Jody Craddock turns 50 tomorrow.
In many ways, he still looks fit enough and sharp enough to be back out there. Putting head and body on the line. Sweating blood, literally, for the course. Giving opposition strikers short shrift and the odd robust challenge. Belated apologies, Kenwyn Jones.
Staying in such good shape would come as no surprise to anyone who came into contact with Craddock during his 20-year career.
Every day in training, he was usually first in, last out. Heading to the gym before and after the outdoor sessions. Living life right off the pitch. Giving himself every single chance to be the very best that he could possibly be.
And now? It seems very little has changed. Because most mornings, at 5 o’clock, Craddock and sons – Joe, Luke and Toby – head off to the gym together. What a way to set up for the day ahead.
“It’s just a number, isn’t it?” is the reply when Craddock, the Premier League footballer turned artist, is asked to contemplate life at 50.
“I came to Wolves when I was 28 – and I’m turning 50 now. Such a long time ago, and I’ve been retired for over 10 years as well.
“As to how I feel, it depends on the day and the moment.
“When I’m feeling good and playing football with the kids, age is just a number. When I look in the mirror and wonder where the latest wrinkle has come from it’s a bit different!
“But I still keep myself in shape and yes, me and the boys head to the gym at 5 o’clock in the mornings.
“We’ve done it for a few years now – Joe works in Birmingham and has to be on the train at 6.20am so if we’re going to the gym, we’ve all got to go early doors.
“It’s good for me to get it done first thing and get it out of the way so once I’ve then done the school run, I can get up in the studio and concentrate on my painting.
“Although over the last few months, after dropping Toby at school and Luke at work I’ve been going back to the gym to do some rowing.
“Now that is a gruelling workout, but I’ve felt a hell of a lot better as a result. I’m still hanging in there!”
There he is again. Not just doing the minimum, going through the motions, but pushing the limits to improve and develop. Just as it has always been.
It was a career launched in different circumstances to many from Craddock’s era. No progression through a youth system or Academy. No time spent at a club coming through the ranks and learning every day about the skills and qualities needed to make the grade.
He stayed on at school to complete his A-levels whilst playing non-league for Christchurch, from where he was spotted – and signed – by Cambridge.
His debut, in the League One equivalent, came against Stockport County. A wiry 18-year-old central defender up against the legendary Stockport strikeforce of Kevin Francis and Andy Preece.
“I can still remember getting the call the night before, saying one of our lads was injured and I was playing, and part of me was like, ****!” Craddock recalls.
“Then it was facing up to Kevin Francis, who is like 6ft 7in, and Andy Preece, maybe 6 ft 3in, both really good players and strong and powerful.
“I think I handled myself pretty well considering who I was up against, and while I have forgotten a lot of games in my career, I always remember that one.”
Cambridge drew 0-0, and Craddock was off and running.
Foundations had been laid to underpin a career of 581 senior appearances, mostly with Cambridge, Sunderland and Wolves, 174 of which came in the Premier League.
Not to mention 24 goals notched from defence, Championship titles and Player of the Year awards at both Wolves and Sunderland, and memorable local derby wins – his favourite memories – against West Bromwich Albion and Newcastle.
There were also, of course, the difficult moments, the setbacks and indeed relegations
which afflict pretty much every professional career.
To get through those is often a question of mentality. Showing character to rise to the occasion when needed, and to bounce back from adversity. Like Wolves conceding nine goals in Craddock’s first two appearances.
It’s a quality and personality trait that he possesses in abundance. But where did it come from? Is it natural? Instinctive? Or can it be learned?
“I think it’s just my nature,” Craddock replies.
“It didn’t really come from my parents because while they were great and always supported me and came and watched me everywhere, they weren’t sporty themselves.
“I have just always thought that if you want something hard enough, however difficult a challenge, you just keep pushing and pushing until you get there.
“Because I came into the game a little bit later and not through the usual path, I suppose there was an element to thinking I might not be good enough, and the way to overcome that was to work my socks off, day-in day-out, to give myself the best possible shot.
“If that wasn’t good enough, then I could look back knowing that I couldn’t have done any more, and wouldn’t have any regrets.
“If I didn’t make it, there was nobody to blame but myself, and that is the mentality that has stuck with me in everything that I have done.
“Every year, especially as I got older, I had to work hard to win another contract, and that was by doing everything properly on and off the pitch, in what is – let’s face it – is a really privileged position, being a footballer.
“That is a must and the bare minimum for anyone going into football, never to rest on your laurels and make sure you give it everything that you’ve got.”
And that mantra particularly applied to the time Craddock was dispatched on loan to Wolves’ weekend friendly opponents Stoke, and wasn’t expected to come back.
By this stage, the start of the 2007/08 campaign, Craddock had spent four years at Molineux, on the back of a hugely successful six at Sunderland, who had signed him from Cambridge.
Deemed surplus to requirements at Molineux, off he headed up the M6, on the back of one of the greatest goals a central defender will ever score!
In a Carling Cup tie with Bradford, which he decided to play despite having been told he could sit it out ahead of the move, Craddock smashed a volley into the top corner, then mystifying his team-mates by something of a low-key celebration.
“I didn’t celebrate properly because I knew I was leaving, and I was disappointed,” Craddock explains.
“I was told I didn’t have to play but I wanted to, especially if it was going to be my last game at Wolves, and so scoring that goal was a really bittersweet moment.
“I still loved it at Wolves, but I knew I had to go because I wanted to play regular football.
“Things went well at Stoke, I got on well with Tony Pulis who was the manager, the lads were great and it worked being reasonably close.
“I was just about to sign permanently when I was called back by Wolves, and from there, we got promoted and I played another five years!
“The ups and downs are part and parcel of football, aren’t they? You never quite know what’s around the corner.”
It was Mick McCarthy, who had both played and sold Craddock at Sunderland, who first allowed him to leave on loan, but then decided he had made a mistake, and called him back.
McCarthy is one of many top managers who Craddock feels fortunate to have played for during his career, others including Pulis, Peter Reid and Glenn Hoddle.
“Every manager was different in how they handled players, how they delivered training, how they approached matchdays,” he explains.
“You take the good bits from all of them, and I have always said that Mick was the manager who got the most out of me and who I worked best with.
“That’s taking nothing away from the others, who I enjoyed playing for, and Peter Reid gave me the opportunity at Sunderland which really boosted my career.
“Every single manager I played for helped me along the way.”
Under McCarthy, and re-acclimatised back into Wolves after the Sliding Doors moment of Stoke, Craddock shared captaincy duties with Karl Henry during the 2008/09 Championship title success, and went on to become a regular in the Premier League, as well as Player of the Season in the first year back.
And it was McCarthy who returned with assistant Terry Connor to manage a Wolves XI for Craddock’s testimonial, a truly special Bank Holiday Monday after the League One promotion at which almost 10,000 fans flocked to Molineux to pay tribute.
Among their number were a contingent all the way from Wearside, not only to once again watch their promotion-winning heroes spearheaded by Niall Quinn and Kevin Phillips, but also – and probably mainly – because of Craddock.
And that’s because the trials and tribulations faced on a football pitch were nothing compared to the devastating tragedy suffered by Craddock and wife Shelley when they lost their first son Jake, to cot death, at just four months old.
Up in Sunderland, away from family, they have never forgotten the love and support received from the club and supporters to provide comfort at the very worst of times.
Within a week of the tragedy, Craddock was back in training, unable to cope with sitting at home and thinking. He somehow returned to action a month later, coming to the aid of a struggling Sunderland team to help deliver a 1-0 win against Aston Villa, followed by a 7-0 victory in the Carling Cup against his previous club Cambridge.
At times, Shelley went with him to training. Always there to support. She might not accompany the Craddock menfolk to the gym at 5am – she is up with the larks with her own job to go to – but her unwavering strength has very much been the rock from which the family unit, and the football, has been able to thrive.
When Craddock made his first return to Sunderland as a Wolves player in November 2004, he didn’t even get on the pitch.
But when he warmed up as a substitute, the ovation he received from the home fans was one which illustrated the esteem and respect in which he is held. As a person, not just a footballer.
Jake remains constantly in the Craddock’s thoughts, and every year, on his birthday, a social media post draws love and support from across the footballing community, and ensures that he will never be forgotten.
And yet, if that unimaginable grief wasn’t enough for the Craddock’s to contend with, when at Wolves, youngest son Toby was diagnosed with leukaemia, at just two-and-a-half years old.
Thankfully Toby went into remission after undergoing several years of treatment, and is now a keen footballer in his Dad’s image at centre back. A measure of the appreciation carried forward by the family is that Birmingham Children’s Hospital received a healthy proportion of the proceeds from Craddock’s testimonial year. When it comes to the Craddock’s, you wouldn’t expect anything less.
“I’ve always been a family man, and family is the most important thing,” he says.
“That is why, at the end of my career, I didn’t go into coaching, with all the long hours, but went into the art, which was more under my control.
“I had already missed enough summer holidays and Christmases with the kids, and there was no way I was going to let that continue.
“When it comes to what has happened away from football, I can’t thank fans enough for the support they have given us.
“Sunderland fans have always been amazing, they stuck by me through some incredibly difficult times, and Wolves fans were exactly the same.
“That is why the testimonial was such a special day, to get that Sunderland team back together with all the fans travelling down, and the great mix with the Wolves players and fans – it was brilliant.
“I felt massively proud and it’s a day me and my family will never forget.”
So, what now for Craddock? Apart from the early gym sessions, what does life involve as he celebrates his half century.
There is still football. A lot of it! For many years he coached junior teams at Cookley Tigers, near their family home, as his boys moved up through the ages.
That has now transformed into being part of the management team at Dudley Kingswinford, developing a young team, including Joe at winger/wing back, and Luke – another central defender! – who won promotion last season to the West Midlands League Premier Division.
Toby, meanwhile, continues to play for the same Sunday team as he has since he was seven, and Stourbridge on a Saturday.
When Craddock celebrated his milestone birthday into the early hours recently, he was up at 6.30am to accompany Toby to a tournament on a Sunday. And ending up running the line!
“Although I didn’t want to go into coaching full-time when my career ended, I love doing it,” he admits.
“I think I’ll always end up getting dragged into coaching somewhere, whatever level that may be!”
There is clearly immeasurable pride from Craddock and Shelley in the progress of their boys. Joe is now an accomplished jeweller working in Hockley and on the Goldsmith’s apprenticeship programme, Luke is a Marketing Apprentice at MG Sports in Kidderminster, and Toby has just completed his mock GCSE’s.
“They are all still at home – they’re not daft,” laughs Craddock.
Then, of course, there is the art. Even as we speak, he is sat at his easel, indulging in a hobby that initially started at school, helped with the grieving process after losing Jake, and has ended up becoming a second career.
Craddock has exhibited all over the country, as well as delivering a wide range of commissions, and has kept a link with football including a display in the Wolves Museum, which was accompanied by a special Wolf head, signifying the different strands of the club.
He has also just produced a new range of football pieces due out shortly.
“I absolutely love painting, and do it every single day,” he declares.
“Even if I’m not selling them, I love the process involved, and will continue to keep plugging hard and doing what I can to get my work out there.”
Towards the end of his career, Craddock was on an exercise bike in the gym at Wolves, and was asked by team-mate Matt Murray how he would feel when the day of retirement arrived.
Murray always remembers the answer. That Craddock had given absolutely everything he had, every single day, and had reached the highest level that he possibly could, so would walk away with zero regrets. And that is why, when he was the voice of experience in McCarthy’s young and hungry brigade at Wolves, his calm and reasoned leadership made him such a popular figure and role model within the dressing room.
As he reaches another of life’s milestones, and continues on with that same attitude, it’s little wonder that he can look back with pride and satisfaction at his various achievements, particularly when being confronted with so much personal and professional heartache along the way.
There’s only one Jody Craddock. And he’s always been ‘alright’.
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