodje, over 18 years after he left Griffin Park for the final time, even though he concedes he played “too many” games for Brentford. All 100 of his appearances in red and white were starts, for context. “I should have nurtured myself more,” he adds.

What he remembers best, though, is the relationship he had with the fans who worshipped him across those two seasons.

“Brentford is more than a club to me; Brentford is a family to me. I loved the fans, the fans loved me. They never turned against me from the first day I joined Brentford to the day I left,” he says, with true feeling.

“When the fans started loving me, they made me believe that whatever I was doing they appreciated and that made me go to the next level.

“Brentford is my best club ever. It’s my club. Leeds was massive, West Brom was massive, going to Reading was incredible. But don’t forget where I came from to join Brentford. I cannot have a story without Brentford.”