Swindon<\/a> side visit Crawley hoping to maintain their League Two promotion push, Holloway, who turns 63 this month, plans to wear his hearing aids at a game for the first time. \u201cUnfortunately ageing happens to all of us \u2013 your body does deteriorate \u2013 so put the ego down and get the best hearing you can. I want to be the best I can be for as long as I can be.\u201d<\/p>\nCould it be a first for a manager? \u201cI have no idea whether it is or not, I don\u2019t really care. But I want to shout about it from the rooftops, because it\u2019s absolutely incredible.\u201d Though he accepts he may be \u201cless pleased when I can hear what away fans are shouting more clearly\u201d.<\/p>\n
Holloway is in typically good form, but he has a serious message: the Swindon manager is keen to raise awareness and encourage others to get their hearing checked with Tuesday marking World Hearing Day. \u201cThe stats say most people wait nine years to get checked, fix their ears \u2026 why would you even dream of doing that? You wouldn\u2019t do that with any other ailment, would you? It\u2019s absolutely ridiculous. We\u2019ve got to kill the stigma.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got things behind my ears, so what? If it\u2019s helping me hear better, I don\u2019t really care what I look like. No one worries about having a hair transplant or \u2018Turkey teeth\u2019, so why be worried about a little amplifier on the side of your head to make sure your ears work properly? It might cost me a bit of vanity and someone might tease me, who cares? It\u2019s hardly going to ruin a face as bad as this, is it?\u201d<\/p>\n
Holloway, who has three profoundly deaf daughters, as well as two deaf grandchildren, is more aware than most about the impact not being able to hear can have on life; four of the five wear cochlear implants, an electronic device to improve hearing. Holloway and his wife learnt British Sign Language to unlock the door to communication. \u201cWhat you can\u2019t hear doesn\u2019t exist,\u201d he says. \u201cIf you can\u2019t hear other people, if you can\u2019t hear things, you are isolated from the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ian Holloway visits Specsavers to get a hearing aid. Photograph: Ottr Works<\/p>\n
Last year he had his hearing checked at Specsavers in Swindon, who sponsor the club; as part of their relationship, most players and staff had their hearing and vision checked and, as a result, one player is also thought to be exploring hearing aids. Holloway\u2019s test found mild hearing loss in both ears. He particularly struggled with word-endings such as \u201cs\u201d, \u201cp\u201d and \u201csh\u201d. \u201cAfterwards I was shocked, really, to see what I\u2019d lost. You half-think: \u2018Do I really want them [hearing aids]?\u2019 Do I want to be seen as deaf and old?\u2019 But, you know what, it\u2019s the best thing I\u2019ve ever done. I\u2019m sitting here talking to you, clear as a bell. Before I\u2019d have been guessing what you\u2019re saying.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scientists continue to research the link between hearing loss and dementia; the NHS says the risk of getting dementia almost doubles if a person has untreated mild hearing loss. Alzheimer\u2019s Society says there is evidence that hearing aids can slow cognitive decline in people at risk of dementia. It was an element that pushed Holloway to get help. He lost his mother, Jean, to Alzheimer\u2019s in 2018. \u201cShe lost her sight a bit, her hearing, stopped doing her cryptic crosswords and went downhill very quickly \u2013 you\u2019ve got to keep your mind active, your brain going and there\u2019s nothing quite like football to do that. But you\u2019ve got to be able to hear correctly as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
The immediate target is returning Swindon to League One for the first time since they were relegated five years ago. They have matched last season\u2019s points tally of 62 with 11 games to go. \u201cI\u2019ve said to the players, if any of them have been moaning about me not picking them, I\u2019ll be able to hear them now, so don\u2019t bother with any of that,\u201d he says. \u201cLast year we were trying to stay up and there was more pressure then than there is now, because the pressure of getting relegated is horrendous. It\u2019s getting to the squeaky-bum time, as Sir Alex [Ferguson] used to say.\u201d<\/p>\n
Holloway collected his hearing aids last week. \u201cThe second I put them on: \u2018Wow!\u2019 Completely amazing. I hate it without them now. It\u2019s like everything is dull and I\u2019m listening to things in a bucket of water. Insane. I feel like I have come out of the dark and everything is colourful \u2026 imagine a black and white drawing and all of a sudden you look at it and it\u2019s 3D and colour.\u201d<\/p>\n
A replica painting of Michelangelo\u2019s Creation of Adam, by Holloway. Photograph: Ian Holloway<\/p>\n
It is a fitting analogy given Holloway is an avid artist in his spare time<\/a>. Before returning to management with Swindon around 18 months ago, he thought that was going to be his new career. He has previously painted Pep Guardiola, J\u00fcrgen Klopp and Brian Clough, and recently finished a version of Michelangelo\u2019s Creation of Adam, which has pride of place in his front room at home in the Cotswolds, but his latest painting, of his wife, is a work in progress.<\/p>\n\u201cShe looks a bit like Helen Mirren, which isn\u2019t a bad thing because she\u2019s a very attractive lady, but I\u2019d rather it looked just like my wife \u2026 it\u2019s been a year in the making, I still haven\u2019t got it right and it\u2019s frustrating the living daylights out of me. I put so much paint on it that I\u2019ve got to sand some of my wife\u2019s face off. It doesn\u2019t sound good, and I won\u2019t enjoy doing it, but it\u2019s what I\u2019ve got to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Holloway insists he will never forget the moment Megan, one of the in-store staff in Swindon, kitted him out with his hearing aids. \u201cShe said: \u2018You better get yourself ready because it\u2019ll blow your mind what you\u2019ve been missing.\u2019 And it does,\u201d he says. \u201cShe said the word \u2018speech\u2019 and, oh my God, it came out so clearly. Because what your brain does, it makes up what you think you\u2019re hearing, and I was getting things so wrong. So many words, when it\u2019s not clear, sound the same.\u201d<\/p>\n
Holloway, whose Swindon side are fourth, outside the automatic promotion places on goal difference, relives one of those episodes with Kim around the house. \u201cHave a tin of beans, a pair of jeans,\u201d he says. \u201c\u2018I don\u2019t want any beans, love.\u2019 No, I\u2019ve washed your jeans. \u2018Oh, sorry.\u2019 And there are plenty of others that we can\u2019t talk about,\u201d he says, breaking into laughter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ian Holloway is talking about one of the telltale signs, away from frontline management, that led to him…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":516206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-516205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}