As kids, with toy cars for goalposts and a washing line that doubled up as a makeshift crossbar, Matt and Joseph Mills duelled with their elder brothers Jonathan and Jamie in the back garden of the family home in west Swindon. These days, things have come somewhat full circle, with the pair back on the same team at Forest Green Rovers. They shared a room growing up and lived together when their paths crossed in the north-west a few years ago but until the start of this month, they had never played together professionally.
“We grew up playing two v two,” says Joseph, 29, the club captain, sitting alongside Matt, 33, a player-coach, fresh from devouring a vegan – in line with the League Two club’s sustainable ethos – red Thai curry. “We always had a close bond. We room together now on away trips and it feels like we have gone back in time. When I’m speaking to family or my other brothers and they’ll be like: ‘Who are you with?’ And I’ll just flip my camera [around] and be like: ‘This guy again.’ It just feels familiar rolling back the years. It’s nice.”
Joseph is set to lead the team at Bournemouth in the Carabao Cup second round on Wednesday, while Matt is eligible to help the manager, Mark Cooper, outwit Eddie Howe, a former teammate, on the touchline after a red card last weekend ended his chances of playing against the Premier League club. Mills will assume assistant manager duties in the absence of Scott Lindsey, Cooper’s No 2, as he did at Charlton in the previous round.
Joseph and Matt graduated through the revered Southampton academy and, at one point, all four siblings had professional contracts; the eldest, Jamie, was once on the books at Swindon, while Jonathan signed professional terms with Southampton after coming through at Oxford. “The three years between me and you [coming through] I think have been probably the most fruitful of spell of the academy,” Matt says, glancing across at his younger brother. “You’ve got your household names: Theo Walcott, Gareth Bale and Adam Lallana.
“I just remember we all used to live in, like, a B&B that was converted into a lodge for Southampton players, where you got catered for and you get the speech when you go in the room like: ‘One of you is going to make it’ – but basically everybody made it. It was incredible, the ability we had in those three years. We were just churning players out straight into the first team.”
Matt went on to play in the Premier League with Manchester City and Joseph in the Championship with Reading and Doncaster, where his brother had previously played – “I’ve left and been like: ‘I know a good left-back as well,’” Matt says, jokingly – before uniting this summer after the former left the Indian Super League side Pune City.
“I said: ‘Listen, can I come in and train? I need to stay fit. I can’t have four months off,’” Matt says. “When I came down here …” “Is when my work began,” Joseph interjects, laughing. Cooper, sounded out his former teammate Brian McDermott, who managed Matt at Reading, before signing the defender. “We had the youngest team in the Football League on the opening day of the season by some stretch and the manager has put a lot of faith in me to say: ‘Forest Green don’t really sign experienced players but as a player and a character I want to have you at the club,’ and that means a helluva a lot,” Matt says.
The brothers always had a desire to go abroad – Joseph spent two years at Perth Glory – and playing together is another tick off the bucket list, having twice played against each other (one win apiece). “We have a group chat as a family and a lot of the talk, especially from us two, has always been football, in different parts of the country and the world and all of sudden those chats are purely Forest Green,” says Matt. “It saves one [of our parents] missing out and driving to a different ground [to watch]. They can both drive to the same ground and watch us together. We get to travel in together every day and it’s perfect – we’re best mates off the pitch as well so it all ties in nicely.”
Returning to Wiltshire has enabled the brothers to be closer to home but that does not mean their parents, Colin and Julie, are racking up any less mileage. A timeline of the past five days is typical of their unwavering support; their mother and father travelled from Bournemouth, where they were holidaying, to Bradford to witness Joseph score a 93rd-minute winner (and Matt pick up a second yellow card) on Saturday before driving back to Bournemouth for Wednesday’s match. “The dedication from when I was 14 and I was at Aston Villa, when my mum used to come and pick me up on a Tuesday from school with a sandwich in the car and we’d drive to training and not get home until about 10pm, is just amazing,” says Joseph.
It is a game packed with subplots: Howe signed Joseph for Burnley, while Matt was in the same age-group as Andrew Surman in Southampton’s academy and later played alongside the now Bournemouth manager during a three-month loan spell at Dean Court in 2005, as well as alongside Steve Fletcher, Stephen Purches and Neil Moss, who form part of Howe’s backroom staff. “The first day I went training they were using the local university and you had to wash your own kit so to think where they are now is incredible,” Matt says.
“The financial backing came like it needed to, for sure, but all of a sudden they find themselves in the Premier League, so it has been a great turnaround. If you look at Forest Green over the past five years, getting promoted into the league, getting stable in the league and then getting to the play-offs [last season]. You could potentially be sitting here in 10 or 15 years’ time with Forest Green as a Premier League team. Who knows?”
