Luke Armstrong arrived in North Lanarkshire in January on loan from Carlisle, in a move that looked on paper to be the best for both parties involved.
Motherwell would get a much-needed forward man who would help with their injury troubles, and Armstrong would get back to playing the game he loved.
It wasn’t his first experience of crossing the border to Scotland, however, with the 28-year-old having previously turned out for Cowdenbeath almost a decade ago. Not many players would make the move from Birmingham to the Blue Brazil, but at the time, the move made sense to Armstrong.
“Sometimes you’re just struggling to get a club, and that was the position I was in,” Armstrong explained.
“I wanted to go somewhere to try and play games. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out in the end. I think all my league appearances came from off the bench.
“When you’re a young lad, you just want to play games. My dad has contacts in football, so they [Cowdenbeath] got in touch with him to see if I fancied it. I wanted to see what it was like up here.
“It was part-time; I’d only have to travel up once for training during the week. The lads would train on a Tuesday and a Thursday and then play the game on a Saturday. If we had a midweek game, I’d come up on the Tuesday and then at the weekend.
“I drove up to training, and if it was a game, I’d get the train. It was costing me a fortune on travel expenses!”
With just eight appearances to his name by the end of the season with Cowdenbeath, Armstrong began the search for his new club. By this point, he had come through the ranks at Middlesbrough and was rueing his missed opportunity to break into the first-team there.
Fuelled by ambition and determination, it would eventually come about that he would sign for Northern Premier League side Blyth Spartans.
But in a short space of time, this move would become the springboard he needed for his career.
“I originally signed under the manager Tom Wade,” he said.
“He was getting a fair bit of stick at that point, and he’d got in touch with my dad about coming in as assistant manager, with the aim of becoming the manager in the future. As soon as my dad came in and signed, Wade packed it in, so he got moved straight into the position as gaffer. He was thrown into the deep end!
“We had a really successful season, and I got my move to Middlesbrough after that. It was exactly what I needed; if anyone was going to believe in you, it’s going to be your old man.
“I went from strength to strength and improved a lot. My dad worked closely with me; he actually probably showed a bit of bias towards the forwards, but he was trying to get us to excel, and we did. I got my move, and this time, I wasn’t going to take it for granted like I did previously. I wanted to work harder than ever to get into the first-team.
“When my dad became the manager, I did think about how it was going to work. It was more about how the lads would take to it and if they were still going to be ok with me. To be fair to them all, they were.
“I think what helped was I was only there for one season, and we had a great year. We didn’t lose many games; I think we actually went on an 11-game winning streak. It was about the best you could have hoped for.
“We didn’t have many clashes because we were winning and I was scoring goals. When we lost a couple of games, the whole house was depressed. It’s always been the case that the house would be split emotionally after the games. Sometimes my dad would be happy because he won, or vice versa. But we’d both come in and be in moods together.”
Having scored over 20 goals and secured his move back to Middlesbrough, life was about to change for Armstrong. For one, he was going back into full-time football, something that he had moved away from a few years prior.
“At Blyth, I was training to become a personal trainer,” he stated.
“That’s what I was going to go into. My dad had a five-a-side football centre which had a gym inside, so I was wanting to start my personal training in there. I’ve been very fortunate with the things my dad has been involved with!
“I qualified just as I moved back to Middlesbrough, so I haven’t used much of that stuff. I do think a lot about what I’m going to do after football, but there’s no point. Too many things can change.
“You just never know what can happen, but it’s nice to know I’ve got that if I wanted to go down that road. My family owns a café back home, so there’s always that too. That would keep me going for sure.”
The rumour mill had been turning with regards to Armstrong and some of his hobbies away from football. One of which was that he was an avid baker!
Thankfully, he was able to shed some light on this.
“I can confirm the rumour is true,” he laughed.
“I haven’t done much baking since having my baby; there’s not much time to bake. It’s a hobby of mine that I enjoy doing, and when I was living back at home, I used to bake cakes for the café, but I’m now too far away to be doing that. I’m still trying to master the basics, really.
“You’ve got to have a hobby. It’s hard having a footballing family and trying to get away from the sport. Everyone wants to speak about football all the time, so it’s nice to have something that can take your mind away.”
Although he’s tasted success, he’s also experienced anguish in football, and when what would have been the biggest move of his career, a deal to Wrexham, fell at the final hurdle on deadline day, Armstrong became even more motivated.
“I was able to see what my hard work could get,” he noted.
“I would never have thought during my career that I would get a move like that or get the interest from other clubs that I did that summer.
“Going to Carlisle, things haven’t worked out. There are a lot of factors involved in that, but just moving here, I wanted to prove to myself again.
“I know the player I can be, and I feel like I’m getting back to that playing here. I’m playing in a style that suits me. My first thought after the Wrexham stuff was to try harder to get that move again or see if I could get something better.”
And after landing in ML1 a couple of months ago, it didn’t take long for people to sit up and take notice of Armstrong.
It may not have been because of anything football-related; however, it was more because of his antics in front of the camera, which involved a rather unique goal celebration.
“My pal Jack Diamond and I spent a lot of the time in the gym together, and we used to do daft dances,” Armstrong laughed.
“When it came to doing our goal gifs at Carlisle in the summer, that was the result, and we just went with it. I haven’t managed to do it on the pitch yet; there hasn’t been the right time to do it. Hopefully it can come out when we’re two or three nil up in a game.
“Jack doesn’t even do it; he just leaves me to be the clown.”
Although the celebration hasn’t materialised on the pitch, there is plenty to be optimistic about from Armstrong’s performances in a Motherwell shirt thus far.
Two goals, one against Rangers and one against Celtic, and plenty of minutes have given him a strong building block for the season run-in. With the arrival of Michael Wimmer as boss, he has clarity on what is expected of him.
“He’s been brilliant,” the 28-year-old said.
“He’s come in and got his ideas across. Especially with the language barrier, he’s done brilliantly. We all know what’s expected of us, and he’s really drilling his ideas into us. You can see how quickly we’ve progressed as a team.
“I’ve really enjoyed working with him so far. He’ll speak collectively before a game, so everyone knows what jobs we need to do. He’ll speak individually also, especially if there’s something he wants us to work on.
“He’s been a breath of fresh air for the club, and we’ve all taken on board what he wants. You can have targets, but it’s a bit different here because of when I joined. But I’ve always said throughout a season that you want to hit double figures in terms of goals.
“Getting close to 15 or 20 is the dream as a striker, but for now, I want to play as many games as I can and experience as much of the game in Scotland.”
