The job is challenging, demanding, utterly exhausting … but I absolutely love what I do,” remarks Scott Davies, sitting in an empty dressing room waiting for his players to come to training. Since 2022, Davies has been the player-manager of the National League South side who, positioned third bottom of the table, are the lowest-ranked club remaining in this season's FA Cup.
Balancing Two Worlds: Management and Outreach
A few squad members are delayed; the session was shifted forward to teatime to make way for a community side’s match. When the drills commences in torrential downpour, the sixth‑tier side are using the artificial pitch with a junior team. “I long believed it would be great to be a coach of a semi-professional team and work on the side,” says Davies. The 37-year-old has chosen not to participate, instead observing from inside, with a coaching board positioned in front of him.
“We continually emphasize the importance that we’re not just managers: we are mentors, advisors, we’re father figures,” he states.
On the previous day, he is at Aylesbury grammar school for his second role. Over the course of 45 minutes, he quietens a lecture theatre of sixth-formers with a harsh presentation on how a betting problem derailed his professional journey as a professional footballer, damaged his connections and took him to the verge of ending his own life.
A Career Derailed: The Downward Spiral
After going into rehab a decade past, Davies has not placed a bet since and is now an educator on the risks of gambling. He recounts to students how, when he scored a set-piece against Chelsea’s Petr Cech in a pre-season friendly, he believed he had succeeded. But by then, at 21 years old, his gambling was unmanageable.
The skilled player, then featuring in Championship football, was slipping away of training at the first opportunity to head to the bookmakers, often making up excuses to leave. Upon being questioned by his coach to prove it, Davies could not. He was not picked by Reading again.
During a loan spell at Wycombe, Davies thought he was on his way to a bigger team. When he learned they had bought another player, he went to the bookmakers and lost £7,000 in one day. Later on, at Crawley, he started gambling on his own matches and would disappear into a toilet cubicle at half-time to place bets. Then, at Oxford United, he would stay up all night to place bets.
A Moment of Clarity
By the age of his mid-twenties, Davies’s career was in decline. He dropped multiple levels to play for a minor club. His debut was an road trip that passed his old stadium. “That was a sobering moment,” Davies recalls. “I remember looking at the ground from the bus and thinking: ‘How did I get here?’ I’m never going to forget that moment.”
His coach from that time is now his assistant at Slough and the pair have created an environment where players can talk about their issues, dismantling the walls of toxic masculinity that existed when Davies was a young player and was too scared to talk his addiction.
The Perfect Customer: The Vulnerability of Athletes
While every case is individual, Davies argues prospective professionals are vulnerable to becoming problem gamblers. Financial means, idle hours, a driven personality, and the perceived insider knowledge in sports betting were all factors in his downfall. “When you put all of these factors together, you’ve pretty much got the dream client for a gambling operator.”
Ahead of Sunday’s cup match, Davies is addressing two professional clubs’ under-21 teams. “I do feel that we’ve got a duty of care to safeguard the younger generation, the ones that are coming through, and that’s why I do the job that I do,” he explains.
Future Ambitions and FA Cup Dreams
Currently content, with a family and the dad to a 10-month-old daughter, Davies is yet to retire and is planning to start on his Uefa A licence. “There’s a lot of regret but the beauty of coming out the other side and moving on to management is that I aim to correct the mistakes of my playing career.”
Slough have navigated four rounds but have never reached the next stage of the Cup. Given the financial rewards, facing a top-flight giant in the next round could bring a financial boost in millions for a team whose roster includes tradesmen, fitness coaches and educators.
The prospect of facing coaches such as a world-class coach is a strange one for Davies. “It's unlikely there would be any complex plans. It would be a game you’d be content to be defeated just for the occasion.
“It’s incredible to see the small clubs that get paired with some of these powerhouses. Witnessing it and you ask yourself: ‘Someday, could that be us?’”
