Reid, who was born in Torquay but grew up in Exeter, was picked up by the Grecians’ academy when he was 12.<\/p>\n
He progressed through the ranks to earn a professional contract, but struggled to break through at St James Park and left after 27 appearances.<\/p>\n
“I had to take a step down, I had never been away from home but it was the best thing I have ever done – I feel I have grown so much by moving away,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It’s only later in life you realise how small the chances of making it as a footballer are. I couldn’t tell you one of the boys I played with who have become footballers.<\/p>\n
“Football is about opinions. There are always people who think you’re not good enough but the only ones that matter are yours and the manager’s. You have to believe in yourself and push yourself.”<\/p>\n
Every Saturday as a child, Reid’s grandfather took he and his brother to watch Torquay – the club Reid would end up making almost 200 appearances for after leaving Exeter.<\/p>\n
“I probably wasn’t the best at school, I won’t lie,” he said. “My concentration levels were very low.<\/p>\n
“I felt sorry for my mum, she was a single mum, she had two boys, and my brother and I were both into our football. That’s all we ever did. We were boisterous. She was unbelievable. She dropped me to games, she bought me new boots.<\/p>\n
“They (the Torquay players) were my heroes and that was my introduction to football. They were very special days.<\/p>\n
“Every game we would be asking for players’ autographs, so I know what it’s like for fans asking now because I used to be one of them.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reid, who was born in Torquay but grew up in Exeter, was picked up by the Grecians’ academy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":236584,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-236583","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-soccer","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}