It is nearly five years since Ben White’s first proper taste of professional football during a formative season spent on loan in League Two. “You go there and everything is completely different,” he says of his year at Newport County. “You’re having a curry for your pre-match meal!” That was not the only thing that could get a bit spicy, either.
“In my first game there was a punch-up at half-time, between our own players in our own dressing room.” White, a 19-year-old who had only really known the rather more sanitised environment of academy football, quickly realised the stakes had got a lot higher. “I didn't want to make any mistakes, that's for sure.”
