Thursday 18 November 2021

Matt Holland's struggle with colour blindness

Five minutes into his Charlton Athletic debut, Matt Holland was struggling. Not because of a lack of fitness, or a lack of understanding with his new team-mates, but because he could barely tell his own side from the opposition.

Charlton, in their red shirts, were away at Plymouth Argyle, whose home kit is green, as part of a pre-season tour in 2003.

Being colour blind, Holland could not distinguish between the two, and only by focusing intently on the different designs of the respective sides’ shorts could he tell the difference.

Every time I looked up, all I could see was one colour,” Holland told The Athletic of that day in Plymouth. “I ran over to the dugout. Mervyn Day was assistant manager, with (manager) Alan Curbishley up in the stands. I said, ‘Merv, I have a big problem. I can’t tell the difference between the two teams here’. I was having to look at the shorts, which were different, but that isn’t great if you’re trying to do things quickly.

“He must have thought, ‘What the bloody hell have we signed?’ He told me I’d have to get on with it and that there was nothing they could do. I told them after it was a bit of an issue: I always did things quickly, one and two touches, and kept the ball moving. If I have an extra touch and have to look up that takes away from my game so I had to say I’ve got a problem here.

“We had green, orange, red bibs in training and he had to make sure I had a colour I could see. He was conscious in training that I got a colour I could tell my team-mates apart in, so I knew which team I was on.

“Those are the only times I’ve had major issues.”

Holland, 47, is now working in the media and adds: “I have had problems watching games, on TV and when I’ve been commentating, where the two teams are very similar. I have to really, really concentrate just to see the difference between the two.”

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