Life After Football: David Brightwell | OneFootball

As we build towards our new CITY+ documentary 'Life After Football', we focus on the five main protagonists featured in this must-watch City Studios masterpiece...

Next up, David Brightwell, who decided he'd lost some of the fire in his belly regarding football and decided to make a career switch...

A DIFFERENT DIRECTION: DAVID BRIGHTWELL

Not all football careers end due to age or injury.

David Brightwell made 53 appearances for City and enjoyed a 14-year professional career before deciding to leave football behind aged only 31.

In City Studios’ Life After Football, Brightwell – younger brother of Ian Brightwell who made 382 appearances for the Blues between 1986-96 – explains how he decided a life away from the game was right for him at the time.

“It’s one of the best decisions I made,” says Brightwell.

“The first week in July until the second week in May, your time is dictated by the club.

“I was 31. I wouldn't say I fell out of love with football, but I'd had enough of all the traveling.

“I wasn't injured. The club I was with offered me another year's contract, but I just took the decision for myself and my wife to step away and go into something else.”

That ‘something else’ was becoming a firefighter.

Brightwell’s career change was one he took to enthusiastically and, more than 20 years on, one he remains fully committed to.

“You need to be a certain type of person to do it,” he says.

“I've been doing this 21 years and it's one of the best decisions I made.

“Come match time in football and come the time when we get a job here, you know, it is very similar, you have to switch on.

“I had a lot of pressure as a footballer. Sometimes, you know, if you play in a derby at Old Trafford.

“But if you've got to go into a house, and get somebody out that's missing, obviously, that's a different type of pressure.

“I first went to City as a schoolboy, aged 14. Footballers earned a good living then, compared to the average person.

“But compared to today, obviously it's a lot different from what it is now.

“We went to Oasis concerts, and you'd walk in a room and Liam and Noel Gallagher were bowing, because they would like to have been footballers.

“My mates first said to me when I told them,’ why have you packed in? It's such a fantastic life.’

“If someone asked me ‘what made you be a firefighter?’ I think in some ways, it is similar. The team aspect is a big thing.

“Obviously there's a fitness side to it, as well where you get paid to keep fit - a little bit!

“The chance to help people and stuff like that has brought a whole new outlook on life for me, really.

“I’m glad I had my football career, but I think it's very, very difficult for some players to replicate that buzz that they get from a match.

“Whatever you do in life, you'll get nothing, like scoring a last minute winner.

“But I also don't think you can retire and just do nothing. I think you've got to do stuff to keep your mind occupied.

“Physically, if I'm able to do the job, I'd like to carry on as long as I can, really.”

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