UTD Unscripted: The Joy of SOCOM

Team-bonding was one of my big things. Everyone who was at the club understood what they were there for, and that was to be successful footballers, but having the right atmosphere was a big deal too. I think the manager always made sure he knew the personality of the players he was signing as well as their football ability, and while he did his research on the kind of person joining the group,  I think he was always very secure in the fact that anyone he brought would be made to feel at home straight away.

 

I’d found that to be the case in my own career, when I first came into the seniors. I’d already bonded with the lads in my youth teams as I was growing up, and you get to that age where you’re turning 17, 18, 19 and you’re going out to bars, clubs and restaurants with the United lads, in my case even before I was doing it with my own mates.

 

When I started getting a sniff of the first team, even if it was just the odd training session at first, the older lads all made me feel totally comfortable about being there with them. For my part, I understood that hard work was required and appreciated, so I’d get stuck in without a second thought. There wasn’t any other option.

 

My first full season in the first team was the Treble season, and team-bonding was a big part of that success. I absolutely hated paintballing – there were no rules, it was just madness – but I quite enjoyed clay pigeon shooting at the team hotel before the FA Cup final. Being part of that squad showed me how important team-bonding was, and everyone in that dressing room understood how important it was to keep that going through different age groups as the squad grew up and evolved.

 

It's all about staying together, no matter what. We all have personal lives, but when events were put on, it was important that everyone understood that it we had to go to it. At first, I did it without probably realising what it was all about, but as I got older I realised just how important it was. I liked it anyway, it was good to get out, good to have a bit of fun together, but what you probably don't understand when you’re a kid is that this is what it’s like on the pitch as well. It’s all about sticking together, helping each other, having a laugh and staying together. But when you’ve been having fun games like that, you might have an occasion on the pitch, without thinking about it, where you do something extra for your mate rather than not.

I’d been in the first team for a few seasons when we started gaming together as a group. We all had PSPs and I honestly don’t remember how it started. It might have been Fletch, maybe Rod Thornley, maybe even myself, but 2006/07 was the time that one of us introduced SOCOM.

 

That was literally the best game that could have been invented for us as a group.

 

So, you’re split into two teams of up to eight players per team. There were different gameplay modes and different aims for each type, and the aim in each is to beat the other team using rocket launchers, guns, sniper rifles, grenades and so on.

 

Basically, it’s war.

 

The older lads, like Giggsy, Scholesy, Nev, they didn’t play it but that’s understandable. They were a bit older than us. Apart from them, this one game just took everyone in and started dominating the dressing room, and we all had to pick our individual user names.

 

I can’t remember them all, but… I know Michael Carrick was Havoc, Fletch was Haywire, Sheasy was Cobra, Rio was Brap and I had a few names. There are some that I can’t remember or can’t really repeat! Others played like Wazza, Kieran Richardson, Jonny Evans, Anderson… I’m definitely forgetting a load of people but there were up to 16 of us playing at a time. There were actually times when people would have to wait to get a sniff in. The younger lads started playing it as well, so we were massively oversubscribed. You had to hurry to make sure you got a slot, otherwise you’d miss out. It was that competitive just to even get in the game.

There was eight of us playing it on two different teams, obviously all connected online, we’d play on the team bus, play it in hotels either in somebody’s room or even in the corridors, anywhere we could.

 

We would have team-talks before the game, allocate various roles to all the players, and then we’d switch around the roles after a couple of rounds. People had different skills and different personalities within the game. Some people might sit there being boring all day with a rocket launcher, just waiting for someone to run by so they can pick them off. Then you’ve got other people running round trying to find people.

 

My style was probably just to bowl straight in! Someone on my team would be playing it cautious, saying: “Not yet, not yet.” Nah, let’s just get in there. But at the same time, it was useful. I didn’t mind running in and dying, because it gave me the chance to let everyone else on my team know the positions of everyone on the other team. Literally take one for the team.

 

People were probably wondering what was going on when they were seeing Vida and Sheasy pulling out imaginary rocket launchers after they’d scored goals in important games in the Champions League, but it was just our little in-joke, our way of having a laugh about the stuff we’d been doing together.

 

The relevance of it all to what we were doing on the pitch was communication and teamwork. All the way through SOCOM, you all have to talk to each other. If you spot somebody then you have to communicate that with your team so you can figure out the best way of getting him.

 

“He’s in the shed.”

 

“He’s in this room.”

 

“He’s in the boiler.”

 

I mean, it sounds really stupid, but in the game you’re doing what you’d do on the pitch.

When you die in the game you can be revived, so your team-mates need to be able to get where you are, and you’re talking through it, telling you not to come yet, one of the opponents is still there and so on.

 

We were constantly playing with different teams, and that meant you were mixing things up and playing with different players from the squad. You're always talking to each other and little bits of that all went into our football. You’re communicating more and more with so many different members of the squad, building relationships with them and getting to know them better.

 

We played SOCOM for years. We’d look forward to it, particularly before every away trip. We’d play it all evening before a match, then the next day we’d go out on the pitch and pretty much have the same mindset. We were all ready for a battle. It’s really weird to say, but spending so much time gaming didn’t affect us at all. If anything, it helped us.

 

I think the manager appreciated it, in a way. I mean, we were SO LOUD at times when we were playing it. There were times when he did have to tell us to keep the noise down a bit or maybe watch our language, but he could have clamped down a lot more than he did, honestly.

 

You wouldn’t believe how noisy we got. Vida was so funny, so passionate when he was playing SOCOM. Just like he was out on the pitch. I mean, he grew up in an actual war zone, didn’t he, and he loved the game. Rio and Wazza probably took it more personally then everyone else if they lost, which was funny in a good way, and you could always count on something going on to make us even noisier. We weren’t doing it on purpose, but we were never properly told off for it. I think the manager realised the unbelievable amount of bonding that was going on in that group, and the amount of good habits we were forming. When you look back you think: Oh my God, we probably got too excited about a game, but the passion we put into it was like playing in a proper match. You just didn’t want to lose.

We even took it to England with us and all the Chelsea lads would be playing it. We used to play United versus Chelsea on SOCOM and come on, who do you think won those? Let’s put it this way: many a Chelsea PSP was broken in frustration.

 

We played new versions of the game as it came out but like it does, time moved on and the series stopped. I probably haven’t played it in 10 years now. It’s Call of Duty which is everywhere and I do play that with some of the old United lads now and again, but it doesn’t compare to SOCOM, nothing can. When we were playing it, we were winning titles, winning the Champions League, and that game was probably more important to our success than you could imagine. We knew that we were there to win trophies, but at the same time making sure we enjoyed our time together was huge.

 

That builds bonds that last over time. Even now, there’s probably about 15 of us in a WhatsApp group and we’re chatting on that every day. Obviously we’re all in lockdown at the minute, but everyone’s getting through it and it helps to be able to chat with the lads.

 

Actually, I’ve still got SOCOM, still got my PSP. Maybe now’s the perfect time to see if my charger’s knocking around so I can get it working again. Maybe Havoc, Cobra, Haywire and the others can be revived again!