From a famous second round UEFA Cup win for Norwich City against Bayern Munich to playing in front of a packed St James’ Park for Newcastle United, Ruel Fox has seen the glamorous highs of the beautiful game. But fast forward 30 years and you are more likely to find him with a brush in hand touching up paintwork around his beloved but run-down Whitton United in Ipswich, where he is the club chairman.
Fox, now 55, first walked through the gates of Whitton as an eight-year-old and it was to be a love affair that has lasted a lifetime.
But the Ipswich-born winger, who still lives in town, paints an honest picture of life in the Thurlow Nunn First Division North league, where The Greens currently are second from bottom with just four wins in 18 games.
One of the biggest challenges, Fox believes, that affects the latest generation of players is a lack of commitment to the game that saw him make his name at Norwich, before leaving on what was then a big money £2.25m transfer to Kevin Keegan’s attack-focused Newcastle United team.
“I am a local lad, even when I was playing professional football I was coming back to Whitton at weekends,” he says.
“I have an affinity with the place. That’s just the way I was brought up.
“It might be different for other people but I have always wanted to put back in and help out where I can.
“I am not too sure the types of players who are around now actually love the game as much as we did. I think they like playing the game but they don’t love it… there’s something that’s not there.
“I think it’s society – when we were successful and winning things, no-one got paid.
“Even before you sign a player now, they want to be paid money before you’ve even seen them play football.”
Whitton have struggled to keep a regular team together with the higher wages paid by other clubs in the league making it hard to compete.
Coupled with a lack of volunteers around the club, it leads to a stark warning from Fox that Whitton, which began life in 1926, could be playing their last season.
“I am very worried that if we don’t get the help on that football side, then I don’t know if we’ll be having the same conversation again at the end of the season,” Fox says.
“I think it will be talking about folding the club and just hiring the pitches out to other teams.
“It’s a really strong community place but unfortunately we are going through hard times. We are just being brutally honest.”
Fox, along with first team manager Tony Lanni, 40, and a small but dedicated team of committee members meet on an almost daily basis to repair broken toilet seats, fix dripping taps, fill in rabbit holes on the pitch and wash the kits. The list goes on.
Having already managed the club, he came back on board as chairman again last season amid a period of turmoil and approaches his jack-of-all-trade role with a “just get on with it” attitude.
It is, of course, a far cry from his Premier League days which saw him score 36 goals in 223 games for Norwich, Newcastle and Spurs.
Despite Fox’s glamorous playing past, his involvement does not generate a throng of people to help with the day-to-day running of Whitton, which survives on a budget of about £30,000 per season.
Open days at the start of the season – a chance for spring cleaning and much-needed renewal – saw just half a dozen or so turn out.
“We have volunteers down here but some of them were here when I was a kid.
“To see an 80-year-old coming down here and picking up litter, that’s not a comfortable situation,” he adds.
Whitton’s first team players take home an average of £30 to £50 per game, making the club one of the lower payers in its league.
It is a budget that has not changed in the past decade, according to Fox, but he warned the temptation to “keep up with the Joneses” of other teams could lead to a precarious financial position.
Grants have been made, including £80,000 which will be used to resurface the car park, while Ipswich Borough Council has allocated funds towards a renewal of the social club.
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