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I'm the Football Icon winner who won a contract with the Premier League champions, now managing in the National League
The noughties have suddenly become a retro era to start reminiscing about. A decade of iPods, flip phones and, most prominently, reality TV shows at their peak – and football was no different.
It may have been the era of proper ‘Barclays’, but as Big Brother , Pop Idol and The X-Factor all became TV juggernauts, it wasn’t long before football took centre stage in a brand-new concept for Sky One.
Titled Football Icon , the show launched in 2005 with the premise of offering unsigned football players aged 16-18 a second chance with the opportunity of winning a contract with Premier League champions Chelsea.
Sam Hurrell was the inaugural winner and went on to form a career playing in the non-league with the likes of Welling United and Woking. But such was the thirst for reality TV entertainment that Football Icon ran for a second season, where Carl Magnay was the player who was handed a six-month deal with the Blues after winning the show's second and final offering.
Nearly two decades on, a lot has happened in between both for TV shows like Football Icon and Magnay, and, speaking exclusively to DAZN News , the current manager of National League side Gateshead recalls how he got involved in the show.
“I had been offered to go in on trial at Middlesbrough”, Magnay says as he sets the scene for his unique pathway into the game.
“Then it’s just bizarre timing, really. My dad was involved with my local football club, Burtley Town, and Sky was reaching around the grassroots level for 16 and 17-year-olds who were unsigned or had been released from clubs to see if they would apply for this show.
"Ultimately, they won a contract with Chelsea if you were the winner. So, the decision was to stop my trial with Middlesbrough, and I went into this television show.
“They had four trial points around the country, one of which was Newcastle, so it was on my doorstep.
"I went down to the trial arena and managed to get through the first stage. The second stage actually clashed with a holiday that I had in Malia, a family holiday, so we had to cut that short by about six days.
“So, me and my dad flew back to the next stage, which was at Cobham, where they'd whittled it down to 40 players.
"We just played a round-robin tournament, and they kept whittling it down, and eventually I ended up in the final 12.”
Getty
Viewers got to know the players akin to picking band members for groups on a Saturday teatime, with the players moved into a mansion in Isher. It was Magnay who ultimately ended up winning the show and the life-changing Premier League contract.
It meant a complete upheaval for the teenager, who suddenly went from searching for trials and doing coursework in the northeast to signing for the most glamorous side of the country and a team packed full of world-class names.
“I was in sixth form, picking my nose in sixth-form classes, and then within six weeks, I had to tell them I wasn't going to fulfil the academic year, and I was off signing a professional contract with Chelsea,” the now 36-year-old says.
“It was bizarre, but I had to get over it really quickly because I was a contracted player, I went straight into the youth team.
"The original contract that you won off the back of the show was only a six-month contract. So, I had time from January to the end of the season, really, to prove myself.
“But then you're going from watching games on telly, in awe of the likes of John Terry and Drogba and all these players and Jose Mourinho as manager. And then all of a sudden, I'm having my lunch, and they're wandering into the room, and my mouth's wide open, just looking at these players sitting down having meals.
“There was a little bit of an inferiority complex because all these players, particularly at that time, Chelsea, recruitment-wise, were hand-picking the best young players from around Europe.
“So, it was bizarre, and it was surreal, but I was there to build a future.”
Gateshead FC JM
Unfortunately for Magnay, his fairy tale story with the Blues eventually ended after suffering a significant ACL injury, which also took out two other ligaments and caused severe damage to his kneecap.
It meant that although he ended up staying at Stamford Bridge for almost five years, his playing career was instead played out in League Two and eventually the National League – most notably at Gateshead when he spent two spells and helped them win promotion in 2022.
However, Magnay looks back on the show and his very personal route into the game fondly. How it gave him the tools to help him throughout a career that now sees him trying to get promoted from the National League with the Tyneside club after being appointed in his first managerial job last October.
“It obviously gave me a route into the game, which I'll forever be grateful for.
"Those little elements in terms of an inferiority complex, dealing with judgmental attitudes towards us, that was all then building in my favour in terms of mental toughness and psychological ability to deal with these moments. Which would ultimately benefit us throughout my career - and certainly in the position I'm in now.
“So, there's definitely a segue between my early stages as a pro and throughout my career. When I sit back, it's obviously something that I was extremely grateful for."
And who knows, given the rebirth of some other noughties favourites, Magnay may not be the last Football Icon winner we see…
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