Jack Rutter was on the verge of turning professional as a footballer with Birmingham City when an unprovoked attack on a night out changed his life. Jack suffered a brain injury that meant his dreams of becoming a professional footballer were over. Despite this setback, and a difficult few years that followed, Jack went on to captain Team GB at the Paralympic Games at Rio in 2016. This is Jack’s story.

I got into football as a four year old boy who was full of energy. I didn't always put that energy into a positive place, I was running around breaking things, falling off the sofa, all that sort of carry on. My Mum was always saying to my Dad that he needs to find something to put all this energy into or he’s going to be a handful and one day I came running into the living room and there was a game of football on the TV. And there’s Eric Cantona playing in the Manchester United strip and I'm watching him play with his collar up and his maverick style and his unbelievable skills and goals. I was truly hooked and I said to my Mum I wanted to be a professional footballer. I was obsessed with football from that moment when I was four years of age and I'm still absolutely obsessed with it now at 32 years old!  It’s given me so much in my life and I've learnt so much from football.

Through that passion and hard work from a very young age, I started doing very well in football at school. I was playing one or two years above my age group, I was doing very well in grassroots football for a team called Windsor Drive in Gloucester and then I started getting picked up by academies. I was training with Bristol Rovers and Cardiff City from seven or eight years of age and then I signed for Birmingham City Football Club when I was 10.

Birmingham were just going into the Premier League at that point, they were a Category 1 Academy who would play against Arsenal, Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool - all of the big teams. I signed for Birmingham at ten years of age and I spent eight years at the Birmingham City football academy, so I was testing myself against the best players and best clubs in the country, playing international tournaments in France and Italy and I even captained the Birmingham City team when I was 14 years old. At 18 I had appeared 33 times for the reserve team and I was playing in the under 18 team week in week out and we were just about to play in the FA Youth Cup semi-final against Liverpool at Anfield, a world famous ground that every young player dreams of playing at. Two weeks before that semi-final against Liverpool and by all accounts signing my professional contract with Birmingham City, I was the victim of an unprovoked assault.

I was on a night out with my friends in Gloucester. At the end of the evening I was talking to a friend of mine outside the nightclub and as I turned around and said goodbye to go home, a boy walked up behind me taking two steps and bang, punched me straight in the back of the head, a completely unprovoked assault that knocked me unconscious. When I fell I hit my head on a kerb, which made the injuries even worse, I had blood coming from my mouth, nose and ear. I was rushed to Gloucester Royal hospital and then transferred to a brain hospital in Bristol.

For the first 48 hours it was touch and go whether I'd even survive or not, but fortunately I responded to the trauma well. This was partly to do with my age but also because of the football training, I was very fit and healthy and responded to the trauma well, but fundamentally I was very lucky.  I didn't need an operation on my brain, but I had to stay in intensive care for three weeks, because the injuries that I suffered were really severe. I had a fractured skull in two places on the back and on the side of my head.  And the side fracture completely severed my cochlear and vestibular nerve, so my right ear is completely deaf and will be for the rest of my life. And damaging the vestibular nerve also affected my balance. I had a bleed on the brain from where my brain shook from hitting the floor, so there is quite a bit of frontal lobe damage which affects things like concentration and memory, fatigue, emotional control and so on.  

When I left the hospital after three weeks, I actually left in a wheelchair because I was so disoriented, unbalanced and uncoordinated from the real shock and trauma to my body and my mind. I was unstable and I had really bad headaches and I was very dizzy so I had to have help from my family to get home. Once at home I was resting and rehabilitating, but I was sleeping 16 hours a day, just resting up at home and trying to get better. I did start to improve, and I did start to get better physically and feel a bit more like myself but I was still pretty unbalanced and in particular sideways and backwards movements were tough. If I moved at any speed I would get a dizziness in my head and also my right ear was of course now deaf and it would ring a lot as well, which could be really uncomfortable.  

Because of all these problems and after about 12 months of trying I knew I couldn't get back to playing football at a professional level. Only about 1% of players who want to become professional make it, and even less are able to play in the Premier League. I believe I was in that 1% but the injuries I suffered meant there was no way I could play at that level so I took the really tough decision to retire from professional football at only 19 years of age.

Alongside retiring there were more challenges, not only was I physically not quite the same with my balance, coordination, movement and motor skills but also mentally I wasn't the same. I found it harder to learn things, I found it hard to concentrate. At times I'd get really, really tired and then have sudden bursts of energy. I found it really hard to deal with my emotions, to deal with stress, to deal with pressure. I used to forget things a lot and not be able to speak as well. I used to forget my vocabulary and certain words at certain times and I remember I used to write words the wrong way or they were just all jumbled up. It was a real shock to the system, physically and mentally.

When I retired, I found I lost all my purpose and motivation. I really went down a bad path so unfortunately I turned to drink and drugs to suppress those feelings. I was always full of energy and when I want something positive, that’s great but unfortunately that energy went into negative things more and more. I was going out a lot, at least three four times a week drinking and experimenting with different things that normally it wasn't in my character to do, but it was a release and it was just trying to deal with those sad and frustrating thoughts.

I didn't know it at the time, but looking back I had mental health issues, anxiety was a big one and it's a big one for me still today. At the time I was worried about my future, what was I going to do without football and any purpose or motivation? What was I going to do as a job that I enjoyed?  How was I going to earn money? I was going to buy a house, buy a car, all these things I thought I'd be able to do so easily being a footballer with the ability to earn good money, all of that was taken away from me through no fault of my own.

It was a scary time and I think I was depressed, I was also very angry about what had happened and I let those frustrations out in the wrong way. I think I've been arrested four times and I was on a thing called Pub Watch for two years where I was banned from every licenced premises in Gloucester. Looking back on it now it’s scary to think about, I even had to go to court over an incident as well, so I was not exactly living my best life. I was going through a really traumatic time in my life and it was affecting my family, I was stressing my friends and I was losing people along the way, it was a sad time. It really affected my family hugely. My parents spilt up and my brother who is autistic struggled to cope. My sister was doing a law degree - she's actually passed now and is a fully-fledged barrister - but back then she was finding it tough, and I thought I was responsible for it all because I wasn't reacting the way I should have done at times and I was really struggling.

We will all go through challenges in life and it’s all about how you overcome those challenges. I had to find something new to do which was hard. I went to university and failed at that, I tried coaching, but I realised I didn’t want to do that either. I went travelling which was great because I could escape, and I could be anybody but myself which was quite a nice release. But it was in 2012 and the exposure of the London Paralympic Games that I found out that I could potentially play in the seven aside Paralympics football team.  

I was getting help from Headway Brain Injury charity and I found out that I could play in the Paralympics as it was for people who've had a brain injury, had a stroke, an acquired brain injury or born with cerebral palsy. I was really excited, and I went and joined the East Midlands cerebral palsy team and I met all the boys there who were truly inspiring and they said ‘you know there's a chance to play for England if you’re good enough’ and that really helped get my motivation back.

I decided to move back home to my Mum's house and worked really hard at my balance and coordination again. I started getting a bit better and a bit of time away gave me a new motivation and new training helped me compensate even more and then I got my chance with England at the brand-new state-of-the-art facility at St George's Park at the back end of 2012. I never looked back.

In the next five years, I captained the team in a European championships in Portugal, played in two World Championships, one in England and one in Argentina and I also captained Great Britain in one of the biggest sporting events in the world, the Paralympic Games, playing in front of 15,000 people with millions watching around the world on the global stage.  It really helped me to come to terms with what had happened to me because I was back playing at the elite level again and considered to be one of the best players in the world, captaining England for four years.

I feel like I’ve opened a lot of doors for other disability players. I was the first disability footballer to model the England Nike kit and I was also the first  McDonald's Fun Football ambassador from disability football and now those doors are open, other disability players are able to walk through now and experience the same things I've experienced.

I’ve managed to overcome a lot of challenge and fortunately I've learnt a lot from those experiences and mistakes and errors and failures and now I have a bit of wisdom that I try and pass on with the work that I do now.

Of all of the programmes I have worked on at the Trust, I love the AQA Unlocking Potential programme the most, because you get to really know the students for a longer period of time. It’s really meaningful, long lasting work. You’re  working on life skills,  working on goal setting,  sharing each other's experiences both of the good and the bad and also delivering the social action projects where you really see the students step out of their comfort zone, work on those life skills and do something that really helps their school or their community.

Outside of the Trust, I've now retired from football, my last tournament was the World Cup  in Argentina back in 2017 where we made the semi-finals for the first time ever. I have now passed my UEFA ‘A’ licence coaching badge, and I now coach the England Under-21 development cerebral palsy team. I’m also Assistant Head Coach to the senior team and we have the European championships in Sardinia that we are currently working towards in May. I'm also still a McDonald's Fun Football ambassador and I work at Sports for Schools in primary schools. I also have my own company called Jack Rutter Skills School where I work with businesses, schools, universities and colleges, just trying to help motivate and inspire others to reach their potential and pass on all the things that I've learned along the way.

I’m often asked about what advice I would give to young people who have been through adversity. There are three mottos I try and live my life by.

You have to be resilient.

So everyone - it doesn't matter if you’re the richest, most successful person in the world or you had a really hard time growing up – will have to show resilience in their life, because at some point or the other you will be challenged. I firmly believe that everyone goes through bad times and how that feels to you is exactly the same as how it feels to others, but what separates some people from others is resilience. Can you overcome those challenges when they come along? Can you be willing to fail and learn at the same time? Can you be willing to step out of your comfort zone and learn through those experiences? You have to be a resilient person to do that and not let yourself be defined by bad experiences.

Step out of your comfort zone.

The average person only reaches about 40% of their true potential and I believe most people stay in their comfort zones and don’t stretch themselves. Where we really need to be though is in our optimal performance zone, which can make us feel anxious but it’s in this zone that you can really see what you’re capable of achieving. So can you set small process goals outside of your comfort zone where you want to improve? Whether that’s something physical, mental, or maybe in your occupation - set goals that can improve your well-being and your personal development and you will fly and you will really see what you are capable of achieving.

The Importance of a good, positive attitude.

Those people I have met in Paralympic sport who have achieved so many amazing things, even when they are blind or they are missing limbs or have been through really challenging moments, it’s their attitude that is what separates them from others.

That's why I love this quote that I always live by: