After leaving Brighton & Hove Albion football club, Jake Robinson decided to pursue a completely different career by becoming a trainee Southern Rail train driver. When Robinson realised that his footballing career was coming to an end, he knew he needed to start looking at options outside of the sport. He admitted that while as a teenager, he had hoped to “make millions and play for England,” he always knew he would have to work one day.
Robinson played for Brighton between 2003 and 2009, making nearly 700 appearances and famously making his debut in a cup match against Premier League side Middlesbrough. Robinson became Albion’s youngest ever goal scorer just a few weeks later, with a late goal against Forest Green Rovers before his 17th birthday. Among his many achievements was scoring back-to-back hat-tricks in 2006 in separate games against Huddersfield and Northwich Victoria.
While reflecting on his footballing career, Robinson said: “I’m very proud of my career, I wouldn’t change it for the world. All I ever wanted to do was be a professional footballer, I’m lucky I lived out that dream”. He then went on to discuss his new career path, stating that the more he looked into being a train driver, the more he believed it would suit him.
Robinson is currently in the process of completing his apprenticeship with Southern Rail and is now three months into the train driver program. When asked about the prospect of working on busy match days at Brighton & Hove Albion’s 32,000-seat Amex Stadium, Robinson replied “it will be like the story is complete for me having trained there as a kid, and now my new career that’s going to hopefully last me the rest of my life. So it’s full circle”.
As happy as Robinson is with his choice, he acknowledges that after playing professional football for so long, this new career may not be quite as glamorous. However, he remains optimistic and grateful for the opportunity to take on a new challenge. “The more I got into my career and the older I got and the more everything started to ache a bit, I started to give some serious thought about what I wanted to do,” he said
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