Leighton Baines: Not your average footballer

Baines is recalling the day, while on England duty, that Gary Neville marched unannounced into his hotel room to see what the noise was about.

“He heard me playing my guitar,” Baines says. “He was only in for two minutes. He picked it up, had a go, put it down and away he went again. He seemed like he could play, I’ll give him that. I think at one point he was really good but he’s got about 14 jobs now, hasn’t he?”

There is a telling smile. No discussion with Baines could ever be complete without the subject of music being broached and the spin-off from him discussing Leonard Cohen’s new album Popular Problems — his record of choice this week — is how he is teaching himself to play the guitar.

During the past 12 months, images have been plentiful of Baines heading off to games, either for Everton or England, with his bags in one hand and a guitar casually slung over his shoulders. It has captured attention, but this is no expensive fashion accessory.

“I don’t get the chance to play at home,” Baines explains. “I try to sneak 20 minutes but when the kids are around, well, you know what it’s like and I haven’t been doing it that long. When we travel, a lot of the lads just sleep, chill out and relax. I’m not a sleeper though.

“I’m not good with time, really. So it made sense. It was something I was always intrigued about so I just started taking it with me.

“I’ve had a couple of lessons in Crosby but I’ve been using the internet. I’ve not called in anyone famous, I wouldn’t dare!”

So what reaction does he get from his Everton and England teammates, who would be more au fait with PlayStations or an Xbox? “Nobody says anything,” Baines replies. “I thought I might get a bit of stick, as daft as that might sound. You know what the environment is like, but they just accepted it. I imagine if someone else had done it, there would have been a bit of stick flying around, but they just left me to it.”

This is not a run-of-the-mill conversation but, then again, Baines is not your average footballer. He will not, for instance, spend hours watching Sky Sports, preferring instead to bury his head in a book — he is currently reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by the Japanese author Haruki Murakami.

But he needs to keep occupied and, during our time together, the issue arises of what happens when his playing career is over. That won’t happen any time soon — he is 29 and committed himself to Everton for five more years in January — but he has thought about the future.

Will it involve football? “I hope not,” comes the refreshing answer. “As much as I love it — the reason I don’t watch or read about it now is because I am giving... everything I can to it — any bits of time that are my own, I come away from it.

“So when I finish, I think I will get that passion back as I won’t be involved in it. I reckon I would go back as a fan but I’d like to do something else. I just want to try a different world, with different... people, different experiences.

“It’s not that I’m not grateful for what I do now, I just want to try to do something different. I have always been thinking about the next move because it wouldn’t be good for me not to have a job or not have to get up to do something.”

Why? “Killing time at home is easy, isn’t it?” he says. “You get a coffee, you have a read, you do the school run. By the time 9pm comes, you have an hour to unwind and then you conk out. That’s easy. The scary bit will come when the football stops, the kids are grown up and they don’t rely on you.

“I’m aware that, when I stop playing, I’m going to have to roll into something else. It wouldn’t be healthy for the alarm to go off and not have something to do.”

Honesty is one of Baines’s virtues. He will not duck a question, so when talk turns back to how he viewed events in Brazil — as, when England’s World Cup campaign ran aground inside six days, Baines found himself in the firing line — he does not offer excuses.

“I’ve touched on it a few times,” says a man who now has 28 caps. “We shouldn’t still be dwelling on it at this point. Of course it was hugely disappointing the way that it went, but you still reflect on it.

“Everyone came home hurting... but you go away, you have your holiday and try to move on. For me, it was spending time with people who meant more to me than football — my family. I went away to Turkey with my mum and dad, sister, my wife and three kids.

“You do still go back and think about it because it was so disappointing. Of course, you understand the criticism.”

The ability to apply perspective is crucial, particularly during weeks such as this. Everton’s season has not gone according to plan so far, yet Baines remains positive, extolling his manager Roberto Martinez’s blueprint.

“He keeps us thinking,” Baines says. “You have got to be a thinking footballer and understand what he wants from you. There is no position that is played in the traditional, conventional way.”

— Daily Mail