In The Corner: Robbie Simpson

Managing Director, Financial Advisor, Manager, Ex-Player.

A conversation with a man who does it all.

Around the world at any given time there’s probably a footballer standing on a table in front of a bunch of new teammates sweating his way through the age-old initiation of singing a song for the group.

It makes for tough viewing.

Getting the lyrics right and holding off any embarrassing voice-breaks usually means success, while getting the audience to join in with clapping and, even better, singing means it’s a performance to be proud of. Half-hearted renditions of Mario’s ‘Let me Love You’ are common, as are classic underwhelming Adele ballads like ‘Someone like you’ or ‘Set fire to the Rain’. Once in a blue moon however, you get a player who can actually hold a tune – one whose voice doesn’t shake with nerves, one who grabs the performance by the horns.

A search of his name into YouTube and you’ll find a video posted by Leyton Orient of Robbie Simpson doing one of these initiations. While there isn’t any ground-breaking vocal ability on show – his garage rendition of a lesser known ‘MC Vapour’ rap is certainly far from typical.

This is fitting for Robbie Simpson. Typical is not a word that would be used to describe the start of his career, nor the middle, and it’s certainly not one that would be used to describe what he’s been up to since hanging up the boots. It certainly isn’t an adjective you could attach to his particular initiation.

Eleven years on, Robbie Simpson has given up the tribute act and has traded it in for life as father, husband, managing director, financial advisor and – as if that isn’t enough, manager as well.  He is a man who wears many hats. Perhaps the most interesting, or at least the most unique, is the one he dons as managing director. While still playing, Simpson launched LAPS (life after professional sport), a platform to help former professional athletes find second careers, with company CEO Rob Steed. Steed and Simpson connected because Steed, a recruitment expert, had been approached by a company who had hired an ex-Olympic rower and had seen him thrive – mostly because of the traits that he possessed because of sport. Recalling the initial conversation, Robbie tells me about the message Steed was passing on from the company about wanting more people like the rower–

“We want more sports people because he showed resilience, he was easily coached. He learned from all of his mistakes really quickly. He was driven, determined. He set goals. He was a leader. He communicated really well.”

This provided somewhat of a lightbulb moment for Simpson because, while he was perfectly aware of his own and his peer’s potential for career success after sport – the idea of companies specifically seeking out ex-athletes for jobs unrelated to sport wasn’t something he’d previously considered. 

“Most sports people I know have needed to have those at some point. The very fact that they play sport professionally means they would have showed resilience at some stage that have had to have taken on information really well then have had to perform under pressure. All those things they would have had to have naturally shown.”

As a currently employed professional footballer, when I found out about LAPS and the companies who valued the traits required to make a career out of professional sport I was surprised. Adversity and overcoming it from as early as six or seven years old (I was first released at eight years of age) is commonplace but I had never, and I suspect I’m not alone in this, considered that the skills that professional sport nurtured would be so transferable. Jobs that aren’t coaching, management or scouting often feel out of reach.  LAPS bridges the gap. 

In many ways, the way Simpson has chosen to live his live since his retirement from playing (he was last active in season 2020/21) is similar to the manner in which he started. 

In the aftermath of his release from Norwich’s Centre of Excellence at sixteen years old, a decision that he says he “bawled his eyes out” over – Simpson joined Cambridge City, a Southern League Premier division team with a programme that would allow him to train full time, still study for A-Levels and live away from home. Moving away from home was the driver behind this decision for Simpson who, the youngest of five, had watched his older siblings in awe as they moved out to study and “looked like they were having the best time of their lives.” Education was a priority in the Simpson household. His parents had always maintained that he ‘needed something to fall back on’, something he now disagrees with (rather than ‘something to fall back on’ Simpson now believes that two interests and pursuits can co-exist and, rather than distracting, create a better equipped person as well as a better player), and they told him that if he was offered a scholarship contract he wouldn’t be allowed to sign it. 

On the ‘About Us’ section of the LAPS website you will find a definition of ‘serendipity’ on the first line. ‘Those chance encounters or events which bring about a cool outcome.’ The release from Norwich and what came from it definitely falls under this bracket. His time at Cambridge City, still only an hour away from home, is a period that Simpson can’t help but smile and glaze over slightly in the eyes as he talks about. 

“That programme made my life... The ability to be the best footballer I could be, alongside being educated to the highest possible degree I could be. So yes, those two years were amazing.”

Being knocked down and pivoting quickly to focus one’s energy into a different situation is imperative for any professional athlete. Adversity comes in all shapes and sizes: injury, being released from a club and form are some of the more common ones. Being forced to repeatedly turn failures into wins, especially from a young age, is part of what moulds the essential skills that companies turning to LAPS for.

Three years after he signed for Cambridge City, Robbie was enrolling at Loughborough University to study a joint honours in Mathematics and Sports Science – a testament to how much he previously enjoyed having to study alongside playing football. Deciding to go to University instead of pursuing a professional contract was not easy. At times he said he felt like the dream was dying, like he was letting go of the career he had been chasing. 

“My focus definitely shifted towards education and what career I am going into. I became a student that played football on the weekends rather than a footballer who’s getting education alongside it just in case.”

Spoiler alert – the dream survived. By the end of his second year he had been signed by Cambridge United, then a Conference Premier side, and he was balancing playing professional football with his final year commitments. His new club allowed him to keep up his studies and travel down to Cambridge for games and training when he could and although he initially struggled with injury - an upturn in form around Christmastime rewarded ‘The U’s’ for their faith and patience with him.

“I scored fifteen goals in the last 17 games or something, so they couldn't say anything really.”

The unorthodox journey Simpson took into professional football undoubtedly set him aside from many of his peers. Rather than staying within an academy until he received a pro contract, the path he walked provided important context to the career he was entering and his options beyond it. He felt being qualified meant there was less pressure to push up the leagues. However, once he got his move to Championship side Coventry City, he admits that he ‘got sucked in’ into the lifestyle of being a footballer – forgetting how beneficial having stuff going on separately had been for him. It’s the first time he talks of regret and the tone in which he talks me about his Coventry spell has a tinge of shame to it. 

“There was lifestyle pressure back then. I remember my first day at Coventry, I turned up in my Ford Fiesta I had and I was getting laughed at. And then the very first thing I did when I got home was buy a new car.”

It’s an amusing anecdote and one that couldn’t have been too financially consequential given the wages that he would’ve been on at the time. But the pressure on living up to a certain lifestyle to fit in can often result in things more sinister than a new car. Simpson’s spare time was no longer being used to chase a 2:1 at University – this new found money and spare time was being spent on other things. 

‘We'd all meet at the coffee shop at 1:00 after training, and then probably on most days, wait until the first horse races, go in the bookies, and then spend the rest of day in the bookies or go to the casino. Or if it was a Tuesday, go to the pub.’

On reflection – one thing is clear. He misses the Ford Fiesta. And he wishes he stuck with it. 

As well as losing the Fiesta – Simpson had a serious hamstring rupture in his two year stint in the West Midlands, an injury that he suspects of being the underlying reason for a few later calf injuries, one reoccurring quad injury that ‘nobody could get to the bottom of’ and continued hamstring struggles. Adopting the ‘footballer lifestyle’ rather than staying true to his roots only deepened his struggles and in the dark moments, where he’d usually have other interests to take pleasure from, there was nothing. Despite the things that went wrong, plenty still went right, and Simpson still speaks fondly about his time at Coventry. His recount of his first start against Manchester United feels microcosmic of the period as whole. 

“And I guess that was the moment where probably the best and the worst moment, ‘cause that was the moment where I thought I’m a footballer. Prior to that, I thought ‘I'm a student still like somehow playing the championship’.”

A spell at Oldham in 2011 is the period where Robbie feels he recaptured his form and rediscovered his love for the game, something that understandably waned during the tough times he had been through previously. Feeling valued and being ‘the main man’ are two of the reasons he cites for his comeback – but a lifestyle change off the pitch was the secret ingredient that gave him his favorite year in professional football. 

Drumroll please... 

Once every month he would spend a day focusing purely on himself. A haircut, a new book or even spa treatment were all on the cards – the only requirement that everything he did on the day would be for him to improve his wellbeing. The performances on the pitch followed and, interestingly, he had his first injury-free season since Coventry four years before. 

These lessons about prioritizing your own well-being are not lost on Robbie.

Since then, he and his wife have made a pact to continue to designate a day, once a month, purely for self-care and improvement. 

“The passion that it ignited seeing those 400 players on that list and the feeling it gave me that rather than thinking about myself, I was thinking, oh, what these other lads going through, maybe my position isn't that bad. I want to help them and I think the feeling that that gave me was just like a light bulb moment or a spark that actually that is my passion. That's what makes me feel good.”

The list that Robbie is referring to is the ‘out of contract’ list in the summer of 2013. This is the same summer that him and Steed first made contact. 

Eleven years on from that lightbulb moment it’s clear that this passion has grown stronger. The fact he measures his success as a manager primarily on whether former players still respect him enough to have a conversation with him on a personal level, even if they’ve been released, speaks volumes. It’s evident he takes great pride in his career - most of all the 61 appearances he made in the Championship, (especially given his humble acceptance that ‘that was his ceiling’ and he was ‘never the most talented player’) the tone he reflects in is not a man who lives in the past.

Good times they were, but no better than the times he is living in now.  

It's not hard to see where Simpson’s focus now lies. Energy and enthusiasm pours out of him as he tells me his plans on how to broaden attitudes to extra studies, give players more control over when they retire, avoid mistakes he and others have made previously, and all manner of other ways to help current and former athletes. Success for him no longer means new cars or a good day down the bookies – rather being able to provide a good life for his family and the appreciation from the individuals and institutions he strives to help. Sharks looking to make a quick buck from players who don’t know any better are rife throughout all sporting industries and perhaps worst of all in football - so having the trust of his peers and former colleagues is something he holds very dearly. 

Twenty years on from the start of his professional career – Simpson is onto new things. He insists thriving in other industries after sport should be much more common amongst former athletes. Seeing the fulfilment he takes from his second career(s), it’s hard to argue with his point – especially given the worrying research around bankruptcy and financial struggles that athletes face in retirement**. Planning and preparing for the end of sport shouldn’t be looked at like ‘having one foot out the door’ but instead a natural evolution for an athlete – and one that can have benefits in the short term as well as the long. 

Simpson went straight from playing the game to helping those within it. LAPS, management and being a financial advisor are the ways he chooses to do so. Despite the exhaustive schedule, the man who sits across from me is one full of energy and enthusiasm.

Simpson recalls being told as a youth player at Norwich -

‘There's nothing more common than an unsuccessful man with talent.’

Robbie appears to be far from common.

He’s a man who made a plan and is reaping the benefits.

Now he lives to help others do the same.

If you want to know more about LAPS or Robbie you can find more info here:

https://www.laps.careers/

X- @RobbieSimmo

Instagram- @robbiesimmo

** Research conducted in 2013 by the organisation ‘XPro’ suggested that as many as 60% of former players, who earned huge salaries in their Premier League days, were declaring bankruptcy within five years of retiring.