Although Ryde Academy students might not be aware of their PE teacher’s prior work, Joe Hancott will always have a special place in the Pompey archives.
A gifted left-back, he was named the Blues’ youngest player in their post-war history after playing for the Checkatrade Trophy in August 2017.
At the time of the Fratton Park match against Fulham Under-21s, the first-year student was sixteen years and sixteen1 days old. He had to pick up his GCSE exam results the next week.
However, Hancott gave up playing football four years later because he no longer loved it.
A career that had once shone would be destroyed by an ACL tear suffered on the training field. The young footballer from Isle of Wight had to concede he was a different player even though he tried to fight back. Disillusioned and unable to defend his selection at Bognor Regis Town, Hancott resigned in October 2021 to concentrate on his aspirations to become a teacher. Aged twenty.
Now that he has an Open University degree under his belt, he teaches full-time at the Ryde school where he previously taught.
I was ready to get away from it. Not Pompey football as a team, but professional football overall. I was eager,’ Hancott said to The News.
I absolutely lost interest in it, yet other people would ask, “What the hell?” Strangely enough, even though I was no longer in love, I still enjoyed watching it. I loved watching the Premier League and my team, Spurs, as well as the Football League and my friends play at the non-league level.
However, I didn’t enjoy playing it at the time, and most football players can probably relate to that. Perhaps I was depleted of that fun by the 12-year Academy process, or perhaps it was just strain.
Maybe it was because you commuted from the Isle of Wight four times a week to train or play, which meant that your body was continuously expanding and being abused on various playing fields.
Alternatively, it’s possible that you’ve tried it for a while now and it hasn’t completely worked out. After making multiple unsuccessful attempts to recover from an injury, you conclude that “that’s not for me any more.”
‘Pompey kept extending my contract because they wanted to support me in regaining my full fitness, but I told them that I wasn’t interested in playing football professionally longer when it reached to that point.
“They knew how I was feeling and that I was having physical difficulties, so they weren’t going to keep me anyway.” They knew I was considering going non-league and starting a teaching career. “I want to get out,” I said to them. I appreciate everything, but enough is enough. I was eager to begin a new chapter and was humming.
Hancott, who joined Pompey at the age of eight, was recognized as a promising defender by well-known Isle of Wight talent spotters Roger and Andy “Pud” North.
He would train with the FastCat three times a week from his Ryde home, in addition to a weekend game. Other players in his age group were Brad Lethbridge, Josh Flint, and Leon Maloney, all of whom would go on to play for Kenny Jackett’s first team.
However, Hancock took the lead after making his debut in August 2017, shattering the 17-and-a-half-year record held by Gary O’Neil, which was set in January 2000.
Just before halftime, Tariq Holmes-Dennis fell down with a serious knee injury. A few of the boys were joking that they might have a shot. Unlikely, I had recently finished school!
I was asked to train with the first team on Monday, and shortly after that, I was chosen to play for Fulham Under-21s. I had no notion that I would become the youngest post-war player in the club.
At sixteen, I didn’t think I was worthy to be there. I did in my own age group, but not in that setting with the first team. Even as a young player, you have to enter the game with a certain amount of arrogance and confidence in your abilities. I was never satisfied.
He continued, saying, “We went to Fratton Park to watch the first team’s season opener against Rochdale after the Academy had a match on Saturday morning.”
I didn’t perform too terribly for my debut, but Kenny Jackett barely said anything to me afterward other than, “Well done.” He only said that I would be playing the day before!
He didn’t say anything to the boys or myself. He was always friendly, courteous, and decent enough, yet he only said, “How are you?” Though, to be fair, I was still quite young and on the youth squad, so it’s not like he ever really gave me guidance.
“It was right that I didn’t make another squad for that 2017–18 season.” I had to play more at the Academy and the reserves since I was never talented enough at that age. In addition, the manager had already signed Damien McCrory and Dion Donohue, while Brandon Haunstrup was already a left back. I wasn’t needed by them. “I never thought my first-team experience would lead to a regular starting spot; it was a bonus.”
Two more years would pass before Hancott, a third-year scholar by then, was granted his second competitive Pompey appearance. He traveled with Jackett’s first team to Portmarnock, Dublin, for a preseason training camp in July 2019. After playing as a left winger, he scored in an 11-0 victory over UCD, an Irish team. He spent time on loan at the Rocks and made appearances in the Blues’ first two Leasing.com Trophy games in 2019–20, against Oxford United and Norwich Under-21s. He is currently 18 years old. But in October 2019, he suffered ACL damage to his right knee on the eve of a Hampshire Senior Cup match at the Hawks, and he never returned to play for Pompey.
“We were working on shape on the back pitch at Roko ahead of the match, and it was pretty wet,” he stated. I could hear my knee snapping as I sprinted with the ball, passed it off, and changed directions.
It was a strange incident, and after five months of treatment, Covid hit, putting us under lockdown. All of a sudden, I was watching Zoom in the backyard of my Ryde, New South Wales, rehabilitation programme.
I would have had a better chance of making a full recovery if there hadn’t been the Covid outbreak. I’m not using that as an excuse because it’s not anyone’s fault, but there were undoubtedly more things I could have done both before and after.
To be honest, I probably didn’t take care of myself. I wasn’t as committed as some; I ate anything I wanted. My life wasn’t the same as some other people’s. In the gym, I wasn’t as skilled at bulking up as my teammates.
“I gave it everything I had on the practice field and in games, and I definitely didn’t enjoy losing.” But as an elite professional, I think I started going out more than I should have when I turned 18. But it was regrettable how long the Covid injury recovery process took. Following the end of the lockdown, I was trained apart from the first team and kept apart from the youth squad due to the coronavirus. Subsequently, I experienced more problems with my knee. The physiotherapists that Pompey had were excellent; they did everything they could to assist, but I can only do so much with a garden. Not even a single gym was open. It was garbage.
‘I needed a second operation to clear up few things, more of a minor injury, but it still took a bit of time to return and, by then, the love for football was going.
