“Former Soccer Player Julian Dicks: From Bankruptcy to Dog Breeding, Golf, and Coaching”

In England the name of Julian Dicks is synonymous with improvement and personality, because the former player recovered from bankruptcy thanks to a combination of golf, dog breeding, serve behind a bar and a return to soccer as an assistant coach. Julian Dicks, who was trained at Birmingham City and came to play a season at Graeme Souness’s Liverpool.

He has become a West Ham United legend thanks to his courage on the pitch, and it is not for less because he left everything on the field, to the point that in a game after a strong crash he played the rest of the game without sensitivity on the left leg.

‘Terminator’

dicks was nicknamed ‘Terminator’due to the ease with which he was penalized with a red card for his aggressive style of play (he was sent off nine times). He stayed a couple of times at the gates of being called up with the national team from England due to disciplinary problems. “I don’t want to play for England. It doesn’t interest me anymore. If they called me up, I wouldn’t play,” Dicks declared in 1997. The popular and controversial defender left the Premier League in 1999 at the premature age of 29, explaining that, “I didn’t choose to retire The decision was made by West Ham for me.”

Dicks married his wife Kay in 1988 and with whom he had twin daughters, Jessica and Katie, in December of the same year. The couple were married for 13 years until they divorced in 2001. After the divorce, the former footballer said: “When I resigned from West Ham I had enough money in the bank to never work again. Then in 2001, I got divorced and my wife got everything“. From the ruinous separation in which he lost millions Julian Dicks survived by setting up kennels: “We took care of other people’s dogs. That was great because I love animals, especially English Bull Terriers. Some people find them threatening, but it depends on how you raise them.”

golf ace

His next adventure was to try his luck as professional golf playerand put himself under the command of the golfer Denis PughColin Montgomerie’s trainer. His career as a golfer was not very successful. “There are a limited number of times you can pay more than €565 to play in a competition and get nothing in return. I ended up breaking a lot of my clubs,” Dicks explained to Aidan Radnedge. On the West Ham website he stated that “I retired from golf because of my knee. I played in tournaments in Spain, which were three rounds and after the first it was impossible for me to play the second and third. On top of that, it wasn’t good enough. I found out after a couple of tournaments.”

After putting golf on hold in 2002 due to knee problems and poor results, opted to enter the hospitality business and bought a bar (Shepherd and Dog) in Langham (Colchester). “We have many soccer fans who come just to say hello. They booed me from the terraces but now we laugh. Most of the time they criticize me for the entrances at ground level that I used to do,” he said then.

After these adventures, he decided that it was time to return to what always made him happy, soccer. on his returnbegan in the Wivenhoe Town of the Eastern Counties League, but left the club shortly after the end of that season by mutual consent. He then went through West Ham United Ladiesalso as assistant coach of the West Ham United and the West Bromwich Albion. At the moment he is second manager of Watford.