Former Wolves and Leeds defender Barry Douglas announced his retirement last week. It’s time for a new chapter.
As two of his former clubs prepare to go head-to-head at Elland Road, the former Scottish full back talks to Paul Berry about why he hopes to be remembered for more than just the trophies and successes of his career.
Barry Douglas. Not only a one season Wanderer but also very much a one season wonder when it comes to his contribution at Molineux.
Operating at left wing back during a 2017/18 campaign that is etched into Wolves’ folklore, the popular Scot was the epitome of consistent performances coupled with an attacking and set piece prowess which saw him chip in with plenty of goals and assists.
At the season’s conclusion, not for the first nor last time in his career, he finished up a winner.
Nuno’s Wolves stormed to the Championship title and the Premier League, with Douglas playing 39 of the 46 games.
Few fans could understand why he was then so ruthlessly moved on in the pre-season which followed, denying him a chance in the topflight, and many still find it difficult to fathom all these years on.
A similar situation followed with Saturday’s opponents Leeds, where Douglas collected another Championship title before leaving as they embarked on the new challenge in the Premier League.
Yet amid the understandable disappointment and frustration, there is zero bitterness.
The calm demeanour and unbridled resilience which helped Douglas to such a successful career, is also part of a mentality which means that when he looks back and reflects – as he has done since announcing his retirement at the age of 36 last week – there are no recriminations. And only love.
“Initially, what happened was very hard to digest,” Douglas reflects.
“But then straightaway, it became a case of ‘right, it’s done’, because I couldn’t control it, and had to move on and move forward.
“I know there are some fans who are probably even more frustrated than me but there was no point dwindling on the things that happened, and I prefer to enjoy the incredible memories.
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Barry Douglas (AMA) | Local Library
“I got to enjoy the bus parade around the city, I’ve still got all the photos and the videos, the friendships with my team-mates, and hopefully the respect from the fans.
“From a personal perspective as well, whilst I was at Wolves my missus was pregnant with our first child, which is special, and my Grandpa – effectively my father figure growing up – came to watch me when I scored, ironically against Leeds!
“Thankfully he is still with us, and tells me that his proudest moment was when I brought him down to the pitch for the celebration of us winning the title and put the medal around his neck.
“They were such special times which I will never forget, and the Wolves fans have always been brilliant with me, even though I was only there for one season.”
The strength and resilience which Glaswegian Douglas has displayed throughout his career was needed right from his teenage years when, having come through the ranks at Livingston, he was told he was ‘too small’ and released.
“I was at the stage where I was about to sign to become a scholar and all was looking positive but about a week before my Mum was called in to say there had been a change of decision,” Douglas recalls.
“They told me I was too small which, as you can probably imagine, as a 15-year-old who loved playing football, it felt like the end of the world.
“That led to me thinking I wasn’t going to deal with football anymore and I walked away from the game for a good few months, maybe even close to a year.
“Then I started playing five and six-a-sides with my big cousin, coming up against men, and I realised I was good enough to still play at a decent level.
“One of the boys that I played with at Livingston was now at Queen’s Park, and had a word with the coach and helped me get down to train in pre-season and play a friendly.
“At half time of that game, the manager pulled out a form and said he wasn’t letting me go, and I signed there and then!
“I was part-time with Queen’s Park, and so at the same time I was doing an apprenticeship in refrigeration and air conditioning.
“Again, that was my Grandpa’s influence, pretty old school and telling me I needed to have something to fall back on and have a trade, and doing that alongside the football certainly gave me a grounding and understanding of grafting in the ‘real world’.”
It wasn’t until he was nearly 20 that Douglas embarked on football full-time, when switching from Queen’s Park to Dundee United.
Douglas, top scorer with nine goals from left back in his final season at Queen’s Park, certainly continued his progression during three years at Tannadice, after which the footballing adventures really kicked in.
He went over to Poland, spending two-and-a-half years with Lech Poznan which featured a league title and Super Cup, and then 18 months in Turkey with Konyaspor, including an ‘unheard of’ third place finish, winning the Turkish Cup and playing in the Europa League.
Nothing held him back.
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Douglas in action for Wolves | Local Library
“I’d like to think I’m an open-minded kind of person – my career probably tells you that – and so even though the interest from Poland came from nowhere, I went over and had a look and could see so many positives.
“I wasn’t worried about moving country to a different language and culture, it was just exciting to open some different doors.
“Going over to play in Turkey was another brilliant challenge, and one I thought might lead to one of the big clubs in Istanbul.
“It all really clicked over there as well, finishing third in the league was unheard of for Konyaspor, and I think it was the first time in years that one of the big teams hadn’t won the cup.
“I’d like to think I’m a people person which helped in moving to those different countries, and the grounding I’d had with the apprenticeship made me realise how fortunate I was to be having those opportunities and how important it was to make the most of them.”
Talking of opportunities, it was in the summer of 2017 that the Douglas journey checked in at Molineux.
There had been interest in the January when Paul Lambert was at the helm, and Nuno was then keen to push the deal through as part of his Wolves’ revolution.
Douglas was desperate to join, and that was even before he took a sharp intake of breath as he was followed through the entrance door by the quality of the likes of Ruben Neves, Willy Boly and Diogo Jota.
He settled very quickly, and also, with his skill in knowing bits of different languages, proved a key link within the dressing room as well.
“It was strange because I veered towards the foreign lads as much as the British ones and I knew a few different languages, especially the swear words,” he laughs.
“So, I think I helped with that connection in the dressing room, but everyone got on really well which you can see by what happened on the pitch.
“I have seen in some dressing rooms that there are little groups and cliques – nothing malicious but just people having their own friends – but at Wolves it was everyone together.
“And then Nuno and the preparation, that was different level.
“I don’t think the team had played that formation before but from the very first training session, when he told Coads (Conor Coady) he’d be playing in the centre of a back three, he knew the system he wanted and how we would fit into it.
“You don’t become a good player or a bad player because of systems, but sometimes it’s about connecting the puzzle and we were all pieces of that puzzle who knew exactly what our jobs were.
“We all complemented each other, and then when you consider some of the individual quality that we had, it all came together for an incredible season.”
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There are so many highlights both personally and for the team when Douglas looks back. His first Wolves goal in the first away game at Derby. A sensational free kick against Leeds. A goal and dramatic last gasp assist for Ryan Bennett in the epic Christmas win at Bristol City. Scoring in the title celebration success away at Bolton.
For Douglas however, his year at Wolves extends way beyond the highlights and the stats. For the record, five goals and 14 assists, joint top for the Championship that season. “Would have been 15 if Saiss hadn’t missed an open goal,” he quips.
The year was more about the emotion, the feelings and family. Footballing family, such as the friendship forged with Diogo Jota whom he still so sadly misses. And his own family, who got to see so much more of his football.
“I could have made a highlights reel of my career just on that one season at Wolves, but while it’s nice to look back on the stats and the moments, it is about so much more than that,” Douglas admits.
“It was having my family at games, about the people who were part of it, going into training every day and enjoying it and knowing how good we could be when we went onto the pitch.
“You know the phrase, ‘a good worker is a happy worker’, and winning games of football helped, but from the get-go we could kind of tell how well it was going to go and the belief and enjoyment that instilled.
“We could see the results of the work that we put in on the training ground, and were able to enjoy the process, because even more so when you look back now, it all just goes so fast.”
In Douglas’ case, it not only went fast, but would also, ultimately, disappear within a blink of an eye.
It’s fair to say news of his departure came as a huge shock to the Molineux faithful, who had seen and enjoyed his impact, and, even had they known that some very tough competition would later arrive in Jonny Otto, they would have loved Douglas to have had the opportunity to fulfil his Premier League dream.
It is difficult to think of a similar example of a player who did so well individually and as part of such a collective success, who was such a favourite among the fans, finding themselves surplus to requirements.
“I suppose it’s still a bit of a sore point, mainly because I didn’t get chance to say goodbye to the fans,” Douglas reflects.
“I didn’t expect it, I have to say, and there were a lot of narratives in the press about a falling out with Nuno or whatever, but that didn’t happen.
“The reality was we were back in pre-season and talking about a new contract after the stellar year we had all had, but it just kept stalling and I felt a bit of a shift.
“To be fair to Nuno, he was completely honest with me, and pulled me in pre-season when we were in Germany.
“He said it was a very difficult decision, and that I knew what he thought of me and what I had done for the club, but that they had received an offer which they were going to accept.
“He said they were just going in a different direction and that it was purely business, nothing personal.
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Douglas fires towards goal for Wolves (AMA/Sam Bagnall) | Local Library
“I said I understood all that but what would happen if I wanted to stay and fight for my place, and was told that wasn’t an option and I wouldn’t be involved.
“After the season I had in the Championship I suppose I felt I deserved the chance to give it a go, but I also live in the real world and in football it is always a case of expecting the unexpected.
“I have a lot of respect for Nuno for giving me the chance, and we shook hands and parted on good terms, but that was the truth of it, and I was never really given the chance to push on.”
Ultimately Wolves’ loss would prove to be Leeds’ gain as Douglas made the switch from the Midlands to Yorkshire, and even though his spell at Elland Road was affected by injury, he picked up another Championship title and enjoyed another taste of a football-mad one club city.
“Leeds are another massive club, I didn’t realise how big until I went there, with such passionate supporters,” he recalls.
“I think, like Wolves fans, they are normal working class people who love their football, and I can appreciate that, because of where I came from as well.
“I’d like to think I get on well with both Wolves and Leeds fans because I am an honest and hard-working person, just like they are.”
After the promotion, Douglas then faced a similar challenge to that experienced at Wolves, albeit on this occasion Marcelo Bielsa did offer him the opportunity to fight for his place.
By this time however, Douglas wasn’t as keen to risk not experiencing regular football, and went on loan to Blackburn, then heading back to Lech Poznan in Poland to win yet another league title before spending most of last season with St Johnstone.
He was also thrilled to make one senior appearance for Scotland, coming off the bench against Hungary to replace Andy Robertson, whose impressive talent probably denied Douglas many more caps over the years!
Which is perhaps ironic given Robertson followed the same sort of career path in his early years as Douglas, moving from Queen’s Park to Dundee United.
Now, after around 450 career appearances, and that treasured senior international cap, it is time to call it a day.
Partly for a sense of clarity, partly to find some stability to make the most of life with his family, Douglas has taken the decision to move into the next chapter.
He can certainly do so with his head held high, both for the year spent at Wolves and the rest of the successes enjoyed in his career.
“I think when you are playing you don’t have too much chance to reflect on how you are doing because you are just focused on the here and now and the very next game,” he says.
“Now I am able to take a step back after making the decision, there is so much to process, and a lot of emotion.
“But I think the biggest thing that makes me proud is not so much the comments I have received about the football, but about how I have tried to be as a person.
“Regardless of the football, it’s always been important to me to be true to myself with any decisions, to be the best version of me and for other people.
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Douglas then helped Leeds to promotion | Michael Regan/Getty Images
“Because when it comes to the time that you finish, people will always remember how you made them feel, and that is about trying to be a good human.
“And the other thing I think about is my family, and the sacrifices they have all made to help me enjoy the career that I did.
“Without them there is not a chance any of this would have happened, and that is something I will always be grateful for.”
So, what’s next? Well, enjoying that family life with wife Debbie and their two children for starters. Maybe even doing a bit of travelling, as if his football globetrotting wasn’t enough!
Initially though, there is some painting and decorating to be done on the property portfolio!
But when the dust settles, football is all Douglas knows. And is where he still has so much to offer.
It might be in media work, it might be in coaching, and working with young players which is something that particularly appeals given his own experiences and development. But he is ready, willing and able to continue to be involved in his lifelong passion, should the opportunity arise.
Such has been his impact in so many different ways, you wouldn’t expect him to be short of offers.
“Life is short, and I’d certainly like to go and see the world a little bit, but I definitely want to stay in football in some respect,” says Douglas.
“It feels like I have too much experience not to, and so I’m definitely out there for any opportunities that come along.”
Just as he was nearly a decade ago when checking in at Molineux. And a player whose impact seems to transcend the brevity of his stay and even the incredible impact of his goals and assists. His character and personality endeared him to the Wolves faithful to ensure his popularity will always remain strong.
A one season Wanderer whose contribution has not been forgotten.
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