Alan Bennett: ‘The worst thing about this job? Getting better in your head but worse in your body’

By David Ludzik

Having enjoyed a stellar career on both sides of the Irish Sea, Alan Bennett could have been forgiven for edging into the shadows and planning his retirement after losing his place in the side earlier this season.

But that was never going to be an option for one of Cork City’s greatest ever players.

Bennett is no ordinary defender, however, and the legendary centre-back knows he has been blessed to make a living from the game for so long and his love for his trade still burns brightly.

Instead of ranting and raving at his demotion, the intelligent and model professional knew the time would come sooner or later.

“I don’t think it will ever really sit easily with me (being dropped). I don’t think you can sit (games) out and be happy but it’s inevitable, it really is,” said Bennett, who came through the ranks at City before signing for Reading in 2007.

“That’s the worst thing about this job, you are getting better in your head but worse in your body.

“You are in that sort of place where you are really comfortable with your game as a person, but your body is deteriorating.

“I would have watched a lot of players retiring over the years and a lot of them would have said to get out at your peak.

“A lot of them would have said they wouldn’t feel happy in a reduced role, but those lads are millionaires retiring, whereas I’m going to transition to a different job.”

“I understand how lucky I am to be in this job, I understand how fortunate I am to get up every Monday morning and come into work absolutely delighted.

“I see my wife sometimes getting the hump on a Sunday night because she is going into work on a Monday morning, but I’ve never ever had that feeling coming into football.

“It’s something I want to continue with and for those reasons alone, selfish as they are, is why I want to continue next year.”

Bennett has always been an old-style centre-half, who knows his job is to defend first and foremost and knows his capabilities.

These traits have gone down well with many of the managers he has played under; captaining Brentford, Cheltenham Town and AFC Wimbledon during his spell in England.

Having been around the lower leagues in the Championship, Bennett, who won a League Two title with Brentford, knows how hard players must to work in order to make a living from football. The glitz and glamour of the Premier League is only for a select few, and having seen it all in England, ‘Benno’, now 37, has grown to understand and appreciate that task that managers have.

“He (John Caulfield) had to do what he had to do, and I fully understand that. If I’d been in his position, I’d have done exactly the same thing.”

“Do I wish I’d played more games? Absolutely. Did I feel as though I could have played more games? Probably. But then we are at a club where you probably play 10 games and win eight, draw one and lose one. How do you sit a lad down and drop him after playing in those games?

A lot of fans thought it was the end of Bennett when Caulfield signed Damien Delaney in June — a player who played in the Premier League a season before and not too dissimilar in style to Bennett.

Bennett counters: “If any Irish club is offered a Premier League player, you are going to take him, you are going to snap his hand off. And him coming back was brilliant. We would have played in the youth team together, so I would have known him really well.

“We would have crossed paths the odd time in England, and he’s a really good guy, so to have him in the group was exceptional. It was a phenomenal signing and something that had to be done.”

Bennett, who played twice for Ireland under Steve Staunton on a US Tour in 2007, has been superb in City’s cup run this year and is always a calming presence in the heart of the back four. So, is he confident of making the starting XI at The Aviva, where he could lift the Cup for the third time?

“I’d be confident enough alright after playing in every cup game this season, I would be quite confident of playing.”

Caulfield believes Bennett will go down as the best centre back in the club’s history, which is high praise indeed when you put him in the same company with the likes of Declan Daly, Fergus O’Donoghue, Derek Coughlan and Dan Murray to name a few.

And as always, the experienced and studious Bennett has words of advice for the younger players tomorrow, as they bid to create history by keeping the Cup in Cork for three years in-a-row.

“In any line of work, you want your work to mean something, and for us to be able to put together a legacy, to write our history, is beyond my wildest dreams. For the younger players, I think the most important thing for them is to understand the process that got us to this situation.

“The key is not to be focusing on the fact that you are in four finals or lost the league this year or going for the league next year. It’s understanding every single rep, every single run, every single drill that you have done to get to this situation and to maintain those standards.

“And before you know it, it’s gone and then you’ll realise that, ‘oh, we’re not making the final this year,’ and you have to think back to last year to remember ‘what were the standards that we set.’ But it’s too late then so it’s about understanding the process more than anything.”