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Tom Lockyer article from The Athletic
Posted by The Outsider on 25/12/2023, 11:22:42
Two days before his collapse, Tom Lockyer was nowhere to be found.
As a pre-Christmas tradition, the Luton Town squad pay a visit to the local children’s hospital, taking photographs, chatting with staff, raising spirits. When it was time to take a picture of the group, his team-mates realised their captain was missing.
A search party was sent out and finally located the 29-year-old in a different ward, in a room they had passed through some time before, engrossed in a game of Jenga with a young girl.
“Locks?”
The 29-year-old smiled before grabbing the club’s media officer and ensuring he swapped details with the girl’s family so she could attend a game at Kenilworth Road.
Scarcely 48 hours later, he would be back in hospital himself. Last Saturday, in the 59th minute of Luton’s Premier League match at Bournemouth, Lockyer’s heart stopped for two minutes.
Fewer than one in 10 people survive a cardiac arrest outside hospital. His life was saved by the swift intervention of paramedics, as well as doctors from both clubs. The match was abandoned.
Seven days later, his side returned to the pitch against Newcastle — changed utterly by their experiences. Speaking to reporters the day before the match, head coach Rob Edwards said his feelings were still too raw to fully articulate.
But who needs words? If the quiet strength of Lockyer’s captaincy has shown anything, it is that feelings are not voiced in sentences but by actions. We feel because we are living — and in the motion of goalscorer Andros Townsend lifting Lockyer’s shirt to a pinkening sky, that detail struck home. Sat at home, Lockyer was smiling.
One week after losing their captain, his side held on to beat Champions League qualifiers Newcastle 1-0, their biggest scalp yet since returning to the Premier League. Luton Town, as a football club, know something about miraculous recoveries.
This is the story of another.
Townsend holds aloft Lockyer’s shirt (Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images) As he saw Lockyer go down, Edwards knew in his gut that this was different to what had happened in May.
“I just felt it,” said Edwards, recalling the sight of Bournemouth’s Philip Billing rushing to Lockyer’s aid. “I can’t explain. I just felt it.”
Back in last season’s play-off final, Lockyer collapsed after just 11 minutes and was rushed to hospital. On that occasion, Lockyer always had a pulse, collapsing after a racing irregular heartbeat raised his blood pressure. He was speaking to the medics less than a minute after going down, with the diagnosis — atrial fibrillation — seemingly fixed by a minor operation.
This incident — a cardiac arrest, in which his heart stopped beating — was far more serious.
In the waiting room of the hospital, Lockyer’s family were being comforted by Bournemouth midfielder David Brooks and his girlfriend, an international team-mate and player who has faced his own health challenges having been diagnosed with stage-two Hodgkin lymphoma in October 2021. Lockyer’s partner, Taylor, is seven months pregnant.
Late last Saturday, Edwards did not know what would greet him when he walked into the hospital ward. The wires and the tubes were a given. He did not expect a joke.
“Anything to get out of the Christmas party,” Lockyer said, referencing the festivities originally planned for that night only to be cancelled after his collapse.
Edwards could scarcely believe it.
“He was hooked up to everything, but lying down, chatting, smiling, fairly jovial,” Edwards recalls. “He’s an incredible man. It was nice to give him a hug and a kiss and just sit there with him and have a chat for a little bit.”
The black humour was Lockyer putting a brave face on his predicament. “He feels like he’s been through a fight with a bear,” Lockyer’s father Steve texted Edwards a few days later, around the time he was discharged from hospital after having an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) fitted. It is too soon to know anything about his future career prospects though and in the period since, Edwards has spoken to Lockyer and his dad every day.
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Before the collapse — and after the planned party — Luton’s squad were scheduled to have both the Sunday and Monday off. After considering the psychological toll the incident had taken on his group, Edwards elected to stick to that plan, recognising that players all deal with emotions differently and wanting to give each of them the maximum possible time to process their feelings.
It also bought time for Lockyer to recover — and to be able to give the squad a meaningful update when they returned on Tuesday.
Edwards watches on at Kenilworth Road (Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images) Though the group did train, it was much more of a generic session to keep the legs churning, with Edwards delegating the session to his assistants Paul Trollope and Richie Kyle, though he still felt it was important for him to be with his players on the grass.
“I was still a little bit emotional on Tuesday — it was still quite raw,” he said, explaining why he did not lead the session. “But I thought it was important to speak to them and put them at ease.”
Sporting Chance, a charity which provides mental health support for professional footballers, also came in to address all the players, giving them access to a confidential 24-hour helpline if they needed to speak to anybody. Edwards, for his part, was offered support by the League Managers’ Association (LMA) and also exchanged messages every day with Steve Cooper, despite his own dismissal at Nottingham Forest during the week.
After another planned day off on Wednesday — the day Lockyer was discharged from hospital — the squad returned on Thursday. With Friday designated as a light day ahead of Saturday’s game, this was the only meaningful session of the week.
On Friday evening, some of Lockyer’s team-mates went to visit him for the first time since his collapse, led by striker Carlton Morris, one of Lockyer’s closest friends in the team. At the same time, amid everything, their head coach’s work went on: he travelled to Villa Park to scout Sheffield United, Luton’s opponents on Boxing Day.
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One of football’s addictive traits is that, for all the marginal gains and tactical complexity, it is still inherently reliant on emotions. Flowing through the moods of players, coaches and fans as it does, its order is turbulent and tremulous. Luton have a talent deficit compared to Newcastle, but found themselves imbued with a shared purpose in the most horrific of circumstances.
For Edwards, the challenge during the week was how to control his messaging.
“My biggest concern has been not using it (Lockyer’s collapse),” said Edwards. “I like the players playing with emotion. I want them playing with their hearts on their sleeve. If it can bring the best out in us, that’s great. But we’ve got to try and harness that and it cannot send people over the edge.”
Ross Barkley and Luton’s players in T-shirts in tribute to Lockyer (Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images) In the days before the game, the squad spoke about what Lockyer signified, not just to the group, but to the club’s history as the captain that got them promoted. “If, going forward, we can all act, behave, play like Tom Lockyer, we’ll be going the right way,” was Edwards’ central thrust.
Just before kick-off, Edwards received a message of his own.
“The three points are there today,” it read. “I’m OK. I’m bored already sitting at home. Don’t worry about me.”
Edwards had described Luton Town as “tight-knit like a family” and on Saturday, Kenilworth Road was packed like a living room at Christmas.
With Luton’s players warming up in shirts displaying Lockyer’s No 4, the challenge of controlling emotions was tested.
Travelling Newcastle fans had brought their own banner: “Get well soon Tom, NUFC”. This fanbase, too, knows loss.
Ivorian midfielder Cheick Tiote, who became a cult hero after his famous equaliser against Arsenal in that 4-4 draw back in 2011, died of a cardiac arrest in 2017 just months after leaving the club. Townsend and goalkeeper Tim Krul, both now in this Luton squad, were former team-mates of Tiote’s at St James’ Park.
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Four minutes in, the stadium came together in applause. On the pitch, Alfie Doughty held both hands above his head to clap while playing, prompting Townsend and Albert Sambi Lokonga to join him.
They could afford to. Luton were the better team — winning the 50-50 duels, stymying Newcastle’s midfield, and pinning both opposition full-backs deep. Despite having just 35 per cent of possession, they had more shots than Newcastle with a higher cumulative xG. Eddie Howe was stung into making two substitutions after just 37 minutes and, post-match, said his side had struggled to deal with the emotion of the day.
“Oh, Tommy Tommy!” rained down upon them. “Tommy Tommy Tommy Tommy Lockyer!”
As the Kenny sang, its advertising hoardings displayed the names of the medical personnel and staff who helped save Lockyer’s life. They included Billing.
They might as well have put Lockyer’s name up on the big screen when Townsend scored the only goal of the game after 25 minutes, for this was a Lockyer goal: a set piece, commitment at the back post, the release of emotion in the aftermath.
Townsend nods in from a corner (Nick Potts/PA Images via Getty Images) Townsend performed his own tribute, running over to the bench to grab Lockyer’s shirt which had been hanging above an empty seat in the dugout. Head down, he held it up to each corner of Kenilworth Road.
Luton had chances to extend their lead. Ross Barkley, playing with confidence not seen since his early seasons at Everton, was trying things from deep, manipulating a disconnected Newcastle. One dipping shot from distance kissed the underside of the bar, with Jacob Brown also striking the woodwork moments into the second half.
Fine margins — but ones which flipped in their favour later in the game when an apparent equaliser for Alexander Isak was ruled out by the tightest of offsides. From then on, Luton’s defending was impeccable and the clean sheet — their first since promotion — was assured. Tribute paid to their defensive lynchpin.
The matchday magazine sporting Lockyer’s image (Nick Potts/PA Images via Getty Images) Last Saturday, for two terrible minutes, everything stopped. This week, in what will still be a slow, arduous and emotional recovery, things went on. Chiedozie Ogbene, roaring to the Bobbers Stand after being tugged back in added time, provided a final release.
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On the pitch at full time, Edwards embraced the medics — remembering their significance — and began to tear up. Speaking post-match, he was both giddy and restrained, scarcely believing and utterly rooted in realism, such has been the wrangler of his past week.
“I’m an emotional wreck at the moment,” he said. “My kids are going to hammer me for crying again. I’ve got to stop. They don’t teach you on the coaching course how to deal with stuff like this.
“But I thought today we really embodied everything that Tom Lockyer is.”
(Top photo: Nick Potts/PA Images via Getty Images)
Your words convey the emotion that has gripped the footballing community and my wife is reading this through tearful eyes, yet again! Rob Edwards embodies all that the fans feel
Great read, thanks for posting.... strangely seem to have something in my eye causing excessive watering whilst reading .... I love this club and things like this just remind me why and mostly to be thankful to all those that have played any part in making it what it is. COYH
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