Sitting alone in a dimly lit dressing room, Scott Davies waits for his Slough Town squad to arrive for another rain-soaked training session. The space is quiet for now, but the 37-year-old has grown used to this moment of stillness before the noise, energy and chaos of non-league football roll in. It is a demanding existence, one he balances alongside a powerful second career shaped by the darkest moments of his life. But still, Davies smiles and sums it up with a purity that reflects his outlook today: “It’s tough, it’s stressful, it’s completely draining … but I absolutely love what I do.”
Since taking over as player-manager in 2022, Davies has faced the realities of leading a part-time squad in National League South — a league where clubs fight for survival on and off the pitch. Slough Town, currently third from bottom, are the lowest-ranked team left in this season’s FA Cup, a storyline that captures both their struggle and their spirit.
Training on this particular evening has been pushed forward to accommodate another fixture at Arbour Park. Some players are stuck in traffic, others rushing from day jobs, and when the session finally begins under sheets of relentless rain, Slough must share their 3G pitch with a local junior team. Davies watches from indoors, a tactics board in front of him, choosing not to train himself. “I always thought I’d love to be a manager of a non-league football club and have a job on the side,” he says. It is exactly the life he now leads — though the “job on the side” has become a calling far greater than he ever expected.
A Second Job Built From Rock Bottom
Just 24 hours earlier, Davies stood in front of a hall of sixth-form students at Aylesbury grammar school. For 45 minutes, he held the room in silence as he detailed how gambling addiction derailed his professional football career, destroyed relationships and pushed him to the brink of suicide.
Clean for a decade, he has not placed a bet since going into rehab and now works as an educator for Epic Risk Management. His talks are raw, candid and empowering — a stark contrast to the player who once hid behind excuses, shame and secrecy. He tells students about scoring a free-kick against Petr Cech during Reading’s 2009 pre-season friendly and believing he had “made it”, even as his addiction tightened its grip.
At just 21, Davies was sneaking out of training sessions to bet, inventing stories to escape. On one occasion, he claimed to have a dentist appointment. When manager Brendan Rodgers urged him to call the dentist to prove it, he couldn’t — and he was never selected for Reading again.
His spiral worsened. On loan at Wycombe, he dreamed of joining Leeds, only to see the deal collapse on television. He drove straight to the bookmakers and lost £7,000 in a single afternoon. At Crawley, he began gambling on his own matches, hiding in toilet cubicles during half-time to place bets. At Oxford United, he stayed awake all night chasing his losses.
By 26, his career had imploded. He dropped three divisions to join Dunstable Town. On the team bus to his first match at Bideford, he passed Reading’s stadium and felt the weight of everything he had lost. “That was a moment of realisation,” he recalls. “I remember looking at the ground as I went past it and thinking: ‘What has happened?’ I’m never going to forget that moment.”
Transforming the Culture He Once Feared
Davies’ assistant at Dunstable, Tony Fontenelle, is now his right-hand man at Slough. Together, the pair have built an environment that rejects the old macho culture Davies once felt trapped in. Players discuss mental health openly. Vulnerability is not weakness — it is strength.
“We always stress the importance that we’re not just managers: we’re life coaches, we’re counsellors, we’re father figures,” Davies says. “We’ve had lads in this changing room stood here crying, with our arms wrapped around them … where they’ve been going through something outside of football.”
Having lived through the consequences of silence, Davies believes young players are especially vulnerable to gambling addiction: money, spare time, competitiveness and the illusion of insider knowledge create a dangerous mix. “When you put all of those things together, you’ve pretty much got the perfect customer for a bookmaker.”
As Slough prepare for their FA Cup second-round tie against Macclesfield, Davies will also speak to Ipswich and Aston Villa’s under-21 squads. His mission is simple: protect others from the path he once walked. “I do feel like we’ve got a duty of care to protect the younger generation … and that’s why I do the job that I do.”
A Manager by Accident — and by Destiny
Davies never planned to become a manager. When Slough’s previous coaching staff resigned three years ago, the club asked him to take the reins. “I was a bit bamboozled,” he says. He had completed his first coaching badge at 16, then waited 20 years to take the next. He earned his UEFA B licence only after stepping into the role out of necessity.
Now married with a 10-month-old daughter, Davies is finally ready to build the managerial career he once never imagined. His playing days are nearing their end, but he is preparing for his UEFA A licence and wants to correct the mistakes of his younger years. “There’s a lot of regret but the beauty of coming out the other side … is that I’m going to right the wrongs of my playing career with what will hopefully be a long, distinguished management career.”
Dreaming Beyond the Limits of Non-League
Slough Town have never reached the FA Cup third round. They have been eliminated in the second round eight times — more than any other non-league club. This season, though, something feels different.
A dream tie against a Premier League giant could transform the club financially, potentially delivering a seven-figure windfall to a squad filled with builders, personal trainers and teaching assistants.
Davies imagines the surreal prospect of facing a world-class manager. “I don’t think there would be any tactics that go with the game … You’d be happy to lose the football match just for the experience.” He laughs at the thought, but deep down he knows moments like these are why non-league football matters. “You see it and you think: ‘One day, can it be you?’”
For a man who has rebuilt his life step by step, surviving the worst and emerging with purpose, belief and gratitude, the answer seems clearer every day.
