NOT many Blackburn Rovers fans have heard of Matt Hockin but he plays a vital role in making sure players get everything they need. He also got to work with the New Zealand squad during the World Cup. Here he talks about his memorable two weeks in South Africa.

JUST a few minutes into New Zealand’s World Cup finals clash with Italy in Nelspruit, the entire Kiwi nation were left rubbing their eyes in disbelief as their underdogs took a shock lead.

Sitting on the All Whites bench though was one man who was in an even bigger dream world having taken a more unusual route on his way to playing a part in a piece of football history.

A 30-year-old Matt Hockin had just had enough.

After living his early adult life working as an estate agent, he was bored of living the everyday ‘rat race’ and decided it was time for a dramatic change.

Now, more than 10 years on Blackburn Rovers’ player liaison officer has just returned from playing a part in New Zealand’s historic finals campaign in South Africa, having spent the majority of the past decade helping some of the game’s top names with some of the more unusual requests.

From helping Les Ferdinand find a place to land his helicopter during his commute from London to Bolton to helping Fernando Hierro buy fresh fish at Bolton market , Hockin is football’s own Mr Fixit.

Now he is loving life at Blackburn Rovers, reunited with Sam Allardyce and doing his best to make sure Ewood Park’s foreign contingent, and the rest, are well catered for and content with life in England.

Sorting out housing, language lessons, mobile phones, you name it and you can be sure Hockin has done it.

“I was at Bolton with Sam,” he said “He has an ethos and a belief about the way clubs should be run. It is giving the best to the players they should possibly have, both on the pitch - training, coaching and fitness wise - and off it.

“I just try to look after the smaller social side to make sure the players are happy and have no concerns other than coming to work to train and play football. Happy players are better players I am sure.

“Part of my role at Rovers is to look after the foreign players when they come in and I am very, very lucky here there is a fantastic support system. I just tend to go out and find the houses and others in the offices are looking after them as well.

“Everyone at the training ground is conditioned to looking after the players. I help to arrange language lessons, phones everything like that.”

Life surely couldn’t have got much better for the 43-year-old former estate agent as he ended his first full season with Rovers less than two months ago.

It was about to though as his summer was thrown into a whirlwind, when Rovers skipper Ryan Nelsen approached Hockin and offered him a once in a lifetime chance.

Hockin said: “It was a great experience and not something I was expecting when I left at the end of last season. I had a phone call from Ryan on the Monday morning and within an hour it was all decided and I was out in 72 hours. I give thanks very, very much to Sam and the chairman for allowing me to go for the month.

“I tried to negotiate with Ryan having a family holiday in Cornwall first and then going straight out but that wasn’t to be. If it was going to work it had to be straight out to Austria. I flew out and they had been there 48 hours when I joined them. It was a busy time but well worth it.

”It was a multi task role. They needed a larger amount of staff so it was really filling in a few holes and helping out. I helped out the kit man, I helped looking after the player and the travel arrangements. It was a broad spectrum over there really.

“Mainly, Ryan wanted a little bit more experience brought into the backroom staff.

"It was helping with the kit, going to the technical meetings with FIFA, having a general understanding of the way football works.

“On a matchday I was sat on the bench in case any blood shirts needed replacing.

"When you get to a match day it is a match day and that is very much like any other all over the world.

“They didn’t realise I had lived in South Africa before so that was just a bye really.

"What it did do though was make me realise what a beautiful country it is and I have fallen back in love with the country.”

Hockin is not the only member of New Zealand’s World Cup party who won’t forget the last month in a hurry, as Ryan Nelsen & co recorded their first ever finals points.

If a last-gasp draw against Slovakia in the opening game wasn’t celebrated enough by the natives, then following draws with Italy and Paraguay left them unbeaten and just inches away from qualification to the knock out stages.

Hockin said: “The moment it became real for me was when we woke up on the morning of the first game.

"We changed hotels for the game and we woke up in a bush lodge at about 8.30am.

"You know you are playing at 1.30pm and you think this is going to be a fantastic experience.

“Coupled with the last minute equaliser by Winston Reid and it made it a very memorable day.

"I think it sustained New Zealand players for the next group games and I think if we hadn’t equalised then possibly it would have been more difficult.

“I played a very, very small part. The players were absolutely magnificent out there.

"Ryan led them exceptionally well, he is a very, very talented individual - not just on the football pitch.

“He brings a great intelligence to anything he does and certainly Ryan and the senior players, in fact all the players, had a great World Cup and I was very proud just to be a very, very small part.”

So how did Hockin turn his dreams into reality? Just how does an estate agent from the West Country become a man a whole squad of Premier League footballers have come to rely on?

“I was an estate agent for 12 years, working in the family business which we then sold,” he said.

“I was 32 then. I just didn’t want to go into an office any more. I woke up one morning and decided to change it.

“I went to John Moores University to do a degree in science and football, which hasn’t yet been completed.

"I did work experience at Manchester City and started doing match analysis for them.

"Then I joined Bolton and the rest is history.

“I was doing video analysis with Sam at Bolton.

"Everything was changing and I was doing more and more looking after players, which was taking me away from the video side of things.

"Sam saw it as a natural step back in 2003 -2004 to move me out of that and get more on the player liaison.

“I think the first two were at Everton and Liverpool.

"It stemmed from Liverpool back in the late 1990s when Patrick Berger and everyone were coming.

"It was a role Sam had always been interested in and had earmarked to do.

"I was in the right place at the right time.”