I was Wolves captain but I gave it up for very different career

AN EX-Wolves captain and Premier League star has now given it all up for a VERY different career.

Jody Craddock – a cult figure at Sunderland and Wolves – did not retire when he hung up his boots in 2013.

Instead, he took up a very different career – as a full-time artist and teacher.

The former Cambridge and Sunderland centre-back enjoyed painting growing up – simply as a hobby rather than anything serious.

But as football took precedence, art was forced to take a back seat.

It was only once at the Stadium of Light that he could afford the quality materials and taught himself to do oil paintings.

And after a team-mate noticed his secret talent when visiting Craddock’s home, he started to get requests.

From goal celebrations to players’ children, he would do it all.

Craddock is now in the midst of a successful second career as an artist, selling work online and producing commissioned work for the sport world.

And, after a few years of doing it solo, he has taken under his wing an understudy, an apprentice – his son Joseph.

Speaking exclusively to SunSport, the pair explained how it all works.

Former Wolves captain Craddock, 43, said: “We have a good laugh, it’s not all serious. It’s not like a lesson – we stick the TV on.

“It’s really good bonding time especially for me as they get to the age where they’re on computers and have all this rubbish going on.

“So it’s nice for us to sit for two or three hours in an evening, have a joke and do a bit of painting.”

In 2002, Craddock and wife Shelley’s first born, Jake, tragically died at four months and the centre-back used art as a bereavement mechanism.

Things were slightly different ten years later, though, when Craddock’s youngest boy Toby was diagnosed with leukaemia.

Craddock found out as he approached the end of his decade at his beloved Wolves – the club he captained into the Premier League in 2008/09 and designed the matchday programmes for in their successful promotion campaign last season.

Craddock said: “Art was massively important, especially with Jake. Whether it was a bit selfish or not, it was how I could cope with it. I’d just get the canvas out and do some painting.

“It was a good way for me to, not forget, but just deal with the grief and put it to one side.

“When I’m in front of the canvas, all I think about is what’s in front of me.

“It was a bit harder and more difficult with Toby because of course we were more hands-on, in hospital day-in day-out for months.

“It did take a bit of a back seat when Toby was diagnosed but once he came through it, that’s when I picked it back up again and carried on.”

Seeing his son Joseph develop into an artist, naturally, makes Craddock Snr incredibly proud.

But it is the strengthening of the pair’s relationship that matters as much as – if not more than – the artwork itself.

He added: “We already had the bond obviously but it’s the kind of thing he’ll remember when he’s older and he’ll never forget.

“And then to then be selling them is brilliant because there’s not many kids at 14 that can say they’ve sold five paintings.”

Craddock’s work is on sale here.