It was a tumultuous end to a mad, bad season for Bolton’s Scotland captain
Ian Whittell
He is 35, six months past a footballer’s pensionable age. Yet while most of his peers were dusting down the policies, sizing up a place either behind or at the bar or wearing a groove in the TV analysts’ couch, Colin Hendry was at the Millennium stadium on Monday, centre stage, putting body and reputation on the line for one last shot at the Premiership.
The Scotland team captain neither expects nor wants pity; he will gladly admit that he is remunerated for his endeavours beyond the wildest dreams of most of the population, but the fact remains that this has been the most trying of seasons for the Bolton Wanderers centrehalf.
He says not, but more than once the thought must have crossed his mind to retire, to enjoy his wealth and family of four children and spare his worn-out body the rigours of professional football. Yet a season that began with his Coventry career in tatters, jeered off by his own supporters and effectively abandoned by manager Gordon Strachan, ended with him helping his new employers replace his old in the top division.
“I’m settled again, very much so,” says Hendry. “We moved into a house in Lytham six weeks ago and it has brought some sanity back to our family life. I was beginning to get a bit worried about the kids because we have four of them and you do worry about schools and making sure everything is correct for them.
“The kids are still finding everything a bit fresh, but Lytham is like the Cote d’Azur at the moment you look out of your window and look towards the sea and the weather is fantastic. I needed to get my family values in order and it’s going great.
“It all began with Coventry because my wife Denise went up to Scotland at Christmas and said she wasn’t going back to Coventry. I ended up coming to Bolton and it was the right decision.
“The first game of this season [against Middlesbrough] I held my hands up for one of their goals but I was booed off with all my family and friends in the stand. The last game I had played for Coventry before that I smashed my cheekbone on Freddie Kanout’s leg at the end of April.
“It seemed bizarre that one game I was being carried off, the next I was booed off. The next and last time I played for them was for 40 minutes against Spurs. Gordon Strachan said he wanted to pull me out of the team after I was booed, which I didn’t agree with.
“The Coventry chairman, Bryan Richardson, came out and said that Gordon was a family man and should be treated better when the fans turned on him but I never got that treatment. I still have friends at Coventry and I’m sorry for them they went down but, apart from a brief good-luck message when I left, I’ve not spoken to Gordon since.”
Of course, Coventry were not the only tribulation laid in Hendry’s path this season. In a routine World Cup victory over San Marino he was captured on video elbowing an opponent, the Scottish press’s hysterical response only outdone by Fifa, who handed him a six-match ban.
Publicly, Hendry dealt with the controversy with the same unflappable stoicism that has been a mark of his football. Privately, friends say he was devastated, as much by the reaction in his homeland as by the penalty which was later halved on appeal.
“There are always one or two people up there in Scotland who want to make a name for themselves out of what happened, but it’s not a problem for me,” Hendry insists. “If I had done other things in my career, I would have been in the papers a lot more often, but I have always gone about my job in the right way.
“I appreciate all I have, my family and my achievements. Those thing are not taken for granted. It was very important to get a bit of sanity back, though. I always knew that I would come through it, but for my family’s sake I wanted a bit of sanity there.
“It was obviously good news when Fifa reduced my ban. I think there was justification for them to do so. They looked at it and put it into context.
“A lot of people have seen the reality of what happened, although you had to go into detail and look at all of the different camera angles to see my case. I was trying to free myself. I didn’t know the guy’s head was there. The accident just happened.
“Lots of people were critical of me afterwards, but what’s done is done. I have to say, though, that the letters of support that I have had have been overwhelming. Obviously, there have been some that have not been so supportive, but that’s the way of the world. No matter what happens, some people will always see things differently.”
Doing those right things extended to helping steady Bolton’s promotion bid. He has two more seasons left on his Bolton contract.
“People go on about my fitness, Bolton and my advisers talked about it for days when I signed,” he says. “But I’ve played four games in eight days twice this season.
“I love the game, I’m enthusiastic and you just have to take it when it comes along.”