ONE FALL, ONE SUBMISSION AND AN INDIRECT FREE KICK

The Porthmadog FC experience was a good one. Visiting their lovely stadium, surrounded by mountains, was memorable and so it was that I reluctantly drove home yesterday, through Snowdonia to Ruthin, Mold and Chester, where I caught up with an old footballing college of mine. He has lived there for a couple of decades and it was a remarkable coincidence that after he had plied me with muffins and tea, I drove away listening to Talksport. Chester cropped up along with the name Stuart Tomlinson.

Who he? Well he is now a WWE wrestler living in Orlando, throwing himself about the canvas as energetically as he threw himself around in English penalty areas as a goalkeeper.

Born in May 1985 in Chester, Stuart made his early career with Crewe Alexandra from 2003-9 playing 20 time s the first team. He went out on loan to Stafford Rangers and Burton Albion, then had a year ar Barrow where he helped the Cumbrian side win the FA Trophy in 2010.

His huge frame earned him various nicknames, some flattering others not so, but his muscular physique encouraged his friendly supporters to call him "The Tank".

There was spell at Port Vale up to 2012 and then he played for Burton again, but suffered a knee injury which forced his retirement.

In December 2013 he joined up with WWE NXT Live, following a "trial" at the O2 Dome. He had done some male modelling with Men's health magazine and enjoyed being seen in "the smallest polka dots trunks possible". So the obvious next step was wrestling! Steady on.

Having been accepted on the wrestling circuit, he is now strutting his stuff in the USA. Here is a video of Stuart, SORRY, stage name Hugo Knox in WWE mode.
http://www.skysports.com/more-sports/news/13043/9563970/wwe-soccer-ams-adam-smith-meets-goalkeeper-turned-wrestler-stuart-tomlinson