Looking in from the outside, Liam Hughes had everything.
A tall striker with a decent turn of pace, strong in the air with a powerful left foot and a clinical eye for goal.
He was pursuing his dream to become a professional footballer. And it was going well.
At 18, after spending a large part of his childhood within Wolves’ Academy, he signed his first ever senior contract. A step closer to the first team, a step closer to the one place where he had always wanted to be.
On the inside however, Hughes certainly didn’t have everything. More accurately, he had nothing.
On the inside he was desperately struggling. Mentally, he was in pain. Unable to understand why, and, for the most part, uncomfortable about speaking up.
He had the footballing world at his feet, but the weight of the world in his head.
And that would ultimately prove a disastrous combination.
At the age of 20, Hughes was released by Wolves. A regular routine of fast cars, late nights, and various substance abuse – all to try and mask the mental anguish – was simply not conducive to the life of a burgeoning professional footballer.
A year later he was involved in the robbery of a local shop not too far from his home in Gornal. That led to a jail sentence, prior to which he was stabbed in an altercation.
That, in summary, provides the nuts and bolts of the Liam Hughes story. A story of missed opportunity but also of misunderstanding, of unrelenting pain and unbearable torment.
Behind it, the words and emotions offer a sobering reminder of the suffocating expectations and pressures which can afflict a young footballer who throws everything at their hopes of a career.
Yet fast forward a few years, and it also becomes a story about the power and resilience of the human spirit. Hughes is acutely aware that he has let people down. That so many relationships with family and friends suffered because of his behaviour. But now he is making amends.
There is an argument, at one stage a likelihood, that he might not even have been here to be able to tell the tale. Thankfully, he is. And he is making steps to try and move towards brighter days ahead.
***
We meet for a coffee on an early Tuesday evening at the café at Morrisons supermarket in Bilston. Hughes bounds in with a spring in his step and a smile on his face. He has a very early start the next day, off to Leeds where he supports friend Chris with running several cafes. His business ambitions also include – and this is the Holy Grail – one day opening a football academy in Tenerife.
By the end of the conversation, there is very much the impression that this should not be labelled as the story of a failed footballer but a more powerful one of recovery and redemption. There is much that he still wants to do.
“Yeh things are good at the moment – I’m feeling great and enjoying life,” he begins.
“I’m still here you know, because I’ve been in such a dark place that when I look back, as bad as things were, sometimes I haven’t got a clue how I actually made it through.
“When I think back to where I have been, where I was mentally, it’s crazy really, and I know there are a lot of people who I have hurt.
“I was a kid who didn’t know what to do or where to go in life, and I just kept all those feelings in and eventually they just built up and it all spilled over.
“To be honest, it could have been way worse because I could have carried on living that life and carried on being in all that pain.
“But it’s done now, and I can talk about it, because I’m in a good place now, with good people around me, and where I believe I can help others who might be going through similar experiences.
“I have found what I need to do and where I need to be in life, and I love being in that place.”
***
Hughes’ footballing story began like thousands upon thousands of others, as a young boy, kicking a ball against a wall for hour upon hour every day near his home in Gornal, playing for a local junior team, dreaming of what might one day be around the corner.
He was first taken on by Wolves Academy at the age of 10 and, after an initial blip where he left as he wanted to continue playing with friends, returned to progress up through the age groups, scoring goals for fun along the way.
Hughes recalls with fondness the wise counsel of coaches and staff such as John Trewick, Glyn Harding, Carlo Federici and John Perkins, both on and off the pitch, not to mention the highlight of those formative years, winning the Shizuoka World junior tournament out in Japan in 2001.
Alongside team-mates such as Elliott Bennett, Lee Collins and Matt Bailey, Hughes was part of the Wolves Under-12s team which won the competition, playing the final on the same pitch on which Ronaldinho lobbed David Seaman when Brazil beat England in the World Cup a year later.
“That tournament, and the people I shared it with, is something that will always stay with me,” he admits.
By 16, he had already been on school release to train with the Academy, and then put pen to paper on a two-year scholarship, back in the days of reporting to Molineux and getting the minibus down to Compton, ahead of the training complex’s official opening back in 2005.
Hughes continued scoring goals at Under-18 level, and relished the associated opportunities to train with the first team, including the likes of Paul Ince and Denis Irwin, and at one time Paul Gascoigne, as well as being in and around the squad which reached the semi finals of the FA Youth Cup.
Then at 18, the dream moved a step closer to realisation. Along with Bennett, Collins, Bailey and Mark Salmon, Hughes signed his first professional contract.
And yet, if it looked like the footballing career was progressing nice and serenely on the surface, mentally, Hughes was kicking and screaming below the water line. He had hoped that becoming a professional might make things easier. Unfortunately, it didn’t.
“I can still remember getting the call about my professional contract, which is all I had ever wanted,” he recalls.
“But it just didn’t make any difference, I was completely stuck in a rut.
“At a time when I should have been mentally fresh, raring to go, ready to press on, I just didn’t know what to do.
“I’d been losing myself from about 16 onwards, I can’t put my hand on why and there was nothing in particular that happened, but I was on a slope, and I couldn’t stop falling.
“How I was living, what I was doing away from football, it just wasn’t right.
“Instead of eating the right foods, preparing properly for football, getting enough sleep, I was doing all the things that I shouldn’t do – going out late, getting in with the wrong crowd, not giving my body time to rest.
“I was then getting up and going and trying to train with these top players, but I was at 50 to 60 per cent, so I just wasn’t giving myself a chance.
“I just couldn’t understand myself, and I was weak mentally, so I would be a people pleaser and wouldn’t be able to say ‘no’ to all the other stuff away from football.
“For 90 minutes on the pitch it was a release, and I felt free, but away from that I never had any joy in life and I couldn’t look forward to anything.
“I was a young lad who wasn’t living right, and was going at 100 miles an hour whether that was fast cars, drinking, going out – I just never knew how to slow it down.
“And at that time, I just felt it would be a weakness to speak out, to try and tell people how much I was struggling.
“It’s a tough game, football, being in the dressing room with around 30 other lads, and I felt I couldn’t open up, but I know now that I could have done, because I wasn’t the only one who was feeling like that.
“It was the worst thing I ever did to keep it all in.”
Hughes recalls a moment when Bennett, whom he remains in touch with and went to watch at Shrewsbury last season, once using his paycheque to buy a nice mattress for his bedroom.
Hughes and others took the mickey out of that, whilst proceeding to squander his own money in all sorts of different ways.
“Elliott took the right approach, didn’t he? He’s a great man who’s had a great career,” is Hughes’ take on it now.
And what is clear throughout that this conversation is that Hughes admits there is absolutely no one else to blame but himself. There is no bitterness or recrimination, no feeling that Wolves could or should have done more.
Because whilst there is more structured support in place for footballers now with player care staff at both first team and Academy levels, there were also avenues open back then, should he have decided to take them.
He remembers first team managers Glenn Hoddle and Mick McCarthy as being available and approachable, Terry Connor – then a coach – exactly the same, and it was also the time when young players had access to counsellors Mike Wood and former midfielder Jeff Whitley, brought in by McCarthy to deliver advice and guidance to the club’s young talent.
Under the encouragement of McCarthy and Wood, Hughes took the opportunity to try and address his issues, with a 28-day stay at a Sporting Chance clinic in Hampshire, receiving specialist mental health support.
“Mick and ‘Woody’ were great with me, they tried everything, and I owe them the utmost respect,” says Hughes.
“They got me into Sporting Chance, which is an unbelievable place.
“I have never felt as good as I did when I came out, so sharp mentally and physically, and in the best shape of my life.
“I was getting up early in the morning, fresh and ready, I was training really well, and yet, two or three months on, I gradually slipped back into the old habits of doing the wrong things.
“It was never easy to swing my head if I’m honest, and so, while the help was there, I can only ever blame one person, and that is myself.”
Hughes was still performing on the pitch even though he was experiencing such darkness with his mental health.
He picked up his four senior appearances on loan at Bury, and had another temporary stay with Stafford Rangers under the management of Steve Bull, and was still scoring goals for Wolves reserves whilst relishing taking on some of the big boys such as Steven Gerrard with Liverpool and Jonny Evans and Gerard Pique with Manchester United.
But he knew, even if he wouldn’t admit it at the time, that the struggles with his mental and physical health weren’t going unnoticed, and so he also knew, that when his contract came to an end, he wouldn’t be offered another one.
That rejection, when it arrived, prompted only further crisis.
There were offers, including to go out to Hoddle’s Academy in Spain to train with a view to try and land a contract, interest from Scotland with Hamilton Academicals and also from America.
Hughes, however, didn’t want to leave his home turf, where he was comfortable, with a cocktail of people he trusted, and never-ending nights out. He admits he was ‘scared’ to spread his wings, but in staying at home, and not escaping that environment, his decline continued.
***
There is a quote that says that reaching rock bottom will teach you lessons that mountain tops never will.
And Hughes was about to hit rock bottom.
In February 2010, he and a friend ended up robbing a local shop in Lower Gornal, claiming to have a gun, an incident which would ultimately lead to him serving 14 months of a 32-month sentence, before being released on tag.
There was even time for him to get stabbed in an altercation before being apprehended and taken into custody.
The robbery was not planned or premeditated. The complete opposite. Hughes was strongly under the influence of drink, and in need of money, and, in the spur of the moment, sunk to his lowest depths.
“I had been on the wrong road for a while and was no good for anything,” he recalls.
“That is where I was mentally, going around doing stuff off the cuff, and it was a terrible, terrible thing to do – it should never have happened.
“That was rock bottom, it couldn’t get any lower than that and I think I finally realised that it was time to stop.
“I was in hospital after being stabbed when I was caught and ended up in jail walking around with a Zimmer frame.
“I wouldn’t say I have ever properly thought about killing myself, but at that point I wasn’t scared of dying, and remember thinking that if it was going to happen, then let it happen.
“But do you know what? I knew that was my worst point, being in jail where you need to look after yourself, and not being able to walk properly, but it was from there that things started to get better.
“Every day I had been waking up in such pain mentally, wanting to fight it but having no fight left, but once I was in jail, I accepted it, and managed to deal with it.
“I found myself in a good routine, getting up and making my bed, going to work in the prison and doing courses in areas like decorating and labouring, and there was enough there to keep me mentally right.
“No one wants to be in jail, but I felt like my mind was out of jail, I was learning, and every day I started to feel something again.
“I re-discovered the fundamentals of life, because out in the real world I had found everything so loud and so fast – now I had some time to think what I needed, time to sort out the wires in my head and build some strength and go from there.
“I started to want the simple things in life again, having good relationships with family and friends, and I think that is why they say you sometimes have to hit rock bottom before you can start again.”
On being released, Hughes stayed away from football for a few years, blaming the game in some way for his traumatic experiences, and he also found obtaining work difficult, due to his criminal record.
But he was now equipped enough to negotiate life’s up and downs with both strength and humility and, to his immense credit, continued to move forward.
He eventually returned to play football at non-league level, including to prolific effect at Sporting Khalsa, which also featured returning to Molineux to score in the final of the JW Hunt Cup.
More recently, he has greatly appreciated the invitation from Jody Craddock and Mel Eves to turn out for Wolves Allstars, where he once again found the net at Molineux in a game earlier this summer.
“I still get butterflies coming back to Molineux,” he admits.
Work-wise, things have also been looking up, with those cafes and business interests alongside his friend in Leeds, and plans to retake the coaching qualifications gained many years ago as part of an ambitious plan to one day open up his own football academy in Tenerife, a place he feels fortunate to be able to visit regularly.
For players who are struggling to cope with rejection, players who need some support and guidance before trying to return to the system, there can surely be no better advocate.
And within that, is more pain, the pain felt by the friends, family and former team-mates of Collins, who, coming to the end of a hugely successful career, tragically took his own life back in 2021.
Hughes was close to Collins, who, always seen as such a tower of strength by team-mates and coaches, had been battling his own demons for many years.
“I had some great times with Lee, and just a few days before he passed, we had been exchanging messages,” says Hughes.
“We were speaking about a time in Italy, when we snuck out of the hotel at night, and just reminiscing with loads of laughing faces.
“I still look back at those messages, because on the surface, Lee was one of the strongest men I had ever met.
“In his mentality, if the ball was on the floor on the goal line, and he needed to stick his head there to stop it, even taking a boot in the face, he would do it.
“He must have been in so much pain to think that he needed to get out of this world, and I think it just shows what can happen if we don’t speak out or feel we can speak out and talk about our problems.
“That’s why I think I might be able to help people now, and the long-term ambition is to open an Academy in Tenerife, to try and help players of all ages, but particularly those that may have been rejected or have nowhere else to turn.”
***
More important than anything, however, is where Hughes is mentally.
Whilst in prison, he took great strength from starting to pray, a process he has continued, and one which brings him energy and lessens any weight when tough times come calling.
He also reads, and can turn to meditation and yoga when necessary, as well as listening to more relaxing music, all of which is designed to quieten the mind which had become so accustomed to operating at 100 miles an hour.
That’s not to say life is wonderful, and has turned into a Disney film. Hughes knows he has to be mindful of his relationship with alcohol, and that there will be plenty of bad days as well as good.
He is just far better equipped to deal with them.
“I believe that the way I was going, what happened to me had to happen to me if I was ever going to change,” he admits.
“I used to take problems really personally, and think they just happened to me, but now my coping mechanism is so much better than that I can let those problems and bad thoughts in, but know that they will pass.
“Life sometimes doesn’t work out like we want to, and of course I’d prefer the footballing journey to have worked out – we might be having this conversation in a mansion if it had!
“But it didn’t, and for me life itself is the best riches now.
“I understand we all need to earn a living and bring in money, and I do that, but my main satisfaction now comes from helping others, and being there when people reach out to me.
“I do sometimes have to remind myself where I have come from and what I have been through, and at first it was hard to look in the mirror and be honest with myself, but now I feel so much gratitude in my heart, and my life is in a much better place.”
There might not be much left from the football career, although Hughes has kept the match issued number 37 shirt he received when he was in the squad for a game against Charlton, and he does sometimes dare to dream about what might have happened had his attitude and approach been different.
But most of the time now is spent enjoying and making the most of the present, and looking excitedly to the future.
That young man who just couldn’t be comfortable in his own skin, who found himself unable to cope with the opportunity that had been put in front of him, and wasn’t able to say no to outside influences which affected his dream, must seem like a completely different person.
“It’s all about the simple stuff now, and just trying to be kind and to be good,” he insists.
“Nowadays I can get up and take pleasure in feeling happy and fresh in a morning, just looking outside and seeing the flowers growing and the sun coming up.
“Because there was once a time when I probably wouldn’t have been able to tell you if it was day or if it was night.”
This article first appeared in the Express & Star – https://www.expressandstar.com/sport/football/wolverhampton-wanderers-fc/2024/08/08/liam-hughes-finds-his-happy-place/
