Gregor Robertson: Waiting for the phone to ring during January's window pain

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It is a cold and windy January morning back in 2013, and I’m training on my own at the local park. It’s just a few days since I celebrated my 30th birthday – although “celebrated” might not be the word: 30 is a pretty big milestone for a footballer, it makes you contemplate the future – and on top of that I’m without a club for the first time in my career.

It’s been nearly two weeks since my contract was cancelled at Crewe – “by mutual consent” – and my phone is never far from my side. It’s even on “loud” – it’s never on “loud” – so I know I won’t miss the call that I’m waiting for: a manager, agent, anyone who can offer me the chance to keep on playing the game that I love, but the game which is also my livelihood.

Staying motivated isn’t easy: kicking a ball against a wall and being chased by dogs on the park while I try to keep fit is a far cry from the training I’m used to. I’ve played 300 games for four different clubs in all three divisions of the Football League. So someone will pick up the phone soon, won’t they?

Stories like mine are a million miles away from the January transfer window that most people recognise: the rumour and speculation; the multi-million pound signings; the drama of deadline day; Jim White in the Sky Sports studio and Harry Redknapp leaning out of his car window for his customary late-night chat with the cameras. It is not hard to be sucked in by the theatre of it all, but the reality of life for most footballers outside the Premier League is a little different at this time of year.

Football is a precarious business: injuries, changes of manager, financial troubles, new signings, dips in form – I’ve seen them all. So if, for whatever reason, you find yourself down the pecking order, as I was at Crewe back then, January is seen as the time to venture out and attempt to resuscitate your career. The turnaround of players in the summer is so vast that you’d be a fool to simply wait for the dogfight at the end of the season, with up to a thousand out-of-contract footballers all in the same boat as you.

If you play in the “lower leagues” it’s given that name for a reason: there aren’t many other places to go in the professional game and if you haven’t been playing at one club, there won’t be many more chances out there for you with others.

Of course, that’s only one side of the coin. On the flipside there are players whose performances earn them a dream move at this time of year. I saw Andy Reid and Michael Dawson – two guys I came through the ranks at Nottingham Forest with – leave for Tottenham Hotspur for a combined £8m on deadline day in January 2005 and, for them, that one signature was life-changing.

At Rotherham a couple of years later I saw my team-mates Will Hoskins and Lee Williamson sold to Premier League club Watford.

Although it is natural for the best players to move on, in both instances a similar fate awaited the clubs they left behind: relegation.

At Forest we lost our creative spark and our leader at the back, while at Rotherham our goals and our midfield engine were gone – in one fell swoop. It’s not easy for any club to lose their best players in the middle of the season – even more so for smaller clubs – and it’s harder still to replace them when budgets are tight and time is scarce.

Thankfully back in 2013, my phone did finally ring. I was offered the chance to join Northampton Town, rock bottom of the Football League, on a deal until the end of the season earning half the wage I’d been earning at Crewe. Doesn’t sound that alluring? I bit their hands off. Plus, it ticked another important box: it was only an hour down the M1 from my home in Nottingham, which is a big consideration for players further down the pyramid.

The five-year contracts handed to Premier League stars are unheard of in the lower leagues, as are the millions of pounds they earn over that term. Often our contracts are better measured in months rather than years. So with a lack of security and with families and commitments to consider, for many players moving to the other end of the country just isn’t an option.

By helping Northampton stay in League Two on a nail-biting final day of the season I earned a one-year contract extension. But I was on the move again last January.

When I signed for Grimsby Town I dropped out of the Football League for the first time in my career. It was a difficult decision for me to make, but one thing I have learned is that once your time at a club is up, it’s up – and to prolong your career you have to be playing.

Last season at Grimsby turned out to be one of the most enjoyable I’ve ever had. We went on an incredible run and missed out on promotion by a single penalty in the shootout of the play-off final against Bristol Rovers, in front of 50,000 supporters at Wembley. Grimsby is a great club at the heart of the community with the best support of any club I’ve been at. And as long as I’m there I’ll be doing everything I possibly can to help get the club get back in the Football League.

Unfortunately I’ve never experienced the January transfer window that we’re all used to seeing at the top level of the game, but stories like mine are more common than you would think. To have spent 15 years playing the game I love for a living is an achievement in itself – and one I am proud of.

I’m hoping for a more tranquil January this year. But such is the nature of a football career at this level, you never know what is around the corner. Perhaps one day in the future I might be back on the local park, training on my own, phone on “loud” – never far from my side, waiting for a call…