From Supermarket worker to Premier league striker in six months

Our Sports Correspondent Steve Clamp caught up with Malcolm Christie, from shop worker to Premier League footballer

The story of Malcolm Christie's rise from shop floor to fame is the stuff of fairytales.

In April 1998 he was busy running the dairy section of a Summerfield Supermarket in his home town of Stamford in Lincolnshire, before the year was out he had signed a contract as a Premier League footballer.

He would go on to become a prolific scorer in the top flight and was touted as a prospect for full England honours having made his mark with the under 21's.

But he would fall from the top of the game nearly as quickly as he had first risen.

Now sporting a beard and a smile he recalled those days.

"I don't think it's been done before and I don't think it will be done again, where someone is plucked from relative obscurity, from the April 1998 when I was working in the supermarket and playing for my brothers fruit and veg team in Peterborough Sunday League, to six months later where I've signed a three year contract as a striker in the Premier League."

Things certainly happened fast in 1998.

Malcolm left the supermarket in Stamford in Lincolnshire, to sign for non league Nuneaton Town.

Within months of arriving there he was scouted by Derby County, at that time a Premier League side, and that led to his move into football's top tier.

Malcolm broke into the Derby first team in 2000 and quickly set about using his pace and strength to put fear into defences, even scoring on his debut away against Middlesbrough. 

"To go there (Middlesbrough) and win 4-1 and score two goals on my full debut, to do that and know as well that my mum and dad were in the crowd, to do that and repay them for everything they had done for me was fantastic"

Having established himself as a Premier League striker Malcolm was snapped up by a big spending and highly ambitious Middlesbrough side in 2003. 

"It started off really good at Middlesbrough, I scored a few times in my first few games when I joined there, but at the start of the following season it just all unravelled very very quickly for me, I broke my leg in the November of 2003, and pretty much up to the January 2009 when I retired, from that original leg break, I was just never the same player."

And one of the young players toughest moments was being forced to sit in the stands as his team won the League Cup final, despite having scored a crucial winner in an earlier round.

"To see that Cup run and to go along to the Millennium Stadium and to sit in the stands and watch the game and watch the celebrations and watch my teammates and not to be able to go onto the pitch or the changing rooms and experience what that must have been like.

"It was incredibly hard and it affected me massively at the time."

After four injury blighted years at Middlesbrough Malcolm found himself without a club in 2007.

Eventually, dropping down to League One, he was picked up by Leeds United.

And having finally regained full fitness he was offered a contract.

Only for yet another blow.

"The morning when I was due to the sign the contract I was doing a crossing and finishing session and I twisted awkwardly and I broke my back, unbelievable, really unbelievable and by that stage I was ready to throw the towel in.

"But after many months I managed to get myself back and fit and even managed to play 5 games for Leeds, but I realised I wasn't the same player and I couldn't play the sort of game I am sure the Derby fans would remember me playing.

"Being on the shoulder and quicker than everyone else. I was just ready to give up."

Malcolm now knew his battle to return to the game was over.

There was no way to return this time. In 2009 at just 29 he retired from football.

The repeated battles to regain fitness had not only taken their toll on his body but on his mental health.

"I went through an awful lot, during my injuries.

"No one tells you how to be an injured player, not being able to get out there, (just) watching matches, I was not used to dealing with that.

"Then, at that stage when I was explaining how I was feeling to people, saying I just don't feel myself, and my vision was being affected, they (just) sent me for an eye test!

"There wasn't any 'actually Malcolm how are you feeling, are you feeling OK?' There was none of that, just 'Eye test!', it is laughable really when you look back."

And it was then that Malcolm, a man who had lived and breathed football now turned his back on the game altogether.

Setting out on a new career in the motor industry where colleagues were asked not to speak to him about football.

But eventually, after many years the first signs that his love for the game was not gone forever were triggered by his own children.

"My first two that were born were at an age where they were asking me about football, 'what Dad did'.

"They would say 'Dad, show us what you did' and (want to see) the videos and DVD's. And I thought 'Do you know what they are proud of me and I should be able to embrace that'."

And now he has moved back into the sport, running a coaching school and writing, and designing his autobiography 'The Reality of the Dream'. 

Malcolm's football career may have ended far too early.

But his story is, for many young boys and girls, the stuff of dreams.

And unlike the yoghurts he used to arrange on the supermarket shelves, it's a tale that will never go out of date.