For too long, Steve Evans ignored the signs. The clear ones and the subtle ones.
He ignored the scales as they edged north of 20st. He ignored the gentle promptings of medical staff at clubs where he managed and the less gentle lampooning of people we will talk about later. He even ignored Sir Alex Ferguson[1].
And so the rather classic routine of an overworked football coach in his 60s went on. Stress, poor diet, not enough exercise. The kind of combination that he was warned by a heart doctor could kill him before his time.
Takeaways on the way home from a night game. All eaten off the car seat as he drove. And then, sometimes, a glass of wine at the kitchen table in the wee hours. Maybe the whole bottle.
‘A dark place,’ nods Evans as we sit now at that same table.
So it had to change and one day it did. When Evans was sacked by Rotherham in March, the intervention that may have saved him came from his wife Sarah.
Steve Evans celebrates victory in his days as Stevenage manager back in 2023, when he was hitting the 20st mark
Evans takes his dogs, Hugo and Boris, for a walk near his Peterborough home. The manager has lost over seven stone in the last six months
‘She said I should take a summer away from the stress of it and that we should buy into a plan of getting fit and healthy,’ explains Evans, a 30-year veteran of eight EFL clubs.
‘My wife had never run a metre in her life. But she said she would start as long as I did too. She knew the way I was heading.
‘I was sacked on the Sunday and in the local gym on the Tuesday. That’s where it started. Now Sarah runs and I do a heck of a lot of swimming.’
Evans sits before us in shorts and T-shirt in his house 15 minutes outside of Peterborough. Two dogs – Hugo and Boris – play at his feet and they are not under walked.
The 62-year-old is seven stone and a pound lighter than he was that day in March. At his heaviest he was 20-and-a-half stone and the visible transformation has been startling. The internet is littered with photographs of an obese man squeezed into football manager garb. He is not that man now.
‘I haven’t done the weight-loss drugs, even though people said I should,’ he says. ‘I chose the hard way. Diet, pool and gym. I have done 82 lengths this morning.’
At the start, back in the spring, Evans’ daily calorie intake was cut by the experts to a measly 800. Currently it’s 1,200. The recommended number for a man is about 2,400.
‘It’s hard when you realise that a cappuccino has 170 calories in,’ he laughs. ‘But it’s fruit for breakfast, exercise, fruit and yoghurt at lunch and then something nicer like chicken or fish or steak for dinner. Lots of vegetables and an ice cream occasionally for a treat.’
Evans admits he was ‘in a dark place’, drinking too much and eating the wrong foods. ‘I would go in the gym with the players and have a coffee while they worked out,’ he says
He is in a happier place now and is grateful for the intervention of a cardiologist who asked him if he wanted to see his grandchildren grow up
The life of a football manager doesn’t play to temperance but the motivation to continue on this extreme journey is clear. He knows the lifestyle he has left behind was going to finish him.
‘I met with a top cardiologist through the League Managers Association and he asked me if I wanted to see my grandchildren grow up,’ reveals Evans. ‘I nodded and he said he would get a plan for me and then asked if he could speak to me in layman’s terms.
‘I don’t want to swear but he said, “You f*** with me once and we are finished”.
‘I don’t know if he saved my life but he has given me a chance to extend it and maybe that’s actually the same thing.’
A Glaswegian and a Celtic fan, Evans is a bright man and a well-known figure on the managerial circuit. Since footage of his transformation emerged on TV, his phone has pinged with messages.
Ferguson, Sean Dyche, David Moyes and even the great Marcelo Bielsa. In terms of footballers who have played for him, Ivan Toney, Nottingham Forest striker Chris Wood and Aston Villa goalkeeper Emi Martinez have been among the most prominent.
‘It’s been overwhelming,’ he nods.
He has been here before, though. While manager of Leeds a decade ago, he lost three stone only to put it all on again once he was sacked. In subsequent postings at Mansfield, Peterborough, Gillingham, Stevenage and Rotherham, the dial only moved one way.
Sir Alex Ferguson is among the fellow managers who have offered their support to Evans
The help from people like former Everton manager Sean Dyche has been ‘overwhelming’, says Evans
‘After a night game you are in traffic and know you will be home at 1am,’ he says. ‘So you eat on the way and that’s how it is for a lot of football people. It’s whatever’s open. A burger shop, a McDonald’s, a KFC. Fast food. Literally driving with your right hand and eating with the left.
‘Sarah would tell me I had to get weight off and I would say, “Just let me get through these next three games”. I would push it off and push it off. But I have never been proud of it.
‘At clubs I worked at, people would say things often. Not the players. They never would. But medical staff and physios would say: “Come into the gym with us tomorrow morning gaffer.” So I would go in and have a coffee while they worked out.’
In modern football, results remain paramount but image is important too. Not many managers look like Evans did.
‘Sir Alex told me I was talented but the way I looked may stop me getting the job I deserved to get,’ Evans reflects. ‘My cardiologist says the people who seem to carry the stress well can actually be worse. The managers who give the impression that everything is OK.
‘They walk through the car park with a wave and then get in the car and start sweating. I think all of us put a brave face on in management until you are on your own.
‘I have never taken pressure from an owner. It’s in my own head. My own demons are my demons. I know when it’s not right and I am trying to fix it and it’s not working. It puts you in a very dark place.
‘And if it’s not going so well then, yeah, it can be more than a glass of wine. There have been times when I have come in here and opened a bottle. It’s finished before you go to bed. And that’s half an hour. It’s not great is it?’
Joey Barton speaks to the media outside a central London court after being convicted of assaulting his wife. The former footballer has been critical of Evans comparing him to a ‘bin liner full of milk’
‘I feel sorry for Joey actually,’ says Barton. ‘The things he has said about women. But Joey is what Joey is and people can see what Joey is’
The managerial community is tighter than you may imagine. There is empathy across divisions to a degree. Evans is acutely aware of that.
‘Bielsa messaged from wherever in the world he is now,’ he smiles. ‘Keith Andrews was in touch. Moyesie, who is just a brilliant friend.
‘Chris Wood was funny because I told him he was overweight when he was at Leeds!’
So far there has been nothing from Joey Barton. The former Bristol Rovers manager called Evans a ‘fat man’ after his team drew with Stevenage two years ago.
Barton was sacked the next day but subsequently compared Evans to a ‘bin liner full of milk’ during his current reincarnation as social-media menace.
‘I have never bumped into him but I have heard he’s been sacked a couple of times,’ Evans says with a rueful smile. ‘I knew he was going that day. One of their board told me. He tried to kick off in the tunnel afterwards.
‘Ten years ago you would have had a proper reaction from me to what he said. Words for a headline or two. Not now.
‘I feel sorry for him actually. The things he has said about women. But Joey is what Joey is and people can see what Joey is. There is nothing I can say that would make people think any worse or better of him.
Everton manager David Moyes has been a ‘brilliant friend’ to Evans
Steve Evans, during his days as Rotherham manager, arrives at Elland Road in unusual attire
‘People tell me they have sent him the footage of the TV thing about my weight. I don’t know if they have and I don’t care. But what would have hurt me more is if someone like Sean Dyche had have said that to me. That would have really got me.
‘How many people are offended by what Joey says? I would imagine quite a few.’
Evans was a centre forward in his playing days for five clubs in Scotland but – after a spell as a sales rep for Budweiser – management proved to be his calling. Currently he has nine promotions on his CV and would like to work again soon.
Combustible in his day, Evans believes twice-weekly sessions with a psychologist means touchline confrontations with officials and even the match police are behind him too. His early CV is not light on fines and touchline bans.
‘I am not going to be holier than thou,’ he says. ‘I still want to win at football. When I am playing and you are there opposite me, I don’t like you for 90 minutes. And I don’t think that should change.
‘I have had no issues with officials for a long time. I have more understanding and empathy. Are they particularly good? No. But I have a brilliant relationship with Howard Webb and he has been in touch. I can control myself in a different way now.
‘I would like a project, maybe in League Two. That’s the reality. But I never thought I would work at Leeds United and I did. So you never know.
‘I have rarely failed in my career. I have either kept clubs up or got them promoted or put structures in place that are benefiting them now. I am ready for more.’
‘I used to do three lengths and get in the hot tub,’ says Evans of his new love of swimming. ‘Now if I am not in the pool, I miss it’
Chris Wood has reached out to Evans but also reminded him that he used to tell the Forest striker he was overweight!
And herein lies the great challenge. Football management tends to be a boom and bust industry and weight loss can follow the same pattern. So what happens when he is inevitably back in work and back on the road? The late night takeaways will still be open.
‘Wherever I am based I will find a swimming facility,’ he says. ‘I am committed to it now. I am so far into the zone now that I will find a way. I used to do three lengths and get in the hot tub. Now if I am not in the pool, I miss it.
‘I have gone through three wardbrobe size changes already and I have the old clothes in boxes just in case the weight comes on again and I need them. But I don’t intend to. We did some testing two weeks ago and the consultants said my body is now like that of a 32-year-old. Some days I don’t want to do it, the swimming. I won’t lie. It’s, “Here we go again”.
‘But it’s a way of life for some people and it has to be for me. I have grandchildren from age four down to age one. I want to be there for their 18th birthdays and beyond. You may come back and see me in two years and look at me and tell me I didn’t make it to the top of the mountain. But I doubt it.’
References
- ^ Alex Ferguson (www.dailymail.co.uk)