ADRIAN CLIFTON is in a reflective mood as the sun goes down at Meadow Park.
Sat pitchside in his kit after coming off the bench to see out a 1-0 National League win over Eastleigh on Saturday, the 33-year-old Boreham Wood striker is holding a folder full of photos.
They are of him as a kid during his days in the Arsenal youth ranks before he was let go in 2004, aged 15.
Clifton admits to getting emotional looking at them.
Following his Gunners exit he turned to crime and was jailed three times between the ages of 16 and 21, before turning his life around in non-league football thanks in part to a chance meeting with Ian Wright on the Sky One programme Football Behind Bars.
Arsenal legend Wrighty helped Clifton get a trial with Wycombe following his release from prison but more importantly, inspired him to take control of his life.
Clifton took his advice and soon became a qualified gas engineer.
It seems fitting then that Clifton remembers his past as he looks ahead to one of the biggest games of his life — an FA Cup fifth-round tie at Premier League side Everton.
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He will most likely make a substitutes appearance at Goodison Park on Thursday but that will not make the moment any less special.
Clifton said: “I have been a lot of different places in my life.
“I always look at football as no pressure, because I have been there. I have been in prison.
“Football isn’t pressure. I enjoy the moment. This is something I dreamed of when I was sat in that cell.
“I am here now, doing it. I will just enjoy it.
“I am laughing, I am happy to be here. It will also be a case of, ‘I’ve done it’.
“I am ready for my opportunity and when it comes I am more than ready to take it. Born ready.”
Since leaving prison, Clifton has been a non-league journeyman, going from the likes of Romford and Maidenhead United, to Bromley and Dagenham & Redbridge.
Yet it was a free-agent move from the Daggers to Boreham Wood last summer that finally made him feel like he was at home.
Boreham Wood are a real community club.
A crowd of 1,236 were inside Meadow Park to see the win over Eastleigh, with the majority clutching their commemorative FA Cup match shirts and half-and-half scarves bought from the stadium shop.
Clifton explained: “Every couple of years, if you are lucky, you will be involved in a team like this one.
“I have had many different clubs. You don’t always gel and it isn’t always a family vibe and it just feels like work.
“With this group it is a family. Everything gels, from the manager to the kit lady and to the physio.
“Everyone wants to hang around, no one is in and out.
“People always ask us how we have got this far.
“When they look at our team they don’t see special players, like showcase players but we have got this far because we are a family. We have found that formula.”
And it is certainly one hell of a formula. From their fourth round qualifying win over Barnet, to their historic third- and fourth-round proper victories against AFC Wimbledon and Bournemouth, they are yet to concede a single goal.
All the more impressive is that boss Luke Garrard’s side are one of the oldest in the National League, with an average age of around 28.
Clifton — who grabbed a goal from the bench in the 2-0 third-round win against Wimbledon — laughed and said: “Some of the boys here will move on and be involved in more games like this. But especially for an old boy like me, it’s the biggest game I have ever played in.
“We have the oldest side in the league but I like to think I am the leader of men and I can offer a lot.
“I would be lying if I said we haven’t had this Everton game in the backs of our minds though. It has been tough for us to focus, but we are here now. It’s time to go.”
Just after the full-time whistle of their win at home to Eastleigh, Garrard gathered the whole squad and the staff in a huddle in the middle of the pitch.
So, what was said?: “It was something along the lines of: ‘We can beat them. Get it in your heads now that we can beat Everton’.
“That’s what the gaffer does. He plants seeds in the boys. He did it before Wimbledon and Bournemouth. I was genuinely convinced we would win these games, because of the boss.
“I look forward to prepping for the game and watching videos of all these internationals.
“But we are playing a Premier League side that aren’t doing too well. We will believe we will go there and get something, otherwise there is no point.”
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
